Asthma as a food allergy

Question:

I have fairly mild asthma, diagnosed as a teen, (I’m now 29), only use Albuterol on occasion, a few times a month. Used to use Serevent but not anymore. My asthma seems to be mostly food induced, I will wake up wheezy all night long after having wine or wine coolers (sulfites, I know), and often after having other snack type foods like Doritoes, cheezy crackers, and even gatorade. I assume it is the preservatives in these foods or maybe the dye. Anyway, I’ve noticed my symptoms getting worse; it used to bother me after a few glasses of wine, now after one; mixed drinks didn’t bother me before, now they do; the other foods that bother me seem to do so more often. I’ve made an appointment with an asthma specialist for next week. I’d just like to be prepared with the most up to date info I can get. Any thoughts on what I can  do, or am I just resigned to avoiding all these foods? I can certainly keep doing that, it’s just getting harder. And kinds of treatment help with food induced asthma?  Any special questions I should ask? Any links that may help? Thanks so much!

Response:

snip >I’ve made an appointment with an asthma specialist for next week. I’d just like >to be prepared with the most up to date info I can get. Any thoughts on what I >can  do, or am I just resigned to avoiding all these foods? I can certainly >keep doing that, it’s just getting harder. And kinds of treatment help with >food induced asthma?  Any special questions I should ask? Any links that may >help?

Avoidance is primarily the big one. Just a note: skin tests don’t always accurately reflect food allergy reactions, at least not in my experience.  Both my son and I have wheat allergies which don’t show up in skin tests.  Our symptoms are asthmatic, not gastrointestinal.  We identified these causes by going through food rotation testing (cut the most common food allergens out of your diet for two weeks–completely–then rotate them in one at a time to see if there are any reactions.  Allergens include wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, nuts, etc, etc…..).  In both of our cases, we were clearing up from respiratory symptoms on the plain diet, but a rotation of offending foods caused a reaction, in very small amounts. Then again, I have a weird metabolism (tolerate codeine but not vicodin, Benadryl doesn’t make me drowsy but Allegra does).  Mileage varies. jrw

Response:

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