Allergies

(Mark) #1

Hi all, newbie here. Thinking about inflamation reduction, anyone experience a reduction in hayfever symptoms on a keto diet? Is there a connection? Or just wishfull thinking? Would be a blessing if keto reduced my allergic reaction.

(Bob M) #2

Pre-keto, I was taking 2 24-hour tablets a day (one in the morning, one in the evening). Post-keto, some years, I take none; other years (like this one - hot and dry, with little rain at all), I take a handful a year.

I think Iā€™d even be better this year, but Iā€™ve been eating things like hot peppers, which cause a reaction or exacerbate the allergies I have. But I decided to grow tomatoes and hot peppers, and only the peppers really produced. Iā€™ve fermented many large jars of peppers.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

It will probably take some time, but you should see an improvement in symptoms. A ketogenic diet tends to lower systemic inflammation and strengthen the immune system, so allergies do improve. Though they will probably not go away entirely without desensitisation treatments.

(Mark) #4

Thatā€™s encouraging. Any medication free relief is worth it, howevever small. I suspect there is a link to diet and allergy, but have no evidence. Thanks for sharing.

(Robin) #5

Reduced inflammation is a given on keto. And now that you askā€¦ my allergies, even seasonal have pretty much disappeared. And itā€™s quite possible that some of the foods I eliminated were the cause of my allergies.

(Mark) #6

Brilliant. Makes sense. I am quietly confident that is the case. Looking forward to next season.

#7

It would be so difficult to get good data on that.
It depends what you are allergic to. If its a crop that rotates like oil seed rape then yoĆŗll have different problems every year depending how close to you it is.

I have found hay fever to always be worse the heavier I am. Maybe for the same reason that snoring is worse when I have heavier.

The last 2 years I have given up totoally on hay fever pills.
I found that the pills make me feel crap, and by ditching them, I only have to deal with the hayfever.

(Mark) #8

Agreed about weight and snoring. Weā€™ll see what happens in my case re hayfever. As far as what specifically I am allergic to, it seems to be any foreign body. Hereā€™s hoping that keto will decrease my sensitivity.

(Edith) #9

My allergies improved from keto, but what really made a difference was lowering the amount of histamine containing foods I was eating.

(Bob M) #10

What source did you use to reduce histamines? This seems odd, as I eat or drink most of those without problems:

I eat/drink the first 4, but donā€™t eat the last two.

#11

I donā€™t knowā€¦itā€™s getting like you canā€™t eat anything.

I was driving home from the clinic this afternoon listening to BBC radio 4, Hard Talk.
This environmental campaigner, George Monbiot (who comes from an extremely priviliged background/French aristocracy lineage) was on, claiming that farming is the root of all evil and that we should be getting all our protein from lab cultured mycelium.
Maybe he has a point? But does that provide all essential amino acids?
Does it even taste like food? :man_shrugging:

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And now they say sauerkraut, meat, cheese and alcohol are bad for you?

Holy Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey! Stop the bus, Iā€™m looking to get offā€¦

(Edith) #12

High histamine foods I removed from my diet:

processed/aged meat including meat sticks, salami, and pepperoni
canned tuna and salmon
non frozen seafood
grass fed beef
dark chocolate and carob
olives
avocado
spinach

The top four of the list are the worst offenders. Seafood, if it fresh or canned causes me a fair bit of trouble. Seafood that comes frozen, not nearly as much. Grass fed beef causes me a lot of trouble. It will make me itchy, irritate my digestive system, and make my heart race. Maybe they age it longer than conventional beef? I also started putting meat in the freeze as soon as I get home, unless I am going to use it that day or the next.

My right eye used to water all the time, I frequently had air hunger (that feeling that you just canā€™t get a deep enough breath), and a stuffed nose every night when I went to bed. When I decreased the histamine load, ALL those symptoms went away.

#13

@VirginiaEdie
Just wondering, does anti histamine medication help you at all?

I say that, because I take anti histamines for hay fever etc., but your symptoms seem a lot more severe.

(Edith) #14

Oh, sure, and make us all dependent on food manufacturers to generate our franken food for us. Iā€™d rather rely on farmers and if society comes to an end, have the ability to grow my own food. Plus, there are all kinds of things that occur in natural foods that ā€œtheyā€ have no understanding how it all acts together synergistically.

This is only for people who have a histamine intolerance. More likely to occur in middle-aged women. Itā€™s less likely to occur in men. It has to do with a deficiency in the enzyme that breaks down histamine in the body.

My histamine intolerance got really bad on my carnivore trial. Vitamin C is an important building block of the enzyme called diamine oxidase. I think not enough vitamin C caused the intolerance to get worse. Once I reintroduced vitamin C containing foods, the really bad reactions went away.

And, yes, an antihistamine does help if Iā€™ve ingested too much histamine.

(Bob M) #15

Yikes, thatā€™s quite a list. Iā€™m surprised to see olives there. Iā€™m glad you found the culprits, though.

#16

I see what you mean- i was jumping the gun thinking my poxy ā€˜man fluā€™ nose dribble with hay fever meant that they would advise me to avoid those foods.
But no, itā€™s obviously for folks who unfortunately suffer a lot more. :+1:

I was just dieing for a good bitch vent after listening to Hard Talk!

(Edith) #17

Just like most things, it is dose dependent. I can eat any of those things in small enough amounts. But, it tends to build up over the day. So, if Iā€™m too naughty, the reactions start by bedtime or sometimes wake me up in the wee hours of the morning. Then, Iā€™ll take an antihistamine, and it really does help.

Making sure I get my vitamin C is a big help.

(Edith) #18

Yeah, I think watching that HardTalk would piss me off too much.

(Bob M) #19

It depends on what you mean by ā€œfarmingā€. Row crop and similar farming is bad for the land, as it almost never adds anything to the land ā€“ only takes it away.

Grazing ruminants on land, however, causes grasses and other crops to flourish, as the ruminants add nutrition to the soil and perform many other functions that help the grass and soil. Properly grazed land will be a carbon sink, not a carbon emitter.

#20

Yes, agreedā€¦but I think this guy is wearing blinkers and wants every spare bit of land returned to natureā€™s mercy, whether it is bad for the eco system or not.