Inflammation from food intolerance and allergies can have a range of effects on the health of a person, such as fatigue, migraines, obesity, eczema, and gastrointestinal disorders. Many times people do not know that they have an intolerance for a food if they do not observe that they are often uncomfortable with the irritating symptoms previously mentioned. There are medical tests, such as ALCAT, available for adults and children who are having an allergic reaction, but being informed when going in for testing is the best bet to not being misdiagnosed with allergies that you don’t have.

If symptoms of hives, rash, discomfort are discovered after a meal please note what has been consumed in the past several hours so that there isn’t blind testing occurring. The tests can be sensitive, so simply going in and getting tested for everything may result in false positives. Some food allergies are more common in children (cow’s milk, peanuts, hen’s eggs) and some are more likely in adults (shellfish allergies, peanuts, certain fruits) with the chance for tolerance to those foods to build over time so later testing is advised.

Newly developed guidelines in testing suggest that patients test every so often to see if the allergy to specific foods fades over time, especially with children because what affects them in childhood may no longer be a problem in adulthood. If someone has a known severe allergy to a certain food, it is imperative that they wear a medical bracelet and stay diligent in specifying said allergy at restaurants.

Learn more about allergy testing at our Chicago Chiropractic clinic website. Our blog has numerous posts on this topic.

Some individuals believe that this high rate of digestive disease is due to stress. Others think it’s due to an increase in food allergies. We think it’s an interaction of the two.

Although full blown food allergy is severe, less severe allergies (which are difficult to diagnose) are finally getting some attention and many people now have an explanation for their regular gas, abdominal distention, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, constipation, or other GI abnormalities.

Although most old school weightlifters learned to live with GI distress, we refuse to accept that poor digestion is a natural consequence of eating well. Therefore, we’ve developed a 6 step plan for helping
our clients reduce gastrointestinal symptoms.

1) We begin to rotate their protein powders (never ingesting the same powder on consecutive days).
We usually cycle through 3 different powders (including different types of protein).

2) If #1 doesn’t produce relief, we add an animal based digestive enzyme like OmegaZyme in order to help with digestion of all foodstuffs. Since we’ve seen favorable activity data on this enzyme, we’re comfortable recommending it.

3) If #2 doesn’t produce relief, we add an enteric coated acidophilus supplement to attempt to populate the GI tract with healthy bacteria.

4) If #3 doesn’t produce relief, we remove all protein supplements, replacing them with whole food protein sources.

5) If #4 doesn’t work, we begin slowly (one at a time) removing the main food allergens (wheat, corn, nuts,
fish, eggs). If 2 weeks of removing a specific food doesn’t help, we add that food back in and remove another one and so on.

6) If none of these interventions help, it’s time to seek medical attention. With this 6-step system we’ve been able to help virtually all of our clients shake whatever nasty GI complaints they’ve been suffering from.