I have some very incapacitating food reactions that my doctors just cannot figure out. My allergist says they are not food allergies. I’ve been tested for food allergies and wheat, which I test fairly allergic to, doesn’t bother me at all in the classic allergic response. However , it has a strong tendency to make me put on weight. This article could very well explain the mechanism of why a food allergy would manifest as weight gain.
Foods that I don’t test allergic to, give me the most trouble, and that’s about everything.
My symptoms are not your classic food allergy symptoms, hives, swelling, asthma, and do not seem not responsive to the most common anti-histamines. If I don’t take the anti-histamines, the symptoms go away on there own in the same time as if I take them.
The symptoms act like allergies in that the more I eat of the particular food, the worse the symptoms get. OTOH, unlike classic food allergies where avoidance lessens the symptoms upon re- exposure, once I react to a food, it seems to stay.
In addition, while the immune response is supposed to lessen with age, these symptoms have been continuing to get worse, to the point that there’s very little left for me to eat. Fortunately, those foods are highly nutritious, but it sure is no fun way to live.
I have been researching this as much as possible myself because unless it’s life and death, it’s near impossible to get a doctor to co-operate in tracking something down that doesn’t neatly fit into what they know.
I strongly suspect now, that while my reactions are not classic hives, swelling, etc, they are a different part of the inflammatory response. This mast cell component is something I’m going to bring up with my allergist next time I see him.
What you have sounds somewhat like Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), that is disdained by the medical community, but happens with increasing frequency in people previously unfamiliar with the syndrome.
Six consensus criteria were identified by researchers for the diagnosis and definition of MCS in 1989 (later edited in 1999)
1. Symptoms are reproducible with repeated (chemical) exposures.
2. The condition has persisted for a significant period of time.
3. Low levels of exposure (lower than previously or commonly tolerated) result in manifestations of the syndrome (i.e. increased sensitivity).
4. The symptoms improve or resolve completely when the triggering chemicals are removed.
5. Responses often occur to multiple chemically unrelated substances.
6. Symptoms involve multiple-organ symptoms (runny nose, itchy eyes, headache, scratchy throat, ear ache, scalp pain, mental confusion or sleepiness, palpitations of the heart, upset stomach, nausea and/or diarrhea, abdominal cramping, aching joints).