Food Allergy Treatment:
Consider Your Options

Food allergy treatment may involve several tactics.

After using an elimination diet , blood tests, or other types of testing to determine food allergy, treatment should begin with a rotation diet . If you're not bombarding your body with the same foods every day, your immune system will be less likely to respond negatively to various foods. It's so important to preserve the food tolerances you have! You don't want to eliminate wheat, only to develp an intolerance for rice--mix it up and spread it out!

Second, it's helpful to find a doctor or other practicioner who wants to find out what's causing your body to respond inappropriately to food. Then you can be treated! You might try a specialist in environmental medicine . These doctors are good at looking at your whole enviornment, and figuring out whether mold or chemicals might be causing you to overreact to foods. You will be taught how to minimize factors in your surroundings that have a negative impact on your body. They then use methods such as provocation-neutralization or low-dose immunotherapy to "turn off" the body's food allergies. These treatments must be repeated at intervals, but the intervals usually increase over time. Many people have found tremendous relief from this type of food allergy treatment.

In addition to addressing enviromental factors in food allergy, treatment for a "leaky gut" may be indispensible. Leaky gut syndrome happens when the normal, friendly bacteria in your digestive tract can't grow due to chlorine in water, antibiotics in meat, or other things we take into our bodies. But those friendly bacteria are what keep our gut healthy, so when they die, little "holes" may develop in our intestines. Since we may also have trouble completely digesting food, undigested food particles can pass through that "leaky gut" wall, where the body recognizes them as invaders and may "attack" them with immunoglobulins. Thus, in many cases, the allergic reaction!

My doctor, a family practicioner who treats his patients holistically, has me on probiotics to repopulate my gut, enzymes to break down my food, a supplement containing L-Glutamine to heal my GI tract, as well as a full-spectrum Omega-3 fatty acids supplement. These, along with a rotation diet, have helped me amazingly. I am now actually regaining tolerance for some foods I was unable to eat before! If you're having a hard time finding a practicioner who will address a possible problem with leaky gut, ask a chiropracter. They are often aware of doctors who use holistic methods; some can even recommend supplements themselves.

Another route for food allergy treatment you might want to look into is NAET --Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques. This is an energy-based technique, so it is rooted in part in Chinese medicine. I can speak from experience to say that it works very well, especially for those who don't have underlying issues such as leaky gut. This technique worked great for my oldest son while he was breastfeeding, but when I tried the treatments myself, they wouldn't "hold," and I kept acquiring new allergies. So this may be something you'd like to consider, along with other appropriate treatments. A note: if you're a Christian, and are concerned about pursuing this type of alternative therapy, check out these links, and think about what they say, along with Romans 14:

• Brian B. Carter's ChristianAcupuncture.com
• Dr. Milt Hammerly's article, "Science, Theology, and Suffering"

Remember: there is a reason your body isn't well. Finding out why will help you get successful food allergy treatment!

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