Antidepressants Blog

To avoid yeast, you have to stop eating the following foods:

Bread Vitamins based on yeast

Breaded food (e.g. fish, ) Oxo cubes chicken legs

Breadcrumbs Bovril Stock cubes

Yeast bakery (e.g. crumpets, Vinegar

muffins, doughnuts, croissants) Pickles

Alcohol of all kinds Sauerkraut

Ginger ale, ginger beer

Yeast spreads (e.g. Marmite)

Brewers’ yeast

Yeast is often contained as an ingredient in all kinds of processed foods, biscuits and baked goods. Read labels and avoid any foods containing the following.

Hydrolysed protein Hydrolysed vegetable protein Leavening

If you are highly sensitive to yeast, it may also benefit you to leave out other mould- and fungi-containing foods (including cheese, mushrooms and malts).

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Challenge or provocation tests are tests in which the individual is exposed in various ways to a potential allergen and any reactions are recorded.

Nasal and bronchial challenge tests are used most commonly to test inhaled allergens such as pollens or house dust mites. In the nasal challenge test, a tiny amount of a suspected allergen is applied to the lining of the nose and reactions are recorded. The results are measured by counting sneezes in the first 15 minutes, measuring nasal discharge and by examining the inside of the nose. Instruments measuring nasal airflow can also be used.

In the bronchial challenge test, more sophisticated techniques are used, involving inhaling measured quantities of suspect substances, and then recording reactions and measuring lung function. There is a risk of adverse reaction and these tests are usually done in hospital as an in-patient, in case adverse or delayed reactions occur. Tests of this kind are time-consuming and can be risky.

Oral challenge tests are used to identify food allergy or food intolerance. There are a number of ways to undertake these; and unless you are seriously ill, or have severe multiple allergies, you will be able to do them at home yourself in the form of an elimination diet under medical guidance.

The main principle of an elimination diet is to go on a low-allergen diet, or to fast for some time, and then reintroduce and eat suspect or problem foods, monitoring your symptoms.

Oral challenge tests can be organised on a double-blind basis, so that the food eaten is disguised and neither the person testing the food, nor the doctor or nurse supervising the test, knows what food is being tested. This is expensive and not always easy to arrange – you can disguise lentils easily, but not carrots or beetroot, for instance – so it is not commonly used.

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If You Are Sensitive to Bleached Fabric

Try wearing unbleached cotton and linen clothes if you are sensitive to bleached fabric. Sources of these are given below. Unbleached cotton fabric is more flocky than ordinary cotton and can upset you if you are very sensitive to cotton.

If You Are Sensitive to Other Chemicals

If you are generally chemically sensitive, it is better to avoid chemical treatments, such as fire retardants, moth repellents and germicides, as far as possible. Cotton winceyette is often treated and is best avoided.

Dyes rarely cause allergy or sensitivity but a group known to cause problems are mostly chemicals known as the Disperse azo dyes. These are rarely used on cotton, viscose, rayon or wool, but commonly on synthetics. Colour is unfortunately no guide to the chemicals in question. Dyes in nylon stockings and tights are known to cause reactions. You can get dye-free nylons and wearing these may help you to work out if dyes rather than fibres are causing your symptoms. Avoid overprinted fabrics, or T-shirts with placement prints if you are very sensitive. The dyes or fabric inks used in these can be troublesome.

Some mordants are known to sensitise. These are metallic salts used to fasten a dye to a fabric. Chromates (salts of chromium) are known to produce reactions. They are a common cause of occupational dermatitis, having wide industrial uses. If you know you react to chromates, these may be behind unexplained reactions to clothing.

Workwear, such as overalls or uniforms, is often treated with fire retardants, germicides or other protective chemicals. These may be the source of problems.

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If you really want to be sure of what you are doing with your bedding, and to avoid expensive mistakes, there is no alternative to a systematic approach. Diagram 10 is a step-by-step flow chart, guiding you through the questions you need to ask at each stage, and what your choices are.

The three crucial questions you will need to answer to find your cheapest and easiest options are:

• Am I allergic to house dust mites?

• Am I sensitive to chemicals?

• Am I allergic to cotton?

A Shortcut

If you are daunted by such a systematic approach, a shortcut is to go straight to question three and to test pure cotton, either by doing the Pillow Test, or by using a few pure cotton items for a while.

Why pure cotton?

Pure cotton is not totally safe from allergy, nor is it an automatic choice for avoiding allergies, but it is often the best choice for a number of reasons. Pure cotton bedding is for most people the easiest and cheapest alternative if they are chemically sensitive. It is a good option for avoiding house dust mites because cotton blankets can be washed at high temperatures. It is cheaper and more practical than wool, linen or silk. It is Jess likely to cause allergy than wool or feathers. Allergy to cotton is known, but is not common. Test it out before you make any major move and if you react to it, use alternatives.

If Life Gets Complicated

If you follow through the chart and find that you have multiple sensitivities and react to many things, you will have to find a way of choosing between materials that upset you, without spending a fortune trying expensive things. Read on from here on how to cope with multiple allergies and where to find unusual products.

Be careful to check the material of covers of pillows and duvets if you are buying new ones.

You can buy the fillings for duvets and refill an old one. This can be cheaper as a means of replacing old dust mite-full duvets, or of using a different material. Limericks sell these fillings.

If you can only use pure cotton bedding, a sleeping bag liner in pure cotton can be useful to take with you if you go away on holiday, on visits or for work. The Healthy House sell these.

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You can be sensitive to touching, coming into contact with, plants and trees, or to touching or inhaling their products. This is caused predominantly by natural chemicals given off as vapour, or exuded by the plants and trees. The symptoms can be either those of allergy or of chemical sensitivity.

This section deals with sensitivity to wood and grass; to fragrances, oils, resins and terpenes from plants and trees; and on how to avoid problems.

Wood

Sensitivity to wood itself is actually quite rare. It is known for people to be allergic or sensitive to resinous woods – such as pine, cedar, iroko – which give off traces of volatile fumes from the wood. If these types of wood are sealed with varnish or paint, however, the fumes do not gas out, and the wood should not give any problem. If you appear to react to sealed wood surfaces, the cause is much more likely to be the paint or varnish used than the wood itself.

Problems with resinous woods can arise with furniture of pine or cedar, in which sometimes the inside surfaces (such as drawers or cupboards) are not sealed. They can arise from floorboards which are not sealed, but usually only when these are new and the fumes are still gassing out. Wooden pencils or crayons are sometimes made of cedar wood; the wood in their tips, being unsealed, can be aromatic and sometimes cause trouble. If you work extensively with wood, you can become allergic or sensitive to wood dusts – of wood of any kind, not just resinous woods. Sawn wood also harbours moulds and lichens, and these can cause allergy. These are dispersed when wood is cut or handled (say during construction or repair work), but will disappear as the wood dries out.

If you become sensitive to turpentine, the natural resin in pine wood, you may cross-react to other chemicals and plants that are chemically related to it.

Grass

If you appear to be sensitive to grass, but your reactions do not correspond to situations or times when grass pollens are high (for full information, >POLLENS), then the cause may be grass sap or terpenes – the natural chemicals in grass that rise when the grass is growing. Some people develop problems on touching grass; others are sensitive to inhaling the vapours.

Grass sap starts to rise before pollen is produced and if you are extremely sensitive, it will bother you when you are close to grass from April, or even March, when grass starts growing, and also into the autumn until grass stops growing. Grass sap is also given off strongly into the air as grass is mown and just after. Some rush mats, baskets made of grass, and bales of hay, give off traces of grass terpenes for a while.

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