Aches & Pains After Eating? 5 Signs It May Be An Undiagnosed Food Allergy

Can we do better? Patients who come to see me with chronic symptoms often have many potential overlapping medical issues contributing to their chronic illness. Some of the biggest culprits? Food allergies, food sensitivities and nutritional deficiencies. That said, your aches and pains could very well be caused by what you're eating.

Many of the symptoms that we see in conditions like Lyme disease are due to inflammatory molecules in the body, called cytokines, which are produced during the infectious process. These can cause fatigue, headaches, joint and muscle pain, mood swings, sleep problems and cognitive difficulties. These same molecules are also produced when we eat the wrong types of foods, and can contribute to resistant symptoms.

If you're wondering whether your aches, pains, and fatigue after eating are due to food sensitivities or allergies, here are five important signs to keep in mind.

Solution: Eat small frequent meals, don’t skip meals, cut back on simple sugars and carbs, and eat a balanced diet with quality protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats (olive oil, coconut oil, avocados). A five-hour glucose tolerance test with insulin levels can also help determine if you have reactive hypoglycemia.

Solution: Keep a food diary and write down everything you eat. Notice patterns of how certain foods affect you. Certain foods and additives are known migraine triggers (caffeine, chocolate, MSG, aged cheeses, for example). Sending off a food allergy profile can be helpful in determining which foods may adversely be affecting you1.

Solution: Keep a food diary, do an elimination diet, and see your health care provider and/or a gastroenterologist to get tested for these disorders. Occasionally a CDSA (comprehensive digestive stool analysis) through a laboratory specializing in nutritional medicine can help identify the cause of GI problems2.

Solution: Do a food allergy/sensitivity profile, try off grains such as wheat, and do a blood test for mineral deficiencies, including magnesium, with a serum and red blood cell (RBC) magnesium level. Often, getting off sensitive foods and increasing magnesium in the diet (500 mg to 1000 mg/day) will help with chronic constipation.

If you're still unsure, it never hurts to see your health care provider and get tested for food allergies. The test may be what you need to finally receive answers for unexplained symptoms and chronic health problems.