Do You Have Hidden Food Allergies?

By Pierre P. Gagnon, MD

Pierre-Paul Gagnon, MD

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Do You Have Hidden Food Allergies?

Do you feel tired or depressed? Are you prone to headaches or body aches, pain in the joints or muscles? Do you have sleeping problems? Do you wake up in the middle of the night and find yourself unable to go back to sleep? Do you get drowsy or bloated after meals? Are you prone to sinus infections, at least once or twice a year? Are you becoming more forgetful or irritable?

If this is the case, you may suffer from food allergies. This very common problem is usually overlooked by doctors and patients alike. It may cause many other symptoms, like abdominal pain and constipation. Studies have shown food allergies to be a very common cause of hyperactivity in children and Attention Deficit Syndrome. You should suspect this especially if, as a baby, you were prone to recurrent ear infections or diaper rashes.

There Are Two Types Of Food Allergies

1) Fixed food allergies

2) Delayed or hidden food allergies

The diagnosis of fixed food allergies is easy. For example, if someone has a fixed food allergy to dairy and drinks a glass of milk, he will soon develop symptoms (e.g. bloating, abdominal pain, or diarrhea). Another patient will get hives soon after eating tomatoes or strawberries.

Hidden or delayed food allergies work differently. It can take from several hours to three days to develop symptoms from the offending food. If you are allergic to a food that you ate on Sunday night, it is unlikely that you will know it is responsible for making you feel “terrible” on Wednesday morning. It becomes very hard to put two and two together. The picture becomes even more confusing if you eat this food several times a day, like wheat products or dairy.

It takes four days after eating a food to completely eliminate it from your body. Hidden food allergies can be very insidious. It is not uncommon that the very food that is making you sick will become your favorite food. You probably have a friend who eats chips or chocolate all day long. Maybe he or she will drink milk, coffee, or sodas several times a day. This is called food addiction. Eating the offending food will make them feel better, then they feel bad again after a few hours unless they eat the same offending food again.

In one of our cases, a patient drank almost a gallon of milk each day. He had chronic sinus problems for many years. We did a skin allergy screening and found out that he was highly allergic to milk. His chronic sinus problems and back pain completely cleared within two weeks after eliminating dairy from his diet.

Food allergy testing is a very important diagnostic tool, because food allergies can be the cause of so many symptoms. Qualified doctors can also utilize different forms of skin testing, which can be very useful in detecting those hidden food allergies.