Too Many Intolerances/Allergies to Keto?

#1

Hi There!

I’m actually looking for some opinions/advice and this may be a long post, but I’d like to give as much info as possible, so please bear with me.

My husband has decided he wants to try the Keto diet, and he’d like to do this together. Fine, I can stand to lose a few pounds, but I have been researching this and I am unsure I’ll actually be able to DO it. I have a range of food allergies/intolerances, along with IBS, Gastroparesis, gastritis, and a wonky gall bladder (yes, I see specialists, ha!).

Here’s a short list of what I cannot have, and someone tell me if there is an actual way I would be able to support my husband and do this with him:

Absolutely NO: nothing in the allium family (garlic, onions, etc. Last time I accidentally had some I ended up in the ER), no seeds (including fruits with seeds, or wheat breads, which I know isn’t allowed, but just showing the severity of it), nuts, no roughage (lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.If it’s any kind of hard to digest, I can’t eat it). No eggs, no dairy (except certain hard cheeses, depends on how it was processed). No coffee. No artificial sweeteners of ANY kind. No sports drinks. Nothing extremely fattening (avocados make me really ill, as does peanut butter and too much butter). Bacon can only be the precooked kind that has no extra grease on it. No spices at all; some herbs are ok in very small amounts.

I know I’m missing some things. Honestly, this isn’t a joke.

Two of my only ‘always safe’ foods are plain pasta and white bread. So you can see how this is an issue.

I am discouraged. I guess I could mainly just eat meat, but too much of that is not great for my stomach, either. I’d love to take this journey with him, so I’m hoping someone would have some insight or ideas. Is there anyone else like me doing this diet??

I thank you in advance for reading this disaster, and for any suggestions you may have. Please note that if you suggest something and I dismiss it as something I cannot eat, please do not see me as being difficult. It’s hard to think of everything I can’t eat, as it’s, well, almost everything!

Thanks again, and I look forward to being proven wrong!!

(Brian) #2

That’s a tough list of stuff you can’t eat.

If you would, flesh out some more of the things that you normally can eat. It might help us to offer suggestions.

#3

I would check out zero carb/carnivore. Just eating meat would avoid all of those foods you are unable to tolerate.

Best of luck!

(Roy D Rushing Jr ) #4

Yeah that is pretty tough. What do you typically eat when there is no plain pasta or white bread available? If you can’t tolerate large amounts of butter and grease, it’s absolutely fine to limit that to whatever you CAN tolerate. No one can adhere to a diet that literally makes them sick. Obviously adjustments have to be made. In my mind the only hard and fast rule is the carb limit. The protein and fat are recommendations and you should change those to suit what you’re able to do.

It might help if you kind of take us through a few of your typical days of breakfast lunch and dinner. With those limitations you’ve outlined it would seem to pose some difficulty eating a regular diet. I’d like to get an idea of how you vary your meals now. Surely you don’t eat pasta and bread for every meal right?

(Omar) #5

This is one tough situation

(Edith) #6

Check out diagnosisdiet.com

Georgia Ede is a psychiatrist who solved her own health problems through diet and uses diet to help her patients if they want to go that route. She has done a lot of research about different foods and vegetables. She had a lot of info on why veggies aren’t as good for us as we thought.

You may find some help on her site, especially about histamine intolerance.

Also, it could be possible if you choose to go the keto route with foods you can tolerate, that your body heals, and you may be able to tolerate more foods over time.

(Susan) #7

That’s some list! i have plenty of intolerances too to fruit and veg, and have gone zero carb. Can you eat fish and seafood? Just eat the types of meat in amounts you can tolerate. What type of white bread do you eat currently if you can’t eat wheat? Look up recipes for keto bread and other stuff.

(bulkbiker) #8

Anecdotally a lot of your problems have been seen to clear up or at least improve greatly on an all meat diet. Maybe give it a go for a month and see if you feel any better? It is often seen as the ultimate exclusion test. Just eat beef for the first week then introduce other meats and see how you feel? Just a suggestion.

#9

I know, right? :tired_face: It’s like only things that are BAD for me are GOOD for me.

I honestly don’t eat a lot. My stomach makes it impossible to eat much at a sitting, and I almost always feel a but ill after eating, no matter what, but! For example:

I mostly do not eat breakfast, because a) I’m not hungry, and b) my stomach lining inflames after eating, and I get very bloated which makes sitting at work all day very uncomfortable. If I do, I will have a half bagel, which is all I can tolerate. Oatmeal is fairly harsh on my belly, so I stay away from that. I tried protein shakes with soy milk, or making my own shakes with a banana and soy milk but anything very heavy upsets my stomach.

Lunch: If I eat lunch, I have been trying to make a small fake ‘salad’. A little less than half a diced cucmber, chickpeas, maybe a tomato, and blue cheese with a homemade dressing (since ALL store bought dressing contains onions/garlic). HOWEVER, it more often than not gives me horrible sharp pains (the cucumber is too hard to digest for me) and makes me ill.

Mostly, I’d make a lunchmeat sandwich. Some days if we order in at work, I’ll get a small plain pasta. Or I make a chicken salad with dried cranberries and vegan mayo (treats me better than normal; again, most mayos have garlic/onions in them).

Dinner: We do eat a lot of pasta (plain with olive oil, ground turkey and some tomatoes), but another thing we eat often is plain chicken and rice. Sometimes we’ll grill burgers. Grilled cheese. Sometimes we try a lot more things for dinner (meatloaf with mashed potatoes, pork chops with potatoes, salmon, ribs, different meat or chicken dishes, etc), since I can stay close to home if/when I get really sick from something.

You know, it’s hard to think of what you eat for dinner, when you try to do it!

But that’s it, really. Like I said, I don’t eat a lot at all, but I do want to lose some weight (guess it’s because all I eat are carbs).

To answer the white bread question: I eat whatever; Schwebels, or the store brand. I DID just figure out there’s Keto bread, so that gives me great hope!

I’d also like to see if going this route would help my issues, but they’ve been going on for well over 15 years being treated by different specialists so at this point, I’d be thrilled with some help.

Thanks for the replies!!

(Jane) #10

I’m not understanding when you said you can’t eat wheat breads… but eat white or store-bought bread and bagels. And pasta is made from wheat.

Did I misunderstand your original post?

(Bunny) #11

This is just a wild guess and I may be totally wrong but this sounds like histamine intolerances?

Maybe start eating bone broth to get the glutathione levels up? To heal/seal up a possible leaky gut that MIGHT be the core of the issue and once you resolve that then you might be able to tolerate the foods that were once intolerable OR “… the two enzymes that are responsible for breaking down histamine are not working (under active)? They are DAO (diamine oxidase) and HNMT (histamine-N-methyl-transferase). When these enzymes aren’t working like they should (vitamin B-9 and B-12 deficiency)—or if we are genetically wired (MTHFR?) to have underactive enzymes—we begin to show signs of histamine intolerance. …”…More

I would suggest looking more at Ben Lynch he tends to specialize issues like MTHFR mutations, epigenetics and clinical ecology and Georgia Ede as previously mentioned.

"Non-methylaters"?
(Diana ) #12

I took it to mean she couldn’t eat whole wheat or bread with “wheat berries”. Lots of roughage.

(Jane) #13

Ok, that makes sense then. Thanks.

(Ian Saldanha) #14

Hi Yaya, your intolerances are a lot like me. It was really hard to develop a Keto diet working around digestive and intolerance issues.
I would replace all those breads and potatoes that you’ve been having for pumpkins.
Have you got checked for calcium, b12, iron?

I would cut out and eliminate gluten too from your diet, in no time you won’t miss them, but it seems you also have a reflux problem, you need to work on safe food to deal(yougurt)with or have less antihistamines altogether to improve digestion.
Do you think Soy and soy products are good for you? Does it make you feel ill afterwards?

In a highly adapted Keto diet - what has been working for me - meat(chicken-beef-lamb)- fats(olive oil only), salad (coriander, parsley, mint, basil, chives and most herbs) - cucumber peeled - some pumpkins as treat . Not a lot else, I’m very restrictive with “cheat weeks” that I use to slowly introduce some foods back and deal with some others, moderate amounts of dairy but no gluten whatsoever.
Please text me back if you need more info, it’s a little boring, but then again, I sit to eat once a day and still need digestive enzymes to not feel ill. Hope all the best on your journey and just make sure you find some comfort foods to deal with intolerances (teas example). Plus, if you can tolerate Coconut or Almonds it would be slightly more flexible.

(Ian Saldanha) #15

Also, as far you’ve told. Your first problem is actually having far too much processed foods. You need to cook and enjoy the process. (I know, I work 60 hours too but can’t make up excuses for my health).
How do you deal on a Low FODMAP diet? For herbs/ Bok Choy / kale / pumpkin/ chives / ? Can you have raspberry, blueberries ? Lemons-limes
Have a look in the charts from FODMAP, histamine intolerance and make your own chart from those.
Ketogenic is simple, it’s only less than 20g Carbs a day. The rest you can work around, eating is a habit and pattern too.

(Bunny) #16

Why Bone Broth is good for histamine intolerances and auto-immunity issues & why eliminate allergic foods then reintroduce them:

  1. Can Food Sensitivities Be Reversed Or Are They For Life? - Dr. Will Cole
  1. How to Naturally Treat Your Allergies - Dr. Kelly Ann
  1. Can You Really Reverse Food Allergies?
  1. Yes, You Can Reverse Food Allergies: How I Did It
  1. The Hidden Food Intolerance That Could Be At The Root Of Your Inflammation
  1. “…Did you ever think it possible that food allergies could be reversed? Well, they can be reversed (even peanut allergies), although most conventional doctors don’t discuss this as a possibility nor do they understand the protocol for doing so. …” …More
(Full Metal KETO AF) #17

If I’m right about what’s bothering your digestion it sounds like you tolerate most veggies? I would recommend no raw veggies for a while and introducing probiotic fermented veggies as the first step towards tolerating raw foods better when you’re digestive system improves. They are easy and fun to make for yourself and inexpensive compared to expensive health food stores. Stick mostly with leafy greens and cruciferous veggies avoiding all roots.

Read up on the low lectin diet. The basic jist is no dairy, no seeds or seed containing veggies (actually fruits) and maybe a few things that are slipping my mind now. Pumpkin as suggested earlier is high in lectins as are most seed contains “fruit vegetables aka anything with seeds in the part you eat”. Lectin is high in all legumes so peanut butter and nuts not the good choice if you embark on that, dairy as well. But if it works it will be worth it. There are plenty of lists of low carb veggies that are in line with keto. Lectins in the cucumber and chickpeas and seeds are high and may be your issue. Read up on a low lectin diet which is recommended for people with leaky gut and other digestive issues to see if the idea resonates with you. Maybe come up with a keto hybrid that works for you. It’s the gluten free idea extended since gluten is a lectin as well. My son is autistic and on the diet. You don’t need to go carnivore just yet, make sure you try only eat cooked low lectin veggies and avoid foods high in oxalic acid like chard and spinach to see if it works.

Lamb is reputed to be the easiest digestible red meat and I say you should try to eat as much variety in meats and veggies that work best for you other than your current carb heavy diet.

I was on dialysis for 10 years and told to eat white bread and rice because of phosphorus in bran. Well now I have a kidney again but I’m prediabetic as a result of transplant rejection drugs so I’m going full forward with keto to combat the issue. You should consider the same approach which is that what doctors tell you to do sometimes isn’t the smartest move for someone who wants to fix their problems rather than just try to tolerate them and eat foods which seems to agree with your condition but may be destroying your metabolism exacerbating the issue you want to get rid of. The American Diabetes Association still doesn’t acknowledge the connection between carbs sugar and diabetes. They recieve huge donations from Monsanto and ConAg and so I don’t trust their advice which would never include a Keto Diet even though it’s documented to correct T2 diabetes. Take the reins and get your gut health right again. I wish you a great healing.

(Laurie) #18

So it looks like you can eat meat, fish, precooked bacon, some cheeses, and meat. This is basically what I eat. (Although I do eat eggs as well.) No one says you need to have coffee, vegetables, or nuts on keto; these are all optional, as are the many recipes that call for spices, sweeteners, etc.

I find it helpful to think about what I will have, rather than what I can’t have. For example, maybe you can have a meal of just beef. It is more satisfying than you might think. You can season your husband’s portion and give him some veggies on the side if that’s what he wants.

Good luck!