A food sensitivity can affect you from your living life to the full. Sometimes confused with allergies, and also known as intolerances, a sensitivity can be painful. They are also much more common than most of us think, as not many people actually know what they are.

It is important to note that a sensitivity is a lot more common than an allergy, and that headache you are experiencing after every meal, or the constant fatigue that you are suffering from could quite easily be from a food sensitivity.

So, what can we do to stop them?

Learning you have a food sensitivity or intolerance can be worrying at first thought but there are many ways to deal and cope with a food intolerance. It may simply be that you have developed an intolerance through overindulgence of a certain food, and the simple solution is to cut it from your diet.

This leads us on to explain what we need to know to catch intolerances and sensitivities and what there is that we can do about it.

Well, first things first, they are often missed, as the symptoms of a sensitivity or an intolerance are often missed. Why? They can appear up to 7 days later, and this means that something else is usually blamed. However, that offending food could well be your favourite, so it is vital that you watch what you are eating.

There’s more?

Yes, there is more, and this is further complicated by the fact that two people can have the same sensitivity, but it can cause different symptoms. This makes them harder to catch, but once caught and identified, you are still able to cope. This is because people can usually tolerate a reasonable amount of food which their body is sensitive to, but their gut and internal systems can only tolerate a certain amount. Making it even more vital that sensitivities are identified, they can trigger the onset of a chronic illness, and in many cases, make symptoms even worse.

You can do something about it though

Yes, as discussed earlier, you can cut these offending foods out of your diet. This is also known as an elimination diet, and although this may sound hard, it is sometimes necessary. The good news, however, is that you can reintroduce your favourite and delicious foods back into your diet after having some time away. You should do this slowly and only after the recommended time has passed, (we recommend six weeks), as this will allow you to measure and learn how much of the offending food your body can tolerate. If your symptoms kick in straight away, then it is likely that you have a sensitivity and your body cannot tolerate any of this food whatsoever.

The Symptoms of a Food Sensitivity

The symptoms of a sensitivity can have a significant impact on our lives. What’s more concerning is that sensitivities are not purely digestive related, and so we have listed just some of the unsuspecting and very surprising signs that you may have a sensitivity.

Fatigue

It can leave us feeling down in all aspects of life, as we feel like we do not have the ability to do our job to the highest level we possibly can. Some of the common culprits are Dairy, Soy, Corn and Gluten, as they are staples of a Western diet and can have a severe impact on your life.

Joint Pain and Muscle Aches

Suffering from aches and pains, as well as feeling stiff after consuming eggs on toast? You are likely to have a sensitivity. It may not be the strenuous exercise that you have undertaken, but rather what you are putting into your body, so be careful!

Headaches

We can all suffer from headaches, some more than others. But what if we are causing them through what we are putting into our body? It could be your foods that are causing you these headaches, so make sure that you watch what you eat, and identify your intolerances and allergies.

Summary

A food sensitivity is a purely immune system-mediated response, which involves a variety of classes of food-specific immunoglobin molecules, and these can form food immune complexes. Stimulating the complement cascade and going for more localised inflammation, a food sensitivity reaction can be delayed, making them harder to catch. The symptoms and reaction of a food sensitivity can be identified a while after you have consumed the offending food, in some cases up to 7 days, so they are very hard to track. Food sensitivities can affect your body in many ways, and this is known as Type III allergic reaction.

To learn more about your sensitivities, head over to www.testyourintolerance.ca to find out more. Our Customer Service team will be happy to help you with any queries.