Food allergies or anxiety?

The New-Test Forum - Food Allergies

FromTo
I am 26 and have never had any serious health problems. When I was 18 I started getting hives after eating shellfish so I stopped eating shellfish. Few months after I had my son when I was 19, started getting hives again, very bad episodes, no obvious reason. Took Zyrtec a few months, hives stopped. Besides not eating shellfish, I did not change my diet at that point. Fast forward to now, started getting hives again 4 months ago. Since hives started, I have also been experiencing what I think are panic attacks: fast heart beat, palpatations, feeling of doom, feeling like my throat may be constricted. Symptoms last from a few minutes to an hour and sometimes happen shortly after I have eaten or middle of the night. I have also had a hoarse throat on and off. I started eliminating foods that I thought might be causing the hives or the attacks but nothing worked. I went to an allergist who did scratch test for foods, blood test, 24 hour urine sample, and found no allergies. Diagnosed me with idiopathic hives/angioedema. Prescribed Zyrtec and Axid, suggested anxiety. I am only taking Zyrtec, hives stopped. Now I am having alternating constipation/sometimes diarhea immediately after I start eating. Happened twice after eating tomatoes. Is it possible to have anxiety about eating? Or is this an overlooked allergy. I am afraid to eat. I have been under alot of stress due to marital problems. I want to mention that when I don't eat alot of bread, cereal, pastas, I don't have as many anxiety attacks, bowel movements are somewhat normal, and I overall feel better. Any suggestions?JJ1717
8/11/2006
.

It sounds like you may have an allergy to wheat (hives can be a symptom... link below). The symptoms of food allergies are worse than environmental allergies. Since you feel better when you avoid breads, you may want to try a wheat (gluten) free diet. I know you can buy rice, potato or soy flour at a health food store and these flours taste just as good as regular flour. I also cannot eat wheat and remember how great I felt after my physician suggested going without wheat for 2 weeks. I haven't eaten any wheat in 2 years.



http://www.allergyescape.com/wheat-allergy.html

http://www.wheat-free.org/

PlateletGal
8/18/2006
 JJ1717
Thanks for the info. What made your doctor suggest a wheat-free diet? What problems were you having before you stopped eating wheat? Did you have an allergy or do you have celiac disease or are you gluten intolerant? Do you think it works if you only eat a little wheat? I am having a hard time cutting out ALL wheat products because I am not sure if that is what the problem is for sure. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

JJ1717
8/22/2006
 .
hey -- I have celiac -- one side affect i had on occasion and I know many others suffer from is anxiety, and especially the bowel troubles... Gluten is in everything! It's a tough diet, but since doing it i've felt much better... my biggest symptom was anemia. Ignoring this can lead to other intolerances too, like lactose.. The tomatoes make me think you may have an issue with "nightshades"....

Look it up online, do some research - docs don't seem to know much about this, it's one of the most mis-diagnosed things out there. Then you can call your doc for a simple blood test to find out - OR, just try cutting out all gluten (bread, pasta, beer, and look out for things like modified food starch) and do that for at least a month and see how it goes.

Keep in mind, if you get tested, eat normally! Not eating wheat/gluten will throw off the testing. I had positive blood tests & then had an endoscopy where they confirmed that I had it.

Good luck!!!

AMA17
10/3/2006
 JJ1717
Thank you for the post about celiac. Since I posted my original entry, I have stopped eating dairy......weird, but my hives have stopped. I am still experiencing the anxiety and bowel symptoms though. I started eating wheat again so that I can go get tested for celiac disease. It is definitely something I have to rule out.

JJ1717
10/12/2006
 .
Any results for us? How did the test go? Celiac or no??

AMA17
11/7/2006
 JJ1717
Tags: d,eating, hives, wheat, allergy, test, food, anxiety, stopped, celiac, diet,
[ More ]