What's your poison

THE FIRST time you called in sick after pigging out and getting sloshed at a friend's dinner party, you assumed you just had an extra bad hangover. The sec ond time you thought it was indigestion.
But if it is becoming a habit of sorts, then maybe it's time to sit up and think. It could be something you have eaten. Do you get sick every time you eat a particular kind of food, say prawns, crabs, brinjal...? If yes, welcome to the world of food allergy — not easy to diagnose, and definitely not easy to handle.
Is there a way out of this problem? No, say medics. All you can do is stay off the food that makes you sick. Not much consolation, is it?

Intolerance or allergy?
There may be times when some food or the other makes us sick once in a while. That may not necessarily be an allergy unless it leads us to a life threatening condition or extreme agony. In fact, we may not even bother about it if we are not about to collapse and die. That's because a majority of us suffer only food intolerance as opposed to food allergy.
Says Dr Ajay Kumar, senior consultant, dept. of gastroenterology, Indraprashtha Apollo Hospitals, "An allergy is an abnormal response to a normal substance for a long period whereas food intolerance means a temporary inability of the body to process a particular food." The symptoms of a food allergy are usually immediate, dramatic and visible: coughing, sneezing, vomiting, migraines, watering eyes, rashes and in severe cases choking, collapsing etc. Sometimes the reactions can last for hours or even days.
However, symptoms of food intolerance would be excess gas after fermentation occurs when the food passes through un processed. Here, the gastro-intestinal tract is simply unable to produce the appropriate enzymes for normal chemical breakdown of the food.

What's your allergy?
For some people, it could be something as innocuous as milk that makes their body go haywire. For others, it could be eggs, brinjal, seafood, peanuts, soya, sushi, mushrooms or even bananas! The most common would be seafood, especially prawns, says Dr Anoop Misra, professor of medicine, AIIMS.
In adults, the foods most involved with allergies include shellfish (such as shrimp, crab and lobster), peanuts, walnuts, eggs and fish. Says Dr Ajay Kumar of Apollo Hospitals, "Sometimes even ajinomoto used in Chinese cooking can cause a food allergy resulting in diarrhoea, skin rashes, etc. Milk can cause bloating and flatulence." Children often react to peanuts, milk, eggs, soy and wheat. Dr Anupam Sibal, group medical director and senior pediatrician, Apollo Hospitals, says, "A permanent lifelong intolerance to gluten (wheat, barley and rye) results in celiac disease which is usually characterised by loose motions, irritability and weakness."

The genesis
While most experts say it is tough to actually pinpoint how a person develops a food allergy, some say it may have to do with heredity, as in the case of all allergies
COMMON CULPRITS
Most foods trigger similar symptoms in case of allergies. Here are a few of them:
Milk: Itchy red rash, swelling, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, gas, bloating, or abdominal cramps
Peanuts: Stomach pain, diarrhoea, sickness, difficulty in breathing
Seafood: Skin rashes, stomach and respiratory problems
Egg: Eczema, redness and swelling around the mouth, wheezing
Brinjal: Difficulty breathing, itching.

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