How to Test yourself for food allergies.

Bread may be the bad-guy.

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Food allergies can give you joint pain, headaches, fatigue, mood swings and even prevent you from losing weight. Testing isn't easy, but it's so worth it.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

a journal to keep track of symptoms.
Patience

Step1

The big four food allergies are Wheat, Dairy, Corn and Soy - the best bet is to test all of them at once.

Step2

Eliminate the above foods COMPLETELY from your diet for 2 weeks. That means you have to read the labels on everything you eat. Yes, high fructose corn syrup is really corn so the soda is gone too. I know this step is hard, but it really is worth it in the end.

Step3

After the 2 weeks challenge your first food. Pick one of the four categories (wheat, dairy, corn or soy) and eat that food for a day - enjoy yourself but make sure you only introduce one food at a time. For example on dairy day you could have milk, cheese or yogurt with each meal. Be careful on wheat day as many wheat products also have dairy.

Step4

For four days after challenge day go back to not eating your challenge food and watch your body. If you're allergic then you'll start to show symptoms but they don't look like the typical allergy. Symptoms could be fatigue, something you already have gets worse (like a rash or joint pain), you feel like you're coming down with a flu or you're sad or angry for no reason. Any noticeable change could be a sign of allergy.

If symptoms do show up then you are allergic and should avoid that food. If no symptoms appear then you're not allergic - congratulations!

Step5

Challenge the other foods. Make sure you eat the challenge food for one day then watch for four. Foods need to be challenged one at a time so that you don't get confused and have to start from the beginning.

Tips & Warnings

Doing it right once is way easier than not feeling well long-term.
It's best to get everyone in the house to test at once because it's really hard to watch someone else eat ice cream if you can't have any.
Eat at home, restaurants rarely have choices that work when you're testing.
Diabetics or people with serious medical conditions should check with their doctor before testing for food allergies in this way.
Testing can be done through blood labs. Contact your local doctor or Dr. Amy Neuzil for more information. See www.excelonhealth.com