Неврозы – Neuroses

There are a number of ways in which you can carry out an exclusion diet – that is, a diet in which you leave out foods that you suspect and then reintroduce them to monitor symptoms. Whichever way you go about it, it is important that you do it thoroughly. If you leave a food out of your diet (even if it is only one food), you have to leave it out totally during the testing period to be confident of your results. You may not get clear results if you cheat a bit, or eat ‘just a little’ of something. Only you and your conscience need know what you actually do eat, but be honest with yourself and be prepared to redo the exclusion period if you succumb to temptation.

Be aware also that it can take time to get clear results. You need to leave a food out, wait for a while and then try it again. Even to test one food, it can take up to a few weeks to be absolutely sure about it, and if you are sensitive to a number of foods it can take longer. So be patient and do not be in too much of a hurry – it is better to get good results eventually, than to get confusing results straightaway.

If you are testing for an adult, do not worry overmuch about nutritional balance for the period of exclusion dieting, unless you continue with it for a period of more than a few weeks, or unless you are already in poor health. Providing you are eating a variety of different foods and are in generally good health, leaving out a few foods that are important to general nutrition will not do you permanent harm. Seek advice from a doctor if you are worried.

If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or thinking of conceiving within the next year, you should not go on an exclusion diet unless a doctor advises.

Working out a diet for a baby or young child should always be done with a doctor’s advice.

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Some people also find, when unravelling multiple sensitivity, that they become unusually sensitive and react very intensely to things around them, as if their systems have been stressed or de-stabilised. It is common to appear to be sensitive to many things while eliminating and unmasking, but your system will eventually settle down and tolerate things again, once you have sorted out the true troublemakers and are avoiding them.

If this happens to you while in the process of sorting yourself out, take a deep breath and do not panic. Some of the things you are reacting to (especially foods and chemicals) may well be temporary intolerances and could go away with time. Concentrate on avoiding the things that upset you particularly badly – reduce your overall load of allergens and substances generally and do not assume that you will be hypersensitive for ever more. Many reactions will be just temporary. Multiple sensitivity is not an automatic life sentence and it is rarely crippling. Stay calm and you will come through. Never throw anything away until you are absolutely sure that you do not tolerate it permanently. It is common to find that you can use or wear something for a while and then become sensitive to it again. If you leave it off for a time and then try once more, often you can tolerate it after the break. Some people use this process to help them cope with multiple sensitivity – rotating the fibres of the clothes or bedding they use, or keeping curtains, rugs or pieces of furniture in a spare room and bringing them out for short periods. So, put things away in a spare room, outhouse or attic, and give them a rest before you test them again.

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The following dishwashing liquids are well tolerated by people with allergy and sensitivity – Boots for Sensitive Skin, available from Boots the Chemist, and Clearspring by Faith in Nature, stocked or to order from a health food shop, or by post from Faith in Nature (address below). Both have very little fragrance, which is the most common cause of sensitivity to other liquids.

If you cannot tolerate these, you could try using Amway’s LOC Regular which is a concentrated general cleaner. Alternatively, you could use a shampoo that you tolerate. This is an expensive option, so use with moderationYou can also use washing soda for washing dishes. Use a dessertspoonful in a washing-up bowl full of hot water. This is very effective for cutlery and normal plates and glasses; but if you have very dirty dishes, or burnt or greasy pans, you would be best to soak them for at least half an hour in a solution of washing soda before finally washing them. Do not use washing soda on aluminium utensils.

Remember always to rinse washing-up very thoroughly to remove any traces of detergent or washing soda, so that you are not ingesting any when you use your utensils.

Remember to use gloves as hand protection, especially if you have sensitive skin.

For dishwashing machines, you can use washing soda as a detergent. Simply fill the detergent container full of soda and use as normal. You will not need rinse aid. Salt used for softening is no problem and can be used. Faith in Nature make a liquid for dishwashing machines called Clearspring Dishwasher Liquid, which is virtually unperfumed and is well tolerated by people with allergy and sensitivity.

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If you are weaning a baby on to solids for the first time, most babies will be happy at first on a very simple diet and you should feel no great pressure to expand their diet or increase the range of foods they eat. Once you have identified four foods that the baby tolerates well, follow the advice above on how to keep these on a four-day rotation -one food per day – as the core of the diet. Give these on a four-day rotation for a few times round to be sure that the baby is well, then introduce new foods singly as the first meal of the day using the protocol above.

You can then either give the new food for the rest of the day if the baby seems fine, or go back to the usual food for that day of the rotation. Repeat a second time round four days later to check a new food, then add new foods to the diet as suits. Build up and expand the diet slowly, month by month, following the timetable in Table.

Weaning Foods

First Weaning
Next Weaning
Not Before
Not Before
Foods
Foods
Nine Months
Twelve Months
Potato
All fruits
Rice
Wheat
Carrot
(except citrus
Oats
Yeast
Sweet Potato
fruit)
Rye
Corn
Avocado
Other vegetables
Millet
Sugar
Parsnip
(except cabbage

Cow’s milk (and
Swede
family)

products)
Turnip

Goat’s milk
Aubergine

Sheep’s milk
Banana

Meat
Buckwheat

Poultry
Sago

Eggs
Tapioca*

Beans, pulses

peas Fish

Nuts and seeds Citrus fruit Cabbage family Tapioca**
*For totally breastfed babies **For part or totally bottlefed babies

Babies often tolerate foods better eaten singly – just on their own, rather than combined – so do not be in a hurry to combine foods. The longer you can keep your baby well, and not reacting to foods, the stronger and better his or her system will function.

Many babies will stay quite happily on a rotated diet, at least until they are well over 12 months and become more wilful. Provided they are getting plenty of a milk that they tolerate, and your doctor or dietitian is happy with their nutritional balance, keep to a rotation diet until the child really refuses it.

If the baby’s diet seems eccentric, do not worry if he or she is happy and healthy and your doctor has no worries. Babies will happily eat things that they need and like, that adults would never consider eating. Babies on restricted diets have been seen to devour large bowls of sago, tapioca or buckwheat cooked just with water, and be totally satisfied and happy.

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You may have already recognised your own pattern of symptoms from the description above of what moulds are and where they are found.

Skin prick tests are reasonably reliable in diagnosing mould allergy. You can ask your GP for referral for such tests. Other ways of detecting mould allergy are to:

• analyse the seasonal pattern of your symptoms

• compare the pattern of your symptoms to high mould situations

Seasonality

Although some moulds are found year round, especially indoors, there are periods of the year when their concentrations are much higher. In the UK, unless there are unusual climatic variations, moulds will have seasonal peaks in the autumn, and in the summer months. April, May and early June are often relatively mould-free. August and September can often be good months unless the weather is warm and humid (as was the case in the late 1980s and early 1990s). In such years, there will be no real dying down of late summer moulds before the damp, rotting moulds of autumn and winter take over.

If, most years, you feel better in April, May, early June and in August and September, suspect mould allergy.

There are often significant daily and regional variations to this pattern, according to the specific conditions that cause the level of moulds to fluctuate widely, even by the hour. A sudden high dew, a change in pressure, wind or temperature can cause a local explosion of spores.

Chemical pollution combined with fog can also aggravate mould sensitivity; the damp cloud holds down the mould particles which would otherwise escape higher into the atmosphere. If you have a very capricious pattern to your reactions, these may be explained by specific climatic or local conditions, or the effect of local chemical pollution on mould levels.

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