A Challenging Diet

Some people have made the claim that fibromyalgia is caused by what you eat, specifically claiming that it is in reality a food allergy. Many of these people have something they want to sell you, such as food nutrient plans and special pills. However, there is no scientific consensus that fibromyalgia is caused by food allergies, nor is that the even remotely prevalent view as to what fibromyalgia is.

There is a little bit of truth in this, though, in that for some people, changing their diet can make them feel better. It won't eliminate their symptoms, but it can help. The reason probably has to do with what we know about fibromyalgia and its tendency to make you hypersensitive to a wide spectrum of things. A hypersensitivity to some types of foods makes sense. The specific food that may be making you worse will vary from person to person. It may also be that a food reaction has nothing at all to do with your specific issues.

I tried a number of things. I cut out caffeine. I cut out artificial sweeteners. I cut out fish. The last was easy, because I don't like fish. My system was easy to follow but rather unscientific. I had no effective way to really know what was going on. What should I eliminate from my diet? How long should I cut something out of my diet before I decide it does not make any difference? Is there a more rational way to go about discovering if something in your diet is making things worse?

It turns out that there is. Before we get to that, though, we need to understand what a food allergy is. Generally, it is an adverse reaction to a food protein. It is more complex than that, because we are also dealing with metabolic conditions such as lactose intolerance. Exactly what you are reacting to can be difficult to determine. The composition of foods is complex, and we throw in additional additives and chemicals. Food reactions can be immediate or they can take up to 28 hours.

There is a scientific approach to figuring out what is causing you problems if you suspect a food allergy is making you worse. The complete plan is described at Elimination Challenge Diet, developed by the Jefferson Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine Protocols. It was developed in 2007.

The idea behind it is quite simple. In the first phase, you eliminate from your diet the leading culprits: sugar, dairy, wheat,alcohol and caffeine. In the second phase, you eliminate other likely allergenic foods, including corn, peanuts, soy and other gluten grains (rye, barley, oats), eggs,

citrus, yeast, and all fermented foods. You will be off of these foods for a week.

Once you have been off of the foods, they guide you through the process of reintroducing them in a specific order so that you can track if any of them seem to be causing you a problem. When you do notice a reaction, you stop reintroducing foods and eliminate what seems to be causing the problem until that problem has resolved itself. Then you continue reintroducing new foods until you have restored your diet, but without any f the problematic foods.

It seems to be an intelligent and scientific process for figuring out if a certain food is causing you a problem. This is a general food testing protocol. I have read nothing about its use for people with fibromyalgia. So many of my symptoms come and go, I wonder if food allergy reactions are consistent or if they are more pronounced at certain times. If this is the case, then the effectiveness of this protocol would be diminished. Even so, it still seems like the best approach I have come across so far.