Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sas Holland on March 30, 2015 at 4:21am

Hi Will be healed,

I did follow the autoimmune protocol  diet  (A.I.P.) for 5 weeks and found it very hard, because so much is "forbidden"  (like all grains even rice, nuts, seeds, all dairy, nightshades, eggs,sugar, legumes, a lot of spices).

I did not notice anything (better or worse) except that I lost weight  which was good:)

But I have to say that I never experienced itching, flaking, pain or redness before. Only since I got the diagnoses last sept. 2014 I do feel itching sometimes, but not very often and not very bad. And I am not sure whether the itching is not just  psychological, because since I now about my FFA I am thinking about it al lot.

So that's why I found the diet very hard, because I could not notice anything positive directly.   My biopsy showed that my FFA was very little active, so that's probably why I do not feel a lot, but it's still a mystery to me haw my hairline has receded without me actually  feeling something. I have a lot of curly hair in my face, that's maybe why it took me so long to notice.

The Autoimmune diet is off course a elimination diet and after those 5 weeks I was supposed to start adding foods again  very slowly to see whether I would have a reaction. But since I did not feel better on the diet in the first place I kind of skipped that fase and went into the next diet, the IgG blood testing diet.

Anyway so I stopped with the diet and then I had my blood tested with IgG testing, and the results of that where completely different, for instance it said  that according to my results I could eat  all nightshades again and butter and farmers cheese, but not milk or hard  cow cheeses. It is a very long list of what you  can and cannot eat. It was very hard to go out to dinner in a restaurant ( I  eat out a lot) or at a friends house. For instance No: kale, endive lettuce, leeks, olive oil , wheat, but I could eat spelt bread. I followed this for a couple of weeks too, but again I did not notice anything and it is confusing; the first diet said, don't eat any bread or grains or butter, the other diet telling me it is okay to eat some grains like rice, spelt, maze and all the nightshades, but no olive oil and no other common spices.

So I am basicly trying  to follow the  IgG test diet, since I can eat more things, but I do cheat a lot.

Off course I did not follow any of these  diet very long but hope this information helps you a bit.

Permalink Reply by MJ on March 30, 2015 at 6:35am

I did the anti inflammatory diet and severely restricted gluten and dairy for a year and resolved a whole host of issues. Like Sas I don't have FFa symptoms so other than not losing much more, I could not tell a difference there. I ate a lot of other grains, legumes, and nuts and would have been wholly unsuccessful trying to be any more restrictive. I lost too much weight as it was. Now that I am working full time with a very busy family schedule, I am not eating the same way, but I am still eating as healthy as possible. To eat so restrictively was almost a full time job in itself with all the planning, food prep, and constant shopping for fresh foods.

I will say that last year was the first year since childhood that
I had no seasonal allergies. I think the dairy or gluten is the culprit and I need to cut them asap as I have already had some mild allergy symptoms with the weather fluctuations.
MJ

Permalink Reply by April on March 30, 2015 at 9:13pm

Hi, I did the paleo autoimmune protocol for close to a year. It did help with some other issues I have, but I don't think it affected the FFA either way. However, I did notice that my scalp would itch so much worse when I would try to add nuts or coconut back into my diet. So I generally still avoid those foods although I'm no longer following the diet now that im pregnant. I think it is a really difficult diet to follow long term, but it might help you to figure out if there are any specific foods bothering you. Good luck: )

Permalink Reply by Debs on April 10, 2015 at 8:19am

Nightshade veg can affect some people with arthritis but not everyone reacts to them. I do eat nightshades still but I eat more of other veggies.