Causes Of Pollen Allergies
For all allergies, the immune system reacts to specific allergy trigger molecules . Your immune system produces antibodies that detect the allergen and cause inflammatory reactions and the release of a chemical called histamine. Histamine causes hay fever symptoms, such as itchy and watery nose and eyes, and sneezing.
In Victoria, inland areas tend to have higher pollen counts and northerly winds can bring pollens from inland regions to the coastal areas, including Melbourne. In contrast, the east coast of Australia often has less pollen, because winds tend to blow in from the sea and the Great Dividing Range protects the coast from inland winds. In South Australia and Western Australia, levels of pollen in the air vary, depending on wind direction.
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How Common Are Food Allergies And Intolerances
Food allergies affect about 1 percent of adults and 7 percent of children, although some children outgrow their allergies. Food intolerances are much more common. In fact, nearly everyone at one time has had an unpleasant reaction to something they ate. Some people have specific food intolerances. Lactose intolerance, the most common specific food intolerance, affects about 10 percent of Americans.
Whats The Difference Between Food Intolerance And Food Allergies
Food intolerance, or food sensitivity, is not the same thing as having a food allergy.
A food intolerance:
- Occurs when your digestive system cant break down certain foods.
- Causes symptoms like an upset stomach that arent life-threatening.
- Brings on symptoms within a few hours after eating as the food makes its way through the digestive tract.
- May not cause symptoms if you eat just a small amount of a food.
A food allergy:
- Brings on symptoms within minutes of consuming even a small amount of an allergy-inducing food.
- May cause a severe, life-threatening reaction called anaphylaxis. Without an epinephrine treatment, this reaction can be fatal.
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Fast Fix For Mild Fatigue
Some of us are simply tired with no medical cause. The good news is that exercise may give us a boost. Studies consistently show that people who engage in regular exercise feel less fatigue than those who don’t. When exercising for energy stay in the low-to-moderate exertion range, such as walking, yoga, or light resistance training to fight fatigue.
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Cross Reactivity And Oral Allergy Syndrome
When you have a life-threatening allergic reaction to a certain food, your doctor will probably recommend that you avoid similar foods, too. For example, if you react to shrimp, youre probably allergic to other shellfish like crab, lobster, and crayfish. This is called cross-reactivity.
Another example of cross-reactivity is oral allergy syndrome. It happens in people who are highly sensitive to ragweed. During ragweed season, when they try to eat melons, especially cantaloupe, their mouths may itch. Similarly, people who have severe birch pollen allergy may also react to apple peels.
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Certain Allergy Medications Can Worsen Fatigue
Even though they work to relieve some symptoms, certain allergy medicines can actually make you more tired. Antihistamines in particular have been known to cause drowsiness, however, most newer, second-generation pills are designed to be non-drowsy. Still, it is important to always read labels carefully, and consult with a doctor if unsure which allergy medications may cause increased fatigue.
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Figure Out Whats Causing Allergies
Allergy symptoms are a sign your body is fighting off an allergen.
So to best manage those symptoms, its important to identify what youre allergic to.
If you have allergy symptoms that only happen certain times of the year you might have allergic rhinitis .
The most common causes of allergic rhinitis include:
- Pollen, which usually causes allergies in the spring and early summer
- Mold, or tiny fungi that float in the air like pollen, which usually causes symptoms in late summer and early fall
Other forms of allergic rhinitis also stem from environmental allergens, but they may occur year-round:
- Dust mites, tiny organisms found in household fibers
Other common allergy causes may be easier to identify, because theyre not circulating in the environment:
- Insects and insect stings
If you have persistent allergy symptoms and youre not sure what youre allergic to, speak with your doctor.
An allergist can diagnose you via allergy testing and recommend a treatment to help.
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Food Sensitivity Symptoms And Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome
As far as food sensitivity symptoms are concerned, they are either delayed or acute. Specific types of food tend to be the issue when the problem is caused by adrenal fatigue. Food sensitivity symptoms vary from each individual. Although these problems can be unpleasant, they are not generally urgent or cause for emergencies, such as in the case of anaphylactic shock. After eating one’s trigger food an individual may experience a delay for a period of time, generally one or two days. Fatigue and anxiety are major indicators of adrenal fatigue. In this case one will also likely experience a lack of clarity or fogginess in their thought processes, otherwise known as brain fog.
How Do Allergies Cause Extreme Fatigue
Allergies can cause extreme fatigue in multiple ways. It not only affects nighttime sleep and disrupts sleep, but also can induce daytime fatigue as allergies can wear down the immune system over time.
The allergens upset the immune system. When we are experiencing allergy symptoms our immune system is constantly working to keep releasing chemicals to help make us feel better. This constant running of the immune system can leave your body feeling overworked, weakened, and exhausted.
While allergies can cause fatigue, they can also cause brain fog. Allergic sinusitis affects the amount of oxygen being taken in from your nose due to blockage and congestion. This lower oxygen level in the body can decrease daytime mental efficiency as well as cognitive function. This results in “brain fog”. Some of us might think that it is a placebo effect due to the state of feeling unwell, but it is actually a side effect that can occur with allergic or chronic sinusitis.
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Could These 3 Food Groups Be Making You Tired
Do you ever feel completely exhausted at the start of the week, even after a calm and rested weekend? Most of us tend to attribute general fatigue to a mixture of stress, age, and the activities of a modern, hard working life. However, recent studies in health and nutrition have suggested that there may be some factors that can contribute to a marked increase in feelings of fatigue and exhaustion.
We now know that certain foods have the potential to encourage feelings and symptoms of fatigue. This is often due to hidden food intolerances that individuals may have to specific foods, without even knowing it. Addressing these intolerances and sensitivities is a great first step to restoring energy levels and vitality, particularly for those suffering from adrenal fatigue. We discuss this in much greater detail in the book, but here is a list of three leading culprits.
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The Link Between Food Sensitivity And Fatigue
Many of us have experienced that tired feeling after having too much at Christmas or a party with friends. You may remember a family member falling asleep after the food has been cleared away. As the body works in overdrive to digest and process the meal, sleepiness takes over.
But when you have a food sensitivity, this could happen more often. The fatigue could be a response to a food sensitivity or allergy. Your body uses up your energy reserves to deal with the food sensitivity, making you too tired to do much else.
It could also be a symptom of the stress caused by other more typical food sensitivity symptoms like IBS, cramps, and migraines. Lastly, the tiredness could stem from the body not being able to absorb certain nutrients and antioxidants from the food youre eating. As a result, your energy levels get lower.
As you can see, fatigue can be a relatively common symptom of food sensitivity and intolerance. At yorktest, we have found 46% of our customers have experienced symptoms of fatigue prior to taking a test.
This was true of keen marathon runner, Ian Moore. Ian was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome . A mixture of brain fog, memory loss, headaches, chronic fatigue, and nausea resulted in Ian taking long-term leave of absence from work, and the 38-year-old had to pull out of the Amsterdam marathon.
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The Best Allergy Testing For Adrenal Fatigue Patients
In my clinical experience, however, many patients get symptomatic relief from the treatment of IgG-mediated food sensitivities. IgG is associated with the blood and is often tested to identify delayed or hidden food allergies or sensitivities.
If I suspect possible food allergies or sensitivities, I test IgG ELISA first. Then, while were healing the underlying cause of these allergies, we also treat the symptoms in the digestive and immune systems.
When the symptoms of these allergies are relieved, it also alleviates a major disease stressor on the stress response system. Lifting that burden enables them to heal on a deeper level faster than if these reactions went untested and untreated.
Symptoms Of Food Allergy And Intolerance
It can be difficult to tell the difference between the symptoms of food allergy and food intolerance. Usually, symptoms caused by food allergy develop very soon after consuming the food. While symptoms caused by food intolerance can be immediate, they may also take 12 to 24 hours to develop.Food intolerance reactions are usually related to the amount of the food consumed. They may not occur until a certain amount of the food is eaten, but this amount varies for each person.The symptoms of food allergy and intolerance can also be caused by other conditions, so it is important to see your doctor for a medical diagnosis.
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How Are Food Allergies/sensitivities Diagnosed
People with food allergies know exactly what food causes their allergy. They eat peanuts or a product with peanuts in it and immediately have a reaction. Their food allergy was diagnosed using either blood tests or skin tests.
In an allergy skin test, a very small drop of a liquid food extract, one for each food, is placed on the skin. The skin is then lightly pricked where the food extract was dropped. This is safe and generally not painful. Within 15 to 20 minutes, a raised bump with redness around it, similar to a mosquito bite, may appear. This shows that you are allergic to that food.
There are two accepted methods in determining a food sensitivity:
Laboratory tests
Lab tests for food sensitivities measure IgG or IgA antibodies to particular food proteins. Ideally, a lab will test both, as you can have a reaction to one but not the other. Once a food allergy is ruled out food sensitivity tests are run. For example, if you suspect you react to peanuts, ruling out a peanut allergy should be your first priority. Should the food allergy test show that you are not allergic to peanuts, your doctor may decide to investigate a peanut or legume sensitivity.
Elimination or reset diets
Your fatigue is different than the fatigue of anyone else you know. Youre a unique snowflake and your nutrition should reflect this. Food might not even be the cause of your fatigue. But the only way to find out is to experiment.
Can Allergies Cause Fatigue And Body Aches
Once patients ask and receive the answer to the question, Can allergies cause fatigue? they are apt to wonder if allergies might be behind other frustrating symptoms. One of these lesser-known symptoms of allergies is body aches.
Allergies cause inflammation not only in your nasal tissues but in other areas of your body as well, including the tissues in your joints. This inflammation can cause body aches, which can be compounded by fatigue. Allergy-related body aches may also stem from frequent snoring or coughing, which can create wear and tear on a patients body.
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The Relationship Between Fatigue And Food Intolerance
If you suffer from Fatigue or Tiredness, and have not yet discovered a cause then it is possible that you could be one of the estimated 9 million adults in the UK with a food intolerance.
These food sensitivities can be very difficult to pinpoint – often a trial and error elimination diet alone can take months before trigger foods are identified, as your fatigue could be due to a food you have just eaten, or it could be because of a food you ate earlier in the day, or even one or two days previously
The Cause Of Your Adrenal Fatigue
A “hidden” stress to our adrenal glands, delayed food allergies and food intolerances are also culprits in hindering our attempts to feel better and have more energy. When we think of being allergic to something, we typically expect that within a relatively short time period we will begin to see obvious and dramatic reaction to the offending substance, like hives or swelling and shortness of breath, but with delayed food allergies, that is not always the case. It may take hours or DAYS to manifest symptoms, and then they may not be a reaction that we recognize.
The adrenal hormone cortisol plays a role in responding to allergens, so when you are constantly exposing yourself to foods you are allergic to, your adrenal glands are constantly working to respond. When the offending allergen is something as common as wheat, your adrenals are always on some level of “alert”, and you may not even realize that a food allergy is the source of this stress.
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How To Beat Food Intolerance Fatigue
The obvious way to fight off food intolerance fatigue is to remove the foods you have a reaction to from your diet.
The experts explained: Your body fighting off the foods to which you are intolerant takes energy a bit like how you might feel when you are fighting off a cold.
But by removing the foods that you have a reaction to, you can reduce your immune load and thus free up energy.
Fatigue can have a huge impact on both your personal life and career, so take control of your diet and free yourself from your symptoms.
The York Test experts also suggest staying away from ultra-refined foods as you try to gain your energy back. This includes things such as:
Suppressed Digestion And Food Intolerance
Suppressed digestion from chronic stress and Adrenal Fatigue leads to low stomach acid production, which leaves undigested food in the stomach. This undigested food is then dumped into the small intestine where it causes irritation to the sensitive digestive lining.
These undigested foods will also appear foreign to the immune system. That means that theyre more likely to be sampled by the immune system. This sampling process leads to the increased likelihood of mistakes, where undesirable antibodies to the food are produced.
Every time we eat an allergic food, it slows our healing.
This process is made even worse by the irritation in the lining of the digestive tract that is created by the undigested food. Stress hormones also deteriorate the protective outer mucin lining in the digestive tract.
This vulnerable environment creates damage and inflammation that leads to intestinal permeability or leaky gut. Leaky gut acts just like it sounds the lining of the gut becomes permeable to larger bits of protein allowing them to enter the bloodstream.
Once these proteins enter the bloodstream, they are even more likely to be identified as foreign by the immune system, leading to further immune sampling and increased antibody production.
- High blood pressure
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Other Adverse Reactions To Food
There are many other adverse reactions to foods, apart from allergy and intolerance, including:
- Feeling unwell after eating from other causes such as heartburn after a fatty or spicy meal or a hangover after too much red wine.
- Coeliac disease is not an allergy, but does involve an immune system response to foods containing gluten. When gluten-containing cereals are eaten, inflammation of the gut occurs, resulting in poor absorption of nutrients. Major symptoms are gut upset, fatigue, anaemia or weight loss.
- Non-coeliac gluten intolerance is a recently recognised condition which can cause symptoms such as abdominal disturbance and occasionally malaise and tiredness. It appears to be genuine as proven by blinded challenge studies but the mechanism is not known.
- Food aversion is a condition where a person not only dislikes a food, but also experiences unpleasant physical symptoms when they see or smell the food. Symptoms are triggered by emotions associated with food rather than the food itself. This does not usually occur if the food is disguised.
- Underlying anxiety can result in unconscious over-breathing or hyperventilation. The symptoms that result can be very distressing, and can sometimes resemble food allergy.
ASCIA is the peak professional body of clinical immunology/allergy specialists in Australia and New Zealand.
For more information go to www.allergy.org.au
To donate to immunology/allergy research go to www.allergyimmunology.org.au
Nightshade Fruit & Veg
Another food group that can cause intolerance related fatigue are the fruits and vegetables from the Nightshade family. Included within this group are peppers, tomatoes and even potatoes, which are obviously quite popular and with the concept and importance of an intolerance test still not being as widely known as we would like, many suffer their whole lives with the fatigue it causes, completely unaware that they could have done something about it.
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