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This is the blog of Kelly Jennings, science fiction writer.
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8 comments:
Seriously?
I remember some concern about the amount of corn in our diet that we don't recognize because of the prevalence of using corn syrup to sweeten just about everything. It seems to trigger allergic symptoms in some people. Is that what the doc thinks it is?
Her bloodwork for the celiac disease hasn't come back yet; we've had her off wheat for several days now, though, and no real improvement. I've been keeping track of what she eats, and corn and products with corn syrup seem to make her worse. I can't find much about corn syrup allergy on the damn Net, not even if it actually exists.
Most products with corn syrup also have soy in them.
I guess an allergy doc is our next stop, if celiac disease isn't it.
I checked with the friend who had told me about this. Her aunt is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef who was pontificating about the prevalence of corn and how we are becoming a corn-based society because we feed it to our food animals and include cornstarch, corn syrup and cornmeal in almost every processed food we buy. She worried about the effect that this would have on our bodies because it's not natural for us to consume so much corn. (Native Central Americans had a corn and bean based diet, but supplemented with a lot of other natural foods, too. Nowadays we can have a meal that has a corn product in each dish.)
As for information on the web, I tried google and yahoo and found a few interesting and somewhat helpful sites. If your daughter just exhibits stomach problems and diarrhea (or "dumping" which is just what it sounds like), she might have a food intolerance. Most of what I've found on food intolerance steers you towards food allergies, but the treatments are basically the same. It can take a while to figure out what food(s) are triggering the problem. For me, it took 2 years to figure out that I can't eat eggs, peanuts, tomatoes (unless cooked with added sugar, like catsup and bbq sauce) or cold milk (after I've heated it, it's ok). Because my symptoms did not involve asthma or breathing problems, they were not considered by my doctors to be "allergy-related".
At this point, I think I would go with avoiding corn products for a couple of weeks to see if her symptoms get better. You may have to try some sort of elimination diet to pin the allergy/intolerance down. Remember, it might not be just one food. Once you do get it figured out, she'll feel so much better.
When I go for my allergy shot this week I'll ask about a corn allergy. In the meantime, this might be a good website for you to check out: www.foodallergy.org.
Also, something else to think about, sometimes it can take days or weeks for our bodies to eliminate all traces of food. You might continue to keep her away from all wheat and gluten (including trace amounts) for another week or so and see how that works out.
According to my allergist's nurse (he's off getting married), yes, you can be allergic to corn syrup and the number of people with that allergy is on the rise. It's still relatively "under the radar" so you may need to ask to have her tested specifically for a corn allergy. If you want to pinpoint the severity of the allergy your best bet is a RAST test. Uncomfortable, yes, but it's manageable (take Benadryl and ask for Prednisone once the test is over). SG was 15-mo. old when she had her RAST test. I was barely 4 the first time mine was done (and have had it done 3-more times since). When Dr. K is back in town they'll ask him about resources for information.
Tonks -- thanks!
Corn allergies are real, a real problem trying to find food without corn starch or sryup.
Mine was triggered by switching to Equal for wieght control. Two weeks later I broke out in hives,had trouble digesting food, and a constant itch.
Allergy test showed all of a sudden, at 42 years old I was very allergic to corn.
Now I wonder about breathing, as we change to corn based fuel.
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