About 9 months ago I began seeing a gentleman in his late 50’s complaining of mild abdominal pain, occasional diarrhea, mild to moderate temporal headaches and low level fatigue. He was functional, but not feeling as healthy as he thought he should feel.
We did lab work that showed mildly lowered white blood cell counts and elevated Eosinophils, a type of white blood cell associated with allergies and parasitic infections. He also had mildly low hematocrit and hemoglobin, a sign of a mild anemia. His liver, kidney, lipid, prostate and pancreatic function markers were normal. Fecal occult blood was negative.
We discussed allergies and food sensitivities first as the patient reported that he felt worse after eating sometimes, but couldn’t pin it down to a specific food. I explained the options for finding offending foods such as the elimination diet and blood testing. He decided that a modified elimination diet was something he could do and we made a plan for him to eliminate sugar, alcohol, wheat, eggs, soy, dairy, nightshades, coffee, citrus and peanuts from his diet for two weeks. Then, he was to eat one of these foods 3 times in a day and watch for a reaction on any kind. If he reacted to a food, he was to keep that out of his diet and wait until the reaction totally cleared up before challenging the next food.
I also recommended some gut healing and general allergy supportive supplements like a good multivitamin, a probiotic, L-glutamine, anti-inflammatory enzymes, quercetin and a homeopathic remedy that matched his symptom picture. Soothing teas to rebuild his intestinal environment were also recommended. Marshmallow root is my favorite of the soothing herbs. Aloe vera juice also serves this purpose.
We met again one month later. He was feeling much better overall. He reported that his symptoms mostly resolved on the elimination diet. After 2 weeks, he challenged eggs first, on a hunch, and had a severe reaction in the form of abdominal pain. With eggs out of his diet, he felt much better. Unfortunately, he and his wife had just begun raising chickens, and thus eating lots more eggs, before we discovered his sensitivity.
Eliminating eggs from his diet alone helped him greatly through the summer and fall of last year. Right around Thanksgiving, he contacted me again. This case continues over time and the plot thickens. Stay tuned for more on how this case evolved. For more information on food sensitivities, click HERE.
Margaret Philhower, ND
Cave Junction, OR
