Food intolerance testing from hair.

I have ibs. I went to a health shop to have a test done for food intolerence. They put something on my thumb and saw how I reacted to about 50 foods. I ended up being intolerent to so many foods i felt there was nothing left to eat. I tried for a week to stick to the new diet but gave up. If it had been a proper hospital test I would have tried harder.

The analysis I paid for seemed something of a con. I was given small quantities of the suspect ingredients to hold at arm's length while lying on my back. For each individual ingredient, i had to raise my arm and then the 'Therapist' assess how much energy he needed to apply to force my arm down.The substances to which I was allergic, he said, caused a weakening of the muscles.
Oh my! I decided to knit my own solution which I worked out by an eliminative process.. I allowed for a reduced diet for a few months and then reintroduced the suspected allergens bit by bit. Result.... problem cured and I eat anything.
Was it all psychsomatic? Had I read too much about the way everybody was suffering from an allergic response to so many substances?

I had a camera procedure after years of IBS then having symptoms pointing to bowel cancer. Fortunately it showed nothing sinister, but GP suggested trying removing gluten from my diet. Within a week I felt wonderful with no stomach cramps at all. So I've stuck to it, but in the mean time my daughter and granddaughter have both been diagnosed as coeliac. I've been told that I am probably as well but I must go back on an ordinary diet for six weeks and then have another camera job/biopsy to make it official. I'm not prepared to go through that, so will just carry on being GF.

Is she under a lot of stress? My IBS has nowt to do with food, and everything to do with stress. Just a thought. If it is, she could maybe get some diazepam for the days it's worst (not regularly, as it's addictive) and use Mebeverine and when it's worst, Buscopan as well. Her GP could prescribe them.

I had years of pain and feeling generally unwell, was eventually diagnosed with IBS. Left to cope on my own I started to analyse what I was eating and discovered that pain and other symptoms were far worse if I ate chilli, paprika, cumin and cardamon - which is really difficult now as every chef and restaurant seem to mask the real taste of ingredients with these 'hot' spices. Knowing the cause helps tremendously, but as others have said it is important to have monitoring even though I did it myself by keeping a food diary. Good luck to your DD.

I agree with M0nica, it's fairly easy to eliminate various items and re-introduce them to see if any improvement or otherwise occurs.

Drinking Keffir everyday has really sorted out bloating etc. for me and OH.

Chicken, rice. peas & pears are almost always tolerated. Stick to those to clear the system for 3 days then introduce other items one at a time to assess the effect of each.

Vinegar & tomatoes are often problems even in tiny quantities; some fruits e.g. apricots, figs too. Some bacteria in yogurts (but not all) can cause colic.

People are all different. All your daughter can do is try each new thing on a new day.

Good luck!

British bread can contain preservatives that are not added in other countries which can cause problems rather than gluten.

LJPI. I’ve been experimenting and I find that tomatoes ? cause my arthritis to flair up. I’ve been tomato free now for three weeks and, touch wood, almost pain free.

The little cherry tomatoes cause my joints to be painful so I try to avoid those.

However, something else must be causing it at the moment because it is particularly bad this week.

I suffered IBS for some time. I cut out blue cheese and hoorah I don't have much trouble now. Stress is another contributing factor to IBS. .

Complete and utter CON

What about mustard? It's added to many things now where it might not be expected. I had an egg mayonnaise baguette in London recently, very heavy on the mustard so I had to leave it because I know what mustard does to me, except in very tiny amounts. Also red, green and yellow peppers, onions, leeks, courgettes, aubergines and garlic and tea and coffee can also cause problems. I appear to have IBS as other more serious conditions have been ruled out.

Wow! Thank you all so much for the replies. I think I will show the whole thread to DD. There are plenty of options to consider!

My family have a history of allergy, eczema and asthma and I will add my voice to those recommending a food diary, followed by an elimination diet of suspected items - one item at a time. The problem can be the least suspected item. My daughter suffered frequent tummy pains and vomiting during her schooldays in the 1970s and 1980s. She had all the symptoms of appendicitis and was even admitted to hospital. Neither the doc or hosp found a cause. Neither of them would even consider food intolerances when I floated the idea. I kept a food diary and did careful double checks- the culprit was oranges in all their guises (they are now the base of strawberry and other fruit smoothies which she found out the hard way). I have since met others with this unusual intolerance of oranges. We have also found that tomatoes and British bread can cause discomforts and reactions too. I recommend plain LIVE yogurt eg Yeo Valley brand as it has a good effect on tums if you dont have dairy intolerance. I sincerely hope you can find an early remedy

If you go on an elimination diet you will find out if you have any intolerances. Costs nothing but takes a bit of effort
Do it properly. Dr. John Mansfield has great guidelines, get his book.

Allergy testing today with a highly trained therapist using Naet approach is 100% They take a 5 year training course and very vigorous exams .
So allergy testing by a Naet Therapist is highly recommended. The Neat Therapist can then remove the allergy permanently .
Best Wishes
Joseph Grennell
Child Psychotherapist . Nurse. ABA Therapist

Gp is unlikely to refer her to an allergist as they are expensive. Ask for her to be referred to a dietician or see one privately, this is what I did and it has been a great help or try the FODMAP diet, it's not easy but can really help anyone with IBS. I have a gastric disorder (diagnosed) and have to follow FODMAP and low residue diets, between them it's very restrictive but certainly makes life less painful.

When my son was a child he had a constant runny nose and was always getting coughs. I took him to a homeopathic doctor who tested for allergies and found he was allergic to cows milk and dairy. For a long while I used to buy goats milk, which back in the mid-1980s was really difficult to source. After a while the homeopath prescribed drops to desensitise his allergy - and it worked. From then on he was able to eat all dairy with no reactions at all. I think rather than go down the route of allergy testing in the way OP describes, a visit to a Homeopath is far more reliable.

If the pain is bad and rarely goes away she must go back to her GP. I have suffered with "ibs" for over 40 years and tried every test and diet under the sun. I knew I had intolerances to things in my environment and while I was not allergic in the true sense, I knew some foods and medicines were problematic. When things have become bad I have cut out salicylates which helped, other times gluten, and dairy. Sugar is the worst for irritating the bowel, that should be the first to go. It's not good to cut out whole food groups for long unless there is a proven allergy to them. I use the FODMAP diet now and I think it helps but who knows? In recent years I was diagnosed with EDS hypermobility so my "ibs" would be associated with that. A doctor has spoken to me about Mast Cell Activation disorder and it shows the same symptoms as IBS. There is no test for it yet but it is known, It's like an allergy and controlling the diet is the best way to deal with it. Another tip is eating only fresh foods, nothing reheated, nothing that has been cooked and around a few hours, no processed foods, sugars and following the advice on the FODMAP diet.

The NHS is strapped for cash and anything out of the ordinary is not pursued. Individuals do not really matter any more, it is all about trying to cut incidences of particular cancers, and trying to get minor ops out of the way. I have had a particular weight problem for two or three years and been trying to talk with my GPs about this in terms of it being a metabolic issue caused by the cocktail of medication I need to take. None of them has listened. So I got one of them to refer me privately to an endocrinologist and he has found the problem immediately, and it is entirely to do with a compromised metabolism. Sure this man has cost money and the treatment he is prescribing is also something I have to pay for - this should of course have been possible on the NHS, after all there's lots of money spent by the NHS on people with certain types of cancer caused by smoking - I know this will not be a popular comment, but I do feel very strongly, that someone who is ill through a genetic defect (my case) who is then medicated in a way that has side effects, can't actually have those side effects considered sensibly by a GP because it's considered to be too esoteric and resource consuming, when someone who has no genetic defect but smokes 60 a day for 40 years and then presents with lung cancer gets fully-funded tax-payer paid treatment.

My d is gluten intolerant and lactose intolerant she had a test at the hospital to check her stomach and was told to keep a diary of what she ate.
She is also a vegetarian. She found a a book on amazon of recipes called clean and lean, finds it very helpful,

If you begin experiencing digestive problems you have never experienced before and not eating anything different to what you normally eat then it could be stress related.Rule out anything serious only after you have been given a thorough investigation ie endoscopy colonoscopy and blood tests.IBS is a disease of the 21C.

Perhaps a GP would correct me, but I have my doubts as to its existence.
A term to cover a multitude of problems which the GP may not immediately be able to diagnose.