This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

At various points in time I have had to deal with fatigue. I had always thought it must be because of my MS. Just the other day my wife suggested maybe the fatigue is being triggered by Allergies. I had never even thought of allergies before because I do not get the classic itchy, water eyes, runny nose types of things. I just get hit with a general feeling bad and fatigue.

After opening my eyes to this new thought I did some research on the web and believe more than ever it could be true. I plan on seeing an allergist to find out if I have any issues with say, mold or dust mits that type of thing.

Just wondering if anyone else had had simular experiences. Thanks

Hi Dave,

Count me as one who believes you pretty much "are what you eat" or at least I'm positive that at least *I* are what *I* eat...or what I ingest in some way, and all of it affects my symptoms, my mood, my entire life. I'm sensitive to ALL meds, many foods, insects, you name it.

I've been charting 30+ symptoms for 5 years and also making a list of everything I eat for about 1-1/2 years (big monthly chart of checkmarks that shows trends, unusual incidents, NO journaling). It's not quite as obsessive as it may seem, since so many of my symptoms stay the same day-to-day that I only have to write "the usual" at the bottom of the page. Over my 30+ years of weird physical episodes I've learned to pay strict attention to what my body's trying to tell me.

And it tells me that giving up sugar & flour completely eliminated the weird, daily, geometrically shaped hives and nightly restless leg. I then experimented and found that I don't react to ALL sugar & flour, but just junk food, which means it's mainly the chemicals. I keep bowel/bladder problems to a minimum by watching what/when/where and how much I eat and drink (and by giving up most vitamins ). Since I don't drink coffee (it makes me deathly ill), I can outlast a whole meeting full of coffee swiggers. I never eat lunch at all or else I'll doze off at work. Lots of foods make me tired & foggy, while exercise will perk me back up, even when I'm tired.

But testing may not help you. Shellfish and bee stings have sent me to the emergency room in the past, but...I finally got official allergy testing and didn't react to a single test - not even 4 kinds of venom. It seems I have severe localized reactions, but no anaphylactic shock. And the allergy doc said that you can't test for foods.

So, my PCP was right all along - allergy testing won't help me and it was a waste of time. And it might not help you. Like you, I don't have classic hay fever type reactions, so I wasn't surprised when I didn't react to a single of those "environmental" allergens.

I think many would be surprised at how much of the misery of our lives can be brought on by such common triggers and how easy it would be to improve our lives if we figured them out. So, if your insurance covers it (it's outrageously expensive!) get allergy testing, but you might also try keeping track of what you eat. It really worked for me!

Good luck & good health.

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Dx'd with MS & HNPP (hereditary peripheral neuropathy) 7/03 but must have had MS for 30 yrs before that. I've never taken meds for MS or MS symptoms except 1 yr experiment on LDN. (I found diet, exercise, sleep, humor, music help me the most.)

Thanks for the response. I am on board 100% with the whole food thing, as I have been on the Best Bet Diet for over four years and really have been doing very well as far as my MS is concerned. Again, I have had trouble with fatigue, not major issues but on and off and I guess that's where it came to me I may have trouble with other allergies "other to or in addition to food". Seems so straight forward now, I do not know why I had not thought of it before. Made to the apt. to get tested today so we will see how it goes. I actually hope I have trouble with say mold and now I can see how it would be just something else like a food that my body has trouble dealing with.

That sounds odd. My 12 year old niece had some chronic digestion problems and she was tested for food allergies. It turned out that she was allergic to gluten, dairy, and a couple of other things. She's been on a special diet for 6 months or so now and she's doing much better. Maybe it would be a good idea to talk to some different allergy doctors?

NHE

Wow, NHE, I think you're right. They really CAN test for food allergies. Thanks! Let's see...the allergy clinic charged $432 for the standard environmental allergen scratch test... plus $187 for the office visit... plus $220 for the hospital blood test for 4 insect venoms... (insurance paid most of it) and here you gave me an informative second opinion for free! It's only fair that I compensate you for that...where do you want me to send your check?

I do hate to mislead people in my posts, so I apologize if I did.

I just did a search to find out the standard allergens tested to see if they include at least the basic eggs, dairy, gluten, etc., and it sounds like there's quite a variety. I wouldn't be surprised if a handful of basic foods were included in my assortment of pin pricks, but it was the conversation part that I remember most. We discussed how I'd never had anaphylactic reactions to the usual culprits, how one can both outgrow allergies and develop them late in life, how combinations play a part, the difference between sensitivities and allergies.

And that's what makes food testing so inaccurate. My digestive system may react to eating certain foods, just like I react to beestings, but that's not an "allergy" and wouldn't show on tests like the venom didn't. I also wonder if I had reacted severely to any of the foods if they would have continued testing more & more of them. She only told me that the best way for me to decide what I can eat was on my own.

It was pretty funny to finally be able to afford allergy testing and find out that all those years of vomiting, itching, wheezing, and diarrhea were for no good reason.

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Dx'd with MS & HNPP (hereditary peripheral neuropathy) 7/03 but must have had MS for 30 yrs before that. I've never taken meds for MS or MS symptoms except 1 yr experiment on LDN. (I found diet, exercise, sleep, humor, music help me the most.)

The results are in I have a high allergy to mites. Very interesting to me because I do not have the classic watery eyes runny nose symptoms for allergies, just a lot of fatigue. Anyway I am glad I got tested, before I had been offerred meds from the neuro for the fatigue.