<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

You know, a rotation diet isn't usually recommended for celiacs - the idea
is that once people are not eating gluten, they're unlikely to get new
food sensitivities.

I did go on a rotation diet, and I'm really glad i did.

That's because when I first found out about my food intolerances, in 2003,
I didn't quit eating fructose on the elimination diet.  It's made from
corn, so i was still getting tiny amounts of corn on my elimination diet.
I needed the fructose to get me over my carbohydrate reactions, anxiety,
tension, irritability, appetite and hunger after eating carbs.  I've found
that carbohydrate intolerance is an allergic reaction (!) - partly to the
tiny amounts of corn in the fructose!  I eat something i'm allergic to,
like corn - and food in general, and sweets especially, gets very ...
appetizing.

So i started rotating my foods.  one of the few things i wasn't rotating
though, was tiny amounts of corn!  I wasn't eating corn in large amounts
because I'd reacted to it on a food challenge in 2003.  But i was eating
tiny amounts of corn, in fructose, vanilla, maltodextrins.

And what i didn't realize at the time was that I am very allergic to corn
- and that the tiny amounts I was eating had a monumental effect on me.
Those tiny amounts of corn were keeping a LOT of other food reactions
masked.

So every day on the rotation diet almost, i was eating something that now
I realize I'm allergic to!

For about 5 months SOLID, I was sick last summer (partly pollen, but
mostly food allergies).  I would feel better in the morning, I would take
care of shopping, then later I would just be at home sick in the wooze.
I think - because in the morning I had recovered from the allergic
reaction of the previous day a little bit, then I would eat something i
was allergic to for brekkie or lunch, and I would get sick again!
I spent the whole entire summer trying to help myself with medications,
and it didn't work.  A nasal steroid spray, Nasalcrom, antihistamines,
singulair, ...

I think I was sick because i *was* rotating my foods other than corn.  So
I was rotating all these food I was allergic to, eating them only once
every 4 days, and my body wasn't masking the allergic reaction as much as
I would have if i had not been rotating the foods.

i think if i hadn't been rotating my foods, I would have gone on eating
foods i was allergic to addictively - a lot of the foods I've had allergic
reactions to are favorites of mine, the allergic reaction is addictive.
And i would have kept on being sick with masked food allergies, having
horrible "inhalant allergies" and "hypoglycemia" - with all the awful
psychological results of the carbohydrate reaction - i have lived with
"hypoglycemic" anxiety for DECADES - and I wouldn't have found out for a
long, LONG time that I still had masked food allergies - because I would
have figured that I had already FOUND my food allergies with the
elimination diet in 2003!

That is what I did figure, until I realized i was probably reacting to
corn starch in antibiotics - so i am very sensitive to corn - and I did
a food challenge with 1/16 of a grain of corn and I got very sick.  Then
I went on a much more carefully corn-free diet - and suddenly I was very
sick - and after a few weeks I realized that OTHER foods I'd thought I
wasn't allergic to - were making me sick.

Now, I have a hope of really *curing* my health problems.  I can get
treatment for my inhalant allergies.  I tried allergy shots before and
i got too sick from them to go on with them.  From my allergic reactions
to foods, I think this is because of the hidden food allergies i have had,
for two years after being gluten-free.

So - if you have health problems after going gluten-free, it's quite
possible that other hidden food sensitivities are doing it.  And
especially corn.  Corn is in so many things, medications, the toothpaste,
etc., that seriously not eating corn is really difficult, and would be
regarded as too fussy for many people doing an elimination diet.  Most
people wouldn't change their toothpaste to a hypoallergenic brand (like
Tom's of Maine) for an elimination diet.  I felt
that way, doing the elimination diet in 2003.  I had heard things about
quitting medications and vitamins (they often have corn or soy) &
hypoallergenic toothpaste - but I didn't believe such fussiness could
matter.  There's a list of corn allergens at
http://www.cornallergens.com/list.htm

So you can see how many foods have some corn in them.

Corn allergy is very underdiagnosed, partly because corn is in so many
things.  People's corn allergies are *masked*.  Corn is probably a much
more common allergy for celiacs than people realize.

I rotated my foods by genus mostly - that means if i ate a food one day, I
wouldn't eat the same food or foods in the same genus, until 4 days later.
People are often told to rotate their foods by family.  I found that too
restrictive to do in an ongoing way.  Instead, I used the information in
Brostoff and Gamlin's "Food Allergy and food intolerance" on food
cross-reactions to determine how to rotate food.  Like, if I ate fish of
any kind on 1 day, I wouldn't eat any kind of fish until 4 days later -
because it says in that book that many people who react to 1 fish react to
many other fishes, the allergens are parvalbumins that are immunologically
similar across fishes.  I haven't had any cross-reactions beyond the genus
level myself, except maybe for my grain reactions.  Grains are a family,
and I reacted to grains like millet on the elimination diet in 2003, that
I hardly ever 8 - so that might be a cross-reaction at the family level.

My web page has new things - take a look!

Laura

http://www.lightlink.com/lark/why.html

* Please remember some posters may be WHEAT-FREE, but not GLUTEN-FREE *