Hi All,
What I would like to know is if any of you on this forum have tried the Autoimmune Paleo Diet approach with success/fail for their hives? Also, if any of you have removed food groups and seen a difference??
Sorry if this has already been posted! Also, thanks to hivesguy for setting up this forum. It doesn’t make me feel so alone any more!
Brief history about my Cholinergic Urticaria:
I’ve been suffering with cholinergic urticaria for about 2/3 years. Previous to this I was a fit and healthy teen who went to the gym around 4 times a week. I stopped due to a new job and when I returned again half a year later, I came up with my first hive outbreak. I think they started due to stress of new job, and I do believe a number of jabs I had may have kick started them (flu jab, hep b, malaria, yellow fever, Diphtheria) – mostly in one sitting!!
Ever since then its been getting worse! I now suffer in hot and cold temps. I find that managing my diet even just a little helps improve the situation so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands considering I have nothing to lose, and try the auto immune paleo diet to see if this has any effect on me.
After researching, I do strongly believe diet has a helping hand in this condition. I think leaky gut/digestive problems trigger this condition so hopefully monitoring and having supplements can eventually help!
Your thoughts on this would be great :),
Olioli
Hivesguy says
Hello Olioli,
I can’t recall any posts on this forum regarding the paleo diet specifically. However, there have been several posts on this forum with people reporting a huge improvement or even cure from diet modification. One individual seen tremendous relief just by removing gluten (wheat). In a more recent post, a person reported relief after working with a dietitian. Others have reported dramatic improvemet with diet modification or allergy elimination diets.
Having said that, others seem to indicate that diet modification hasn’t helped them. I’m a big advocate of spending a great deal of time (maybe a year or two) tweaking one’s diet in an attempt to cure this, especially since it was the biggest thing that made my hives go away. It costs nothing to modify your diet (you just buy different foods).
Since you said that managing your diet even a little seems to help your hives, I’d definitely recommend experiementing with different things and cutting out foods with a high allergy potential over time to see if it helps (always get advice from a doctor/dietitian first).
I hope you find relief soon,
Hivesguy
L says
Hivesguy, just curious but is there a list you’ve got somewhere of what specific things eliminated people seem to have found as the “key”? And I imagine the only way to know if anything is working is to intentionally trigger an attack, right?
Hivesguy says
No, I don’t have a list. If you use the search function on the site, you may be able to locate the posts. From memory, I know that one person cut out wheat and saw a tremendous difference. Another individual saw relief from modifying their diet (click link to read). Others have reported at least some benefit after removing dairy or wheat.
As far as knowing if it is working, my hives just kind of gradually got less and less until I could sweat and do things without having an attack.
I hope that helps!
Olioli says
Hi again!
Thanks for your response, I’m definately going to start tweaking my diet before becoming reliant on antihistamines again. I haven’t started this diet as of yet but I thought I may add that I’ve cut out having English breakfast tea with milk (6 cups a day usually) and milk with cereal etc. and I haven’t had a hives attack in a week which is unusual as it happens every day. It’s early days but I’m thinking perhaps milk had an effect on me – or even tea? I was tested for sensitivities and it brought up a sensitivity to Casein which is a protein present in cows milk. It could just be a coincidence as the air has cooled in UK but shall update in a month or so 🙂