A Changed Life

“It is not that big of a deal you need to just go back to sleep because it’s six a.m. and we don’t have to be up for another hour.” That is what my roommate said when I woke up during my freshman year spring break to find my eyes completely shut and my face swollen.

There have been a few times in my life where I have had health scares but not to the extent of being blind for over four hours.

My mom was in a completely different state and couldn’t get to me to help me because I had no idea what was going on with my body. After the shock had worn off and I went to the doctor, my family did extensive research into what might have caused this so we could take the steps prevent it from happening again.

A few months after the initial incident, I had found out that I had severe food intolerances. My doctor also informed me that if I had kept eating the way I was eating, I would have developed an auto-immune disease. At the time I had no idea I could develop and auto-immune problem for eating, I just assumed that it was genetics or that it was something you could develop in your late 50’s.

So, I took it upon myself to research everything that I was going through and found that first there is a big difference between having a food intolerance and having a food allergy. A food allergy is an immune system reaction that occurs soon after eating a certain food. In this case a food allergy can be potentially dangerous because if it is not treated immediately, it can result in something severe like death. (This is in a super dramatic case).

“If you have an allergy, your immune system overreacts to an allergen by producing antibodies called Immunoglobulin E (IgE). These antibodies travel to cells that release chemicals, causing an allergic reaction. This reaction usually causes symptoms in the nose, lungs, throat, or on the skin.” (aaaai.org). A food intolerance on the other hand is also known as non-IgE- medicated food hypersensitivity or non-allergic food-hypersensitivity, refers to difficulty in digesting certain foods.

I personally have a food allergy to beef and pork but food intolerances to gluten and dairy. As a result, from this I had started to develop what is known as “leaky gut syndrome”. To break that down further it means that the food I was eating was going to my gut and instead of processing correctly it was causing my gut to slowly deteriorate which lead to all of the bad things that were in my gut to leak back into my bloodstream.

“Gut permeability allows food particles to cross into the blood stream partially digested. This causes the immune system to react by creating specific anti-bodies to these undigested food particles. This results in food sensitivities and chronic inflammation in the body,” (drjockers.com).

Throughout all of this I learned why it is so important for me to be on a gluten/dairy free diet but I also understand how this information can help other people who might be going through the same problem. The more educated you are in the relationship between your body and food, the better chance you have of catching certain problems early. Most auto-immune diseases can actually be prevented through a strict dietary change, which I always will emphasize on the importance of food education. Hopefully though these posts, it will help change someone’s life.

Photo by: Emily Banaitis