Mary,

> I had some extra fruit last night, say 3-4 servings that day >(Thanksgiving)
>  >as opposed to my usual one or fewer --usually fewer--servings. I >broke out
>  >in hives and itched. So, if you are in ketosis, can a sudden intake >of fruit
>  >or sugar make you itch


There are so many factors to consider, when you get itchy, that it can
sometimes be hard to single out any one single thing and "blame" it on
that. It would be nice if things could be that simple, but in reality,
they're usually not, especially when it comes to human physiology.

Just to illustrate what I mean, here are a very few of the multitude of
possible causes of your itching and hives:

1) That day you happened to have eaten a different fruit than usual, one
that you are allergic to.
2) You ate a fruit that you are always "sensitive" or "allergic" to, but
in your case (this is actually very common) you are fine as long as you
stay below a certain amount. It's only when you go _above_ that amount,
which you happened to have done on that day, that your body reacts with
an allergic symptom.
3) You're allergic or sensitive to citric acid (many people are - along
with malic acid, fumaric, succinic, aspartic, glutamic), and that day
you had too much of fruits containing these particular acids.
4) You were showing a "delayed reaction" to something you had eaten, or
been exposed to, several days earlier. Lots of allergic reactions happen
this way.
5) Something -- food or other  --  that is ordinarily fine for you, was
not on this day, because Thanksgiving happened to have been a more
stressful environment than other times of the year, and you could not
"handle" what you are ordinarily able to.
6) Your reaction was not to any food at all, but to some airborne or
environmental compound, to which you are sensitive.
7) You did something with your diet that allowed your body to take
advantage of a suddenly lessened digestive burden and take the
opportunity to discharge some long-stored waste, via your skin (a
"cleansing reaction").
8) You had to see family members at Thanksgiving that dredge up so many
difficult memories and emotions, that these people or person just "gives
you hives." (don't laugh - I knew a youngster that was hospitalized for
continuous vomiting - and it finally was discovered that seeing his
mother made him vomit. As soon as she was gone, and he felt safe she
wouldn't return, his vomiting would stop.)
9) You have blood sugar problems - pre-diabetes, hyper or hypo glycemia,
and a sudden load of sugar from the fruit wreaks havoc on your body,
among other things causing what looks like an allergic symptom of hives.


These are just a very, very, few of the complicated conclusions you
could reach - many others jump to my mind - which hopefully makes the
point that it is always tricky to try to isolate out one single factor
that is "responsible" for any symptom you see.

I've used the example of a person standing on one tippy-toe. Standing
this way, very precariously balanced, they could easily be knocked over
by gently nudging them with a spoon. You could erroneously draw the
conclusion that this person was wildly "allergic" to spoons. In other
words, there are so many other things going on in the body that may be
"out of balance," and because they are all so interrelated and dependent
upon each other, it usually takes a bit of detective work and patience
to figure out what is really going on.

Not trying to make life more difficult, just trying to help you to
avoid  jumpimg to possibly overly simplistic, and maybe even erroneous,
conclusions about your body's signals.

Love, Liza

[log in to unmask] (Liza May)