New food sensititivies?

(E P) #1

I started keto version of AIP 3 years ago for RA and found inflammatory food sensititivies to gluten, A1 dairy, and a few nuts. I’ve gone more towards carnivore since then, but with spices etc. Med free! Inflammation free until…it gradually then suddenly came back. I cut out nightshade spices out of suspicion. Eczema developed for the first time in my life.

I started beef and water as another elimination diet. Wow what a difference - I wasn’t imagining the background inflammation that had become “normal.” Eczema healed in a week. Reintroductions? So far, egg yolks and 2 bites of pork carnita meat both triggered eczema flares - 2 favorite foods.

Why/how do new food sensitivities develop? Does carnivore cause/risk this somehow? Anyone else experienced this? Beef and water IS better than inflammation, but…I don’t want to end up with no choices.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

It is a mystery. I do know that such sensitivities can apparently come and go. In any case, I can’t see how a diet that avoids allergens could cause allergic reactions. (There is an allergy to beef that can occur, but it is caused by infection with a specific bacterium, and it eventually passes.)

In addition to food sensitivities, look for other, possibly new, immune-system triggers in your life. If your immune system is already on alert, it may also react to food stimuli that it never reacted to, before.

It may also help to remove all sources of oxalates from your diet. Oxalate dumping can cause all sorts of problems you wouldn’t necessarily think were connected to oxalates. I had to give up my favourite herbal tea for that reason. Chronic stress is another immune system activator.

It is not uncommon, my mother’s allergist told her, for people to be sensitive to their favourite foods. The reason for this is not what you might expect—eating more of your favoourites makes you sensitive—but rather the opposite, that part of the sensitivity is a craving for the very food that causes the problem. My mother had to give up eggs, tomatoes, coffee, and a few other favourites. Desentitisation shots helped, but she had to be careful for the rest of her life.

I’m sorry you have to go through all this. I hope you see improvements soon.

P.S.—I forgot to mention that I used to get severe eczema on my hands, from the onset of cold weather until temperatures warmed back up again. Going keto helped enormously, but going full carnivore was what finally prevented the first dry, itchy patches from developing at all.

(Bean) #3

My guess is intestinal permeability is a factor based on some of the RA studies I’ve been reading. I do think some of my intolerances are worse, but I also think my RA has progressed… so not sure which came first. I triggered a flare around Easter with eggs and carbs so my doc could run tests, and had trouble off and on all summer.ETA- my other allergies/ intolerances are much less severe than before. Seasonal stuff, pets, fragrances, salicytes, etc.

And yes… pork and eggs are off the menu for me right now, too. Those are annoying intolerances.

I do also eat lamb, goat, poultry (I use duck fat for a lot of things) occasional cooked onions/ cabbage, and drink a cup of coffee a day. Any intros have been tricky. I’m taking butyrate and probiotics to try to heal things up and therapeutic levels of carb restriction for inflammation.

Later this year, I might maybe do some more intros. My flares are debilitating, my rheum is a months-long wait and hasn’t been much help, anyhow. So keeping it simple for now.

(E P) #4

@PaulL thank you so much for the explanation. The descriptions of oxalate dumping are so scary that I’ve kind of avoided thinking about that possibility, to be honest. Is there any safe tea? Rooibos, peppermint, chamomile? Hot water just isn’t the same! Was a regular allergist able to help you at all?

@beannoise Gut permeability is my theory too, 100 percent. Every summer, I run an experiment that ends up causing a flare and it takes months of carnivore to get back to healthy, just like you describe! What butyrate and probiotics are helping you? I’m doing l-glutamine and l. reuteri.

(Ethan) #5

It could be good to learn about Chlorine Dioxide for RA. RA is one of the (many) things it works on really well. They say “its bleach” but it isn’t. I drink it every day + I’m even drinking it as I type this. You can learn about it at substacks - Andreas Kalcker, The Midwestern Doctor, Pierre Kory.

Honestly if I had a list of all the heath things I value which would include Chlorine Dioxide, keto, low cabs, avoiding seed oils, alkaline salts, etc and I could only keep one of them it would be Chlorine Dioxide. It just cures too much stuff to let it go.

#6

If you Google that, you’ll see no shortage of people that state after carnivore that literally everything causes sensitivity issues for them. Just as we cut out crap sugars, then when we eat them we hyper react to them. Our guts adapt very quickly to what we do, as does our microbiome, we literally lose the ability to process things right when we don’t eat them for extended periods. Same reason SAD eaters crap their pants when they eat high fat, and veggies coming back to reality have digestion issues with meat.

That’s why elimination diets are a waste of time, food sensitivity testing is the way to go, but only when you’re eating normally. Once something has been cut out for a long time, you’re going to react to it badly.

Not to me, I’d rather fight the inflamation than only drink water and only eat one thing. While probiotics should be targeted, I’d go with something like Seed that is pretty much the closest thing to a one size fits all as far as synbiotics go, start taking digestive enzymes with betaine HCL and give your gut bacteria and digestion the crutches is needs, after a week of that, start slowly reintroducing things. Expect some pushback at first, it’s going to happen.

(Bob M) #7

I’ve heard it’s the other way around: after being on an elimination diet, you can add things back that used to bother you.

I wonder if it depends on how well you’ve cured whatever it is (such as gut permeability) that was causing the problem?

Maybe for some, the elimination helps stop the inflammation, but does not sure what causes the inflammation? But for others, it does?

I hate to say it, but I think my drinking raw milk has helped in this regard. Even after being keto for many years, I still had issues like diarrhea periodically. After drinking raw milk daily for a while, that seems to have gone away.

(Bean) #8

Hubby and I both started butyrate < 2 weeks ago. He has seen some improvement. He has an un-diagnosed autoimmune gut issue that hasn’t responded to meds. I’m still a little muddled coming off of steroids, so I’m reluctant to draw any conclusions yet. Doctor’s Brand

In the past, I’ve seen improvement when taking Bacillus and Saccharomyces- type probiotics, but not much luck with the other strains. I’m about to start a round of Baccillus (Just Thrive brand, but I’ve done others).

I don’t take them all the time, though. The good brands are expensive and frankly I think there are diminishing returns after a while. I think it is worth a round now for the synergy between the butyrate and the probiotics.

I’ll post back in another couple of weeks to comment on if it’s worthwhile.

ETA- I do have l-glutamine on the shelf, but am not currently taking it. I do credit it and carnivore with helping me reduce the gastro pain I had from NSAID overuse.

(Bean) #9

Butyrate may be a contributor here. That would be a natural promoter of it in your system. I’m sure there would be other things at play, as well.

#10

I don’t know but it’s clearly not this simple and I am sure genetics play a role too.
Both my SO and I stopped eating lactose for a long while. He has slight problems when drinking a lot of milk now, I don’t (not like I do that often but when I brought milk back, I drank as much as I liked, so a liter, pretty quickly as it’s very easy to do. I was fine). We quit other things for a year each (like gluten) and didn’t get any more sensitive… Too much carbs are the only thing where my body puts down its foot, I inevitably get sugar poisoned if I overdo carbs for an extended amount of time. But I am fine with this as if something is bad for me, it’s okay not to feel ideal when doing it… I still don’t get suddenly unwell, I get plenty of warnings, it’s somewhat gradual and I have my knowledge and experience to begin with.
I suppose when one cuts out something, it can go either way…

(KM) #11

I’ll be honest, I don’t have much to add. I would go with @lfod14 's interpretation, that if you deny your microbiome a food it requires, those specific bacteria will eventually die.

I would, except that I’ve always considered myself to have an extraordinarily resilient and diverse microbiome because of my history, and I’m seemingly fine when I deny parts of it any food. I can randomly add fruits and vegetables, grains, beans and seemingly almost anything else back into my diet after months or even years of avoiding it, and I’m fine in terms of my ability to digest it and not manifest any intestinal or other symptoms of distress. Honestly my only observed health hiccup is what it may do to my weight. Which does seem carb dependent.

Was it Paul who suggested the appendix may be where we store our microbiotic heritage? Dormant bacteria that can be used to reseed the microbiome? I still have mine, and my seed store was well stocked. Perhaps it is our microbiome history going back at least as far as our mothers, that gives us our resilience and/or our vulnerabilities?

If I wander down that particular path, my mother has some significant chronic health issues now. RA, osteoarthritis, pancreatic issues, heart issues, colon cancer and its resulting digestive problems. But they all arose after she underwent extreme chemotherapy. And she’s 96. Perhaps this killed off her own microbiome / seed store?

If I were designing an experiment, I might ask 1. Did your biological mother have a complex history in terms of her diet/ locality. Was she an immigrant, did she occupy varied locations before you were born. 2. Was your birth vaginal or cesarean. (You probably know, it’s been speculated that women defecating while giving birth is not some embarrassing accident, it’s a necessary part of transmitting the biome.) 3. Did you yourself have a varied diet/locality, or have you pretty much been in the same place or tried / preferred to eat the same foods. 4. Have you undergone an intense chemotherapy or antibiotic treatment.

(E P) #12

Definitely have experienced this; fiber especially needs to be slowly titrated in (and possibly out) to avoid digestive discomfort. But what about autoimmune inflammatory response? That’s different than bloating or other digestive difficulty, although interconnected probably. I am taking digestive enzymes at the moment like you recommend.

Something about the immune system resetting by autophagy? After certain period, theoretically, it’s all new cells with no memory of history with that food. @ctviggen thanks for the milk tip. I struggle with that too.

@beannoise thanks for the butyrate recommendation. Hope it helps you both! Hadn’t heard of that one before. Reading about that today, I also read about thiamine B1 for the same leaky gut purpose, do you have any thoughts on that?

#13

@kib1: You had some interesting points, about things I haven’t known, thanks! :slight_smile:

That’s individual too, when I went from vegetarian keto to carnivore for a while, nothing bad happened :slight_smile: I still usually eat a very low fiber diet (well, until last spring or so, I can’t seem to stop eating fruits since then) but when it suddenly dramatically raises, that’s fine too. But I know my body doesn’t care about my fiber intake to begin with while it’s definitely not true for many, maybe most people.
Amazing how different and complex we humans are.