Living out here, food sensitivity is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but is it something real? All I can say from personal experience is “hell yeah”. I’ve spent the last 9 months eliminating foods for which I tested “positive” on a food sensitivity blood test, and it’s changed my life.
Why? Well, I began to develop painful red nodules on the ends of my fingers. Turns out, it was osteoarthritis which runs on my Mom’s side of the family. And let me just say, it’s not pretty. When my Mom points her finger at you, it’s so gnarled that the end bends to the right at a good 45 degree angle. And the only cure for arthritis pain, according to my GP, was to stop using the affected joint. Which is, needless to say, impossible when it’s your fingers. So, having exhausted my western medicine options, I decided to take a more eastern approach.
Since arthritis is about inflammation, and food sensitivity or food intolerances cause inflammation, accordingly to most eastern medicine practitioners, I thought I would give the food sensitivity blood test a try. Ok, let me backtrack. A food sensitivity is not a food allergy. My brother was allergic to certain nuts as a kid. If he ate, say, a walnut, his mouth would start to itch and his face would balloon up like a blowfish. If he didn’t drink some heavy duty Benadryl fast, he was one miserable puppy. And he had a mild case. A lot of people with food allergies wind up in anaphylactic shock if they eat the wrong thing. A food sensitivity, on the other hand, won’t kill you. But if you have an intolerance to lactose, drinking milk will definitely give you gas, bloating, diarrhea and maybe even acne.
The food sensitivity blood test is really simple. I did it online through Nutritionally Yours because it was much cheaper. You place your order. They send you a kit. You find a sanctioned facility to take your blood (or you can pay a bit extra and have someone come to the house which is what I did). You pack everything in the provided packaging, overnight it (all paid for) and get your results in about 10 days to 2 weeks.
The results are divided into red, orange and yellow foods depending on the level of your reaction. The good news about the food sensitivity blood test is that it gives you a place to start as figuring out food intolerances is a bit of a crap shoot. The bad news is that you can get a lot of what’s called “false positives” meaning that the test reads a reaction when there really is none. Unfortunately, the only way to tell that is to take all of the reactive foods out of your diet for 6 months and then reintroduce them one by one. Or work with an acupuncturist or chiropractor who does muscle testing and test the foods that way. It’s a lot faster.
I’m not going to lie. Eating like this was hard. Especially since most of the foods on my list were ones that I ate everyday. I had to get creative. But the results have been astounding. My arthritis is pretty much pain free. My skin has never looked better. I haven’t burped in forever, and I’ve lost about 15 lbs.. Always a nice bonus.
So, if you suffer from chronic skin conditions, generalized aches and pains, stomach bloating and cramping or allergies, this could be a great tool for you. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, but if I can get the hang of it, trust me, you can too.