Any success with AIP for Auto Immune issues?

moonangel12

The title says it all, curious if any one has had personal success with AIP for their auto immune issues? Looking at using it as an elimination diet to pin point potential triggers. Had an unexpected flare up the last couple of weeks - I am guessing holiday and travel stress, but also my diet has been way off of my normal as well.

shaumom

I have used what is essentially AIP due to lots of problems that were attributed to food.

Yes, it helped immensely. This strict and intense of an elimination diet was not only helpful, but literally necessary for a person like myself who had a freaking ton of food reactions. I honestly cannot say that I would have been 'reaction free' for long enough to even tell what was going on, if I hadn't cut so many foods from my diet. And once I started feeling better, my reactions spaced out enough I could start to tell what I was reacting to (because some foods ON the diet were problems), and I could also slowly start to add foods back in to see what the problem was.

that said?

1. It's insanely hard and it sucks. Before starting it, I think one way to try and do this is to check out all the recipes you can find for this, and try them out with your 'normal' diet and see what you like or can tolerate. And then plan out what you are going to eat, and what recipes, for a month or two so you have ZERO mental energy wasted on that when you are trying to cope with the crummy diet. And also, if you find recipes that can have parts pre-made or -pre-frozen? Do that, too....the least amount of effort you have to do to make this work, the better. Because again - it sucks.

2. It is not necessary for a lot of people. Like I mentioned, I had a crazy amount of food reactions. For those who don't, I honestly think you can do what I have also done, and it can still be very helpful - drop the top 8 allergens (but gluten instead of wheat), plus artificial dyes and preservatives. Or basically, make a bunch of food from scratch. and you just make a meal plan so you don't have the same ingredients two days in a row, so again, if you have reactions, they get spaced out and you can track them better.

3. It's not a healthy diet to stay on long-term. It just doesn't give all the nutrients you need, flat out. Doesn't mean it can't be helpful to try to figure out stuff. And for some I know, they are between a rock and a hard place. The diet helps them with bad auto-immune symptoms that there is no cure for, but it also keeps them nutrient deficient eventually, and they kind of have to figure out which 'bad' is worse than the other 'bad,' you know?

moonangel12

Thanks @shaumom! Good to know!

Unfortunately we are no strangers to food allergies/sensitivities and difficult diets... can be a pro or con in this case, elimination diets don’t tend to phase me as much as maybe it would the average person? We already do some AIP recipes because my daughter can’t do tomatoes or peppers so that is my go to phrase for searching for new ones to try online. I have been gluten free for nearly 8 years already, but I admit I am not as strict as I could be with cross contamination and wonder how much of an impact that might be having long term. Going to continue to research and get a loose game plan together. I am learning my body more and more and am able to pick up on subtleties and connections far more than in the past.

TatdBirdNerd

I have insane food allergies that include all nightshades (potatoes, peppers, chili spice, etc), solanine (a relative to nightshade that includes cherries, apples, etc) as well as nickel (beans, chocolate, black tea, etc). It took me until last year to finally figure it out and I'm living on a modified Keto diet permanently now... But I tell you what, I feel like a SUPER HUMAN! I had no idea how much the allergies were holding me back until I was able to eliminate them as completely as possible. I've struggled with my weight and several different auto-immune issues and getting rid of the chronic inflammation has changed my life.

A lot of people have not considered a nickel allergy when they are struggling with what they think is a gluten allergy... There's nickel in every grain! Does oatmeal or chocolate cause you any distress?

moonangel12

TatdBirdNerd wrote: »

I have insane food allergies that include all nightshades (potatoes, peppers, chili spice, etc), solanine (a relative to nightshade that includes cherries, apples, etc) as well as nickel (beans, chocolate, black tea, etc). It took me until last year to finally figure it out and I'm living on a modified Keto diet permanently now... But I tell you what, I feel like a SUPER HUMAN! I had no idea how much the allergies were holding me back until I was able to eliminate them as completely as possible. I've struggled with my weight and several different auto-immune issues and getting rid of the chronic inflammation has changed my life.

A lot of people have not considered a nickel allergy when they are struggling with what they think is a gluten allergy... There's nickel in every grain! Does oatmeal or chocolate cause you any distress?

Hold up! Nickel? Oatmeal makes me feel icky (my daughter as well), and so does black tea (which used to be a primary beverage for me )... It feels hard on my stomach, the best way I know how to put it. I haven’t been able to drink coffee for years, it triggers all kinds of mood/irritability and neither can my daughter... supposedly it can trigger a gluten like response as well. Oi! Why can’t my body just cooperate and see food as food?? I also have oral allergy syndrome which further complicates things.

My daughter is on Feingold for major mood/behavior issues (potentially a type of epilepsy) and she can’t do apples or cherries (or grapesmuch due to the salicylates (aong with other “healthy” foods).

whoami67

I did it for a while years ago. I'd done GAPS prior to that so I was no stranger to insanely hard healing diets. AIP was much easier than GAPS. These days I tend more toward a WAPF diet, but I am in no way strict at all any more. I found AIP very valuable. The only problem food I really found that I hadn't already known about was black pepper. I already knew about gluten, soy and some other things. And I confirmed that my body does love eggs and thrives on them, and I have no issue with most nightshades (yay). It never would have occurred to me that pepper was causing so much pain for me, but it does and I found it by doing AIP. Of course I have a lot of other issues.

I remember I used a lot of recipes I got from recipe roundups on phoenixhelix.com and from hewontknowitspaleo.com. I'm not sure if either of those websites are still around, but they were helpful to me.

MarziPanda95

I did it for a while and it didn't help at all. In fact it may have made my autoimmune issues worse, I had way more flareups on AIP than at any other time. But that could have been coincidence I suppose. I've tried loads of diets to see if they help and they never do.

shaumom

moonangel12 wrote: »

Hold up! Nickel? Oatmeal makes me feel icky (my daughter as well), and so does black tea (which used to be a primary beverage for me )... It feels hard on my stomach, the best way I know how to put it. I haven’t been able to drink coffee for years, it triggers all kinds of mood/irritability and neither can my daughter... supposedly it can trigger a gluten like response as well. Oi! Why can’t my body just cooperate and see food as food?? I also have oral allergy syndrome which further complicates things.

My daughter is on Feingold for major mood/behavior issues (potentially a type of epilepsy) and she can’t do apples or cherries (or grapesmuch due to the salicylates (aong with other “healthy” foods).

Oh man, I am so sorry to hear your kiddo has salicylate issues! That was one I looked at trying to figure out my own stuff and holy cow that's a broad ranging one. I ended up with sulfite issues - although they knock out graps for me too. ^_^

So, just to add to this, for consideration, some extra info. on some of the food you mentioned. Obviously, these foods may just be terrible for you and cause all this crap. But I've found tidbits here and there on some of them that might be worth adding into the pile of data. Just in case anything else pings for you that might be a connection, in case nickel isn't it (or isn't only it).

If it's regular oatmeal, that'll set off gluten if you have moderate to high sensitivity (it's grown, transported and processed with wheat and barley so commonly that it's pretty much always contaminated.).

Tea is something that is a no-go on something called the 'low histamine diet.' Many of my own allergies are caused by a 'mast cell activation disorder.' It basically makes me react allergically to things I'm not allergic to, but it causes high histamine levels, so this diet can be good for folks like myself.

Something I've found out is that a lot of people who are having many food reactions (including OAS or even sometimes bad hayfever) can ALSO end up having higher histamine levels at some points, so sometimes a low histamine diet can be helpful.
(this is one of the more commonly used diets, by folks who have issues with histamine levels):https://www.jillcarnahan.com/downloads/HistamineRestrictedDiet.pdf
*note - the list mentions all tea is not good. But it means 'tea' in the British sense, from the actual tea plant, and not 'tea' in the American sense, which includes herbal 'tea' (or tisanes).

Coffee - obviously a lot of folks have problems with this. But just in case...
The change in climate has been negatively impacting coffee for a number of years now (some of the common fungus and other problems to coffee trees have shifted ranges to overlap more with coffee plantations, due to temperature increases in the region, is how one science guy I know what describing it). As a result, we are seeing more illegal crap added to coffee as filler to make up for the lack. I think whole bean coffee, that you grind yourself, is considered safer. But if ground coffee was your thing, when there were tests done, the folks found things like wheat, barley, soy, even ground twigs and dirt added to the ground coffee. So...yeah, could be some gross contamination is an issue, too. :-/ . (little article on it, if you're interested: https://time.com/3101138/counterfeit-coffee/ )

Apples - just in case, if your kiddo has soy or dairy reactions to a severe degree, a lot of apples these days have just a little on them. They're commonly added to a wax that can be used on apples, pears, even citrus. (lac wax is the one I know of, but there may be more). Since it's not a 'processed' food, the allergen laws don't apply so it doesn't have to be labeled. :-( . I know a few folks with dairy/soy allergies and apple reactions who ended up being able to eat apples from their own or neighbor's trees, even though all the store ones made them react.


Good luck, and hope you feel better and figure out what's goin' on soon!