I spend most of my days working with patients who believe they have one of “the hard cases”. They have been from one doctor to the next, to specialists, therapists, but they still aren’t getting the relief they hoped for.
Perhaps you can relate..
Maybe you’ve been to the doctor to get some relief for your chronic fatigue, weight loss resistance, brain fog, digestive problems or life-stealing symptoms and you were sent home with a prescription that didn’t really help – or worse, caused new symptoms. Maybe you were told that all your tests came up fine and were sent home to fend for yourself.
That is not okay.
The problem is that most conventional physicians do not ask enough questions or do enough investigation into uncovering the root cause of your symptoms.
In most cases, simply taking the time to find out how you are eating, sleeping, thinking and moving, and what your environment, career and relationships are like could give enough clues to identify at least some of the stressors causing your unfavorable symptoms.
At GLOW Natural Medicine, the first thing we like to look at with new practice members is toxic load, inflammation, and food sensitivities.
When it comes to food allergies, making a diagnosis is pretty black and white. The typical allergic reaction occurs immediately after you ingest a certain food, and the symptoms – often a rash, hives, or swelling – are unmistakable.
But food sensitivities are a much sneakier situation. In many cases, symptoms don’t occur until several hours or even days after you eat a problematic food, and even then they can be vague and difficult to link to your diet.
In the United States food sensitivities have become an epidemic, largely fueled by the process of genetically modifying food. Gluten, dairy, corn and soy are among the most common culprits. An estimated 18 million Americans suffer from gluten sensitivity alone, and those are the people who have figured it out!
Millions more experience symptoms suggestive of food sensitivities every day, and have yet to identify the cause.
The following are five signs you might have a food sensitivity, along with a brief explanation of how each symptom occurs. Coincidentally, these are also the same five symptoms that most doctors misdiagnose:
No matter how much sleep you get, you are exhausted. You find yourself dozing off during the day and are constantly grabbing sugary and starchy snacks for energy.
When your body is sensitive to a certain food, it causes an inflammatory response in your digestive system, causing your adrenal glands to release cortisol as an anti-inflammatory. This puts extra stress on your adrenal glands and leaves you feeling fatigued.
You’ve tried every diet out there, but nothing seems to work for you. You’re constantly hungry no matter how much (or how little) you eat.
When you suffer from a food sensitivity it causes chronic inflammation, which impairs your brain’s ability to communicate with hormones. One of these hormones is leptin, which is released after you eat so that you feel satisfied. Without the brain receiving messages from leptin you continue to feel hungry even after a big meal.
You may or may not notice that your headaches tend to occur when you eat certain food. This is because reactions can occur several hours after a meal or even when you wake up the next morning.
A headache of any kind is a sign of inflammation in your head — hence the reason you treat it with NSAIDs. It’s not surprising, then, that food sensitivities could be to blame. A recent study showed that 56% of people who had been diagnosed with migraine headaches actually had an underlying gluten sensitivity.
You’re achy all over, but there doesn’t seem to be any logical reason. You’re too young for arthritis, but you’re not a hardcore athlete either.
Here we go again: Food sensitivities = inflammation. Here you’re experiencing an inflammatory response in your joints.
It seems like no matter what you eat you have some sort of digestive distress – gas, bloating, constipation or diarrhea. Each day it appears that more and more foods seem to bother you.
Closely linked to digestive distress and toxin build-up are skin irritations such as eczema, acne, and rosacea.
When you have a food sensitivity, but are not aware of it, you continue to eat the inflammatory food. This causes damage to your intestinal lining – causing leaky gut and throws off the balance of good and bad bacteria in your gut microbiome. This unbalanced gut creates a hospitable environment for yeasts, parasites, and other pathogens to take up residence in your gut, impairing your digestion, inhibiting your enzymes and creating a ton of unwelcome symptoms – including the ones that show up on your skin.
If any of these symptoms resonate with you there’s a good chance food sensitivities are to blame.
I’ve been helping clients break through their fatigue, weight loss resistance, digestive disturbances, and chronic pain by identifying food sensitivities for over 10 years and they can’t believe how much easier it’s been for them to start having consistent, stable, high energy throughout the day and finally reach their ideal weight while feeling their best.
