If you have a food allergy or intolerance, how does it affect your life?

I have an extreme intolerance for dairy. Ordinarily I avoid products with dairy as I know what will happen if I consume it. Once in a while though, I will ingest some because I want that result.

@Ghost_in_the_system I have a dairy intolerance too but it’s not severe. I can’t drink a milky drink but I don’t have to watch labels for milk products, I guess quantity matters. In any case I have never really regarded milk as an edible substance, so I don’t miss it at all.

I’m lactose intolerant. The only time it affected my life was in college when we had a milk chugging contest. (I didn’t win.) I think most dairy products are gross anyway.

I’m just wondering: is it possible to have temporary lactose intolerance? Because that became the theory on what happened to my boyfriend this summer. He started getting sick from consuming lactose products when that had never happened before, but the doctors said he was not lactose intolerant and it seems to be back to normal now. Is it possible to have a lactose intolerant “phase”?

My husband was allergic to wheat and cow-dairy for quite some time. (I know he’s not me, but since I do the cooking, it still affected me greatly.)

We tried to make do with “close enough” foods. Like I’d buy spelt bread and spelt flour because it’s a relative of wheat that didn’t affect him. We also bought goat-dairy products for the same reason. We didn’t go out to restaurants much because it’s hard to find dishes that don’t have one or the other (or both) of those ingredients. (Did you know chicken broth often has wheat in it?) Waitstaff were often very little help when we asked about ingredients, saying things like, “Oh no, that bread doesn’t have wheat in it, it’s white bread,” or “No, that batter doesn’t have wheat, it’s just flour.” So, we cooked at home where I could monitor what went in.

He claimed that wheat would make him react in some weird way that would start at the top of his head, move downward through the arms and hands and torso, and finish at the feet, making him feel like his guts and everything were itching. When the episode was over, he’d be exhausted for a couple days. It happened before I met him, but we kept this diet for a few years until I realized that sometimes we’d go to a restaurant, find out something he’d eaten was wheaty, and he was fine. I started not believing him, and encouraged him to find a new doc that believed in allergy testing. When the tests came back negative, he worked up to trying a piece of pizza. He was just fine. Now I cook with wheat and dairy, no problem.

So, the way it went down, it was almost like having an allergy myself, without the reaction. I’m the foodie in the house, so I watched his diet (and therefore my own) like a hawk. The current theory is that either it was a temporary allergy, or that what he was reacting to was not what he thought. Anyway, all’s well that ends well, I guess.

I break out in….fat.

I developed a peanut allergy in my early teens. It’s not life-threatening, but it is annoying. I break out in hives and my airways will start to swell (but never to the point where I couldn’t breathe.) It affects my life only because I miss peanutbutter sandwiches and butterfinger bars, and I always have to ask about the ingredients at restaurants and other meals (especially Thai food…)

@LC_Beta – Friends of mine had a kid with a peanut allergy. When he went to a kindergarten that used peanut butter sandwiches as snacks, they were so afraid that he’d get some from another kid (even if they avoid giving him one) that they bought a case of almond butter for the class, so that no kid could accidentally kill him by sharing peanuts.

Moral of the story: Almond butter is more expensive, but makes a darn good sandwich.

I am allergic to a number of fruits, all of which seem to be the fruits of choice for restaurant uses. Thus, I rarely get to eat fruit salad, fruit-based chutneys, or fruit desserts unless I make them myself.

I have a number of food sensitivities and food intolerances, some worse than others. When I eat out I need to always know where the nearest restroom is, where my inhaler is, where my Benedryl is, and what the ingredients of a dish are. It makes me a rather picky eater when I go out.

@laureth – I have never tried Almond Butter, thanks for the tip! :)

After all these years, my wife can no longer tolerate tuna fish. she prepared a tuna noodle casserole and almost died from it. allergic reaction. paramedics were called. everything had been eliminated in her life, except the tuna fish. we learned a lot about tuna after this incident. i did not know that tuna are bottom scavenger fish. they feed off the bottom of the ocean floor. i love a tuna fish sandwich and always will. have not had one since this incident and probably never will again.

I really don’t know if I would classify it as an allergy, but I can’t tolerate a lot of parsley…it makes me really sick. As a result, I am hesitant to eat at Italian restaurants..and I LOVE Italian food. But, on a positive note, I have learned to cook Italian dishes myself, sans parsley, so I can still enjoy them.

@DominicX I am certain it’s possible to have a temporary intolerance to things. My partner was, for about 3 years, unable to digest meat. It was something to do with a virus that had killed off the enzymes in the gut that allow meat proteins to be digested. Eventually the enzymes recovered and my partner was able to eat meat again without any ill-effects. I have no doubt that a similar thing could occur for lactose intolerance.

@DominicX – The enzyme that breaks down lactose (and which is called lactase) is an inducible enzyme. This means it is only present in your body once your body detects that lactose has been consumed. The rest of the time you don’t make it. Thus, if you go a while without consuming any lactose, or under certain circumstances illness has interfered with your system, you can develop lactose intolerance. Once you are well again or once you have begun to consume lactose on a gradually increasing schedule you can get rid of the intolerance.

This is quite possibly what happened to your boyfriend. It happened to me at one point when I was in college, and it happened to my dad when he was a kid. He got ill and the treatment at that time for that illness was to avoid dairy products for a year. At the end of the year he was lactose intolerant. He was able to get back to coping with some lactose again over time.

@Darwin seems likely. My dairy intolerance is better now than it was as a kid, although mines’ an intolerance to milk proteins rather than lactose, so the things I need to avoid aren’t quite the same.

@downtide – Your dairy intolerance isn’t like the lactose deal at all. Milk protein isn’t dealt with by an inducible enzyme. An immune system problem is typically the source of sensitivity to other dairy components.

My brother is allergic (I know the doctors always want to say intolerant or sensitive to when food is involved) to milk fat. As he has grown he has become better able to consume some butter, but in exchange other allergies have gotten worse.