Elimination diet

[Tuff]

I have food allergies, so once in a while I go on an elimination diet to see if there is any improvement. (I'm not anaphylactic.) I thought this should work well for Crohn's as well, so I tried it with coffee. First, two weeks with no coffee. Fairly normal bms and no D. So this morning, I had two cups of coffee, and started running to the bathroom all morning. So now for the last part of the test, I will again eliminate the coffee for two weeks, and see if I stay symptom free.
This is worth trying, if you're not sure what triggers you. Try it one item at a time. :ybatty:

 

[nogutsnoglory]

Coffee does wake up the bowels so just because it makes you go doesn't mean you are allergic or even sensitive to it. Even people with healthy digestive systems go to the bathroom after caffeine.

 

[Tuff]

I didn't say once, I said I was running to the bathroom all morning. With D. That's not a normal reaction.

 

[nogutsnoglory]

It's certainly not harmful to eliminate it and many find improvement without it but it doesn't sound like an allergy. Diarrhea is not the sign of an allergic reaction.

 

[Ya noy]

I have suffered from severe allergies, including anaphylactic reactions, which have been life threatening. I've had congestion and breathing difficulties, which can easily be controlled with an emergency inhaler, but mostly, I experience "edema" which is fluids that build up in various regions of my body. Oh, and it moves around too. It's too bad when it goes into my fingers or toes, and it gets a little embarrassing when it goes into my mouth, making my lips puff up like balloons, but it's also gone into my throat, threatening to cut off my breathing, or into the corneas of my eyes, which not only distorts my vision, but runs the risk of causing permanent damage to my eyesight.

I took all the patch tests too, numerous times, but they never really isolated the problem because apparently, allergies can "wax and wane", meaning that for some, they can come and go. According to those patch tests, I'm either allergic to almost everything, or nothing.

Bottom line is my allergies flare up when I'm either sick and my immune system is weakened, or under stress, and dissipate otherwise. So I work really hard at keeping as healthy as possible through diet and exercise, and I can't prevent stressful situations, but control how they effect me, by utilizing various stress management techniques, including meditation, yoga and self-hypnosis.

I still carry an epi-pen and emergency inhaler, but haven't had to resort to using either for quite some time. So far, so good.

 

[UnXmas]

I have food allergies, so once in a while I go on an elimination diet to see if there is any improvement. (I'm not anaphylactic.) I thought this should work well for Crohn's as well, so I tried it with coffee. First, two weeks with no coffee. Fairly normal bms and no D. So this morning, I had two cups of coffee, and started running to the bathroom all morning. So now for the last part of the test, I will again eliminate the coffee for two weeks, and see if I stay symptom free.
This is worth trying, if you're not sure what triggers you. Try it one item at a time.

What type of allergies do you have? I'm just wondering, how you know you have them - did you have any kind of test to identify them, or just from the elimination experiments?

I tried elimination diets but found it far too confusing. Since my symptoms are not very consistent, it was very difficult to work out whether a symptom was a reaction to a food or just a coincidence that happened due to factors affecting my illness that are outside my control. I eventually concluded that I have no reactions to food. I don't digest fibre well, but that's not quite the same as what you're describing.

I have a relative who will die if he eats nuts - or sometimes even touches them or something contaminated by them - unless he gets an injection and treatment right away. Having seen that kind of allergy, and having failed to identify any reactions to food in myself, I'm never quite sure what people mean when they say they have food allergies but ones with more subtle or delayed reactions. Is what you're describing the same as a food intolerance? Sorry for all the questions, I just see a lot of talk about allergies on these boards and wonder why I don't have any and whether we're all talking about the same thing.

 

[Tuff]

To repeat, I thought this should work well for Crohn's as well, so I tried it with coffee. I never thought I was allergic to it.
I was diagnosed by an allergist years and years ago, I'm allergic to eggs, seafood, oranges, cherries, oats, aspertame, dust, insect stings and dustmites. My reactions go from hives to stabbing pains in my stomach, migranes, depending on what I ate. I'm so used to not eating these things, that I don't even notice it anymore. I had the skin prick tests, and then elimination diets supervised by an allergist. That's how I found out my migranes were caused by aspertame. I no longer get them.
Ya noy, I carry an epi pen too, but have not had to use it yet. I mostly cook from scratch, because it's too much of a pain to read the ingredient labels.

 

[Ya noy]

To repeat, I thought this should work well for Crohn's as well, so I tried it with coffee. I never thought I was allergic to it.
I was diagnosed by an allergist years and years ago, I'm allergic to eggs, seafood, oranges, cherries, oats, aspertame, dust, insect stings and dustmites. My reactions go from hives to stabbing pains in my stomach, migranes, depending on what I ate. I'm so used to not eating these things, that I don't even notice it anymore. I had the skin prick tests, and then elimination diets supervised by an allergist. That's how I found out my migranes were caused by aspertame. I no longer get them.
Ya noy, I carry an epi pen too, but have not had to use it yet. I mostly cook from scratch, because it's too much of a pain to read the ingredient labels.

I did understand what you were saying, but what both I and Unxmas were ponting out is that results are not always consistent. I went to allergists for years, and finally gave up. Those once a day pills never worked and they never were able to diagnose my allergies because my reactions and symptoms vary far too much.

I've gotten stung by a bee and swelled up like a balloon immediately, but I've also gotten stung by a bee and nothing happened. So sometimes I'm allergic to bee stings, and other times I'm not.

But some who are allergic to bee stings will swell up, every time, consistently.

I've walked into homes with pets, and within minutes, my eyes will start watering and I can't breath. I can go back to that same house the next day, and be just fine.

How do I know for sure when my watery eyes and breathing difficulties are the result of an allergic reaction, as opposed to the possibility that I just came down with a sudden cold? Because Benadryl/epinephrine provides almost immediate relief. For me, it seems to depend on my overall health and stress levels at the time, but that's just me. (And others whose allergies wax and wane, or symptoms vary on an inconsistent basis.)

For others, patch tests can be very effective at pinpointing allergens, as can elimination diets for determining food allergies and intolerances.

 

[Tuff]

Ya nou, I too rely on Benadryl to tell the difference. If Benadryl does not work, then it's something else. When I first started getting Crohn's symptoms, I thought it was my allergies changing. But I just kept getting worse and worse.
I will never stop taking my meds, but for me diet does make a difference. As soon as I cheat on my low residue low fat diet, I start getting symptoms.
That must be awful with the waxing and waning, one day you're fine, and the next day you need your epi pen. :frown:
I found out about the insect stings on a canoe trip, days from the nearest road, when I got stung by what I thought were deer flies. I got welts 6" across on my legs. That's why I carry an epi pen, just in case.