When the food you love doesn't love you back

Whenever you think of that scrumptious meal, your mouth waters and you cannot wait to get your hands on it.

However, for Jane Mumo it is the opposite. She recoils in fear whenever she learns that a particular type of food is served. “I just step aside and say that I am okay, even when I feel hungry,” she says.

A few weeks ago, her friends planned a pizza date in town, but she told them she could not make it just because she is allergic to cheese.
"It is the cheese in pizza that I react to. I get rashes all over my body," explains the 25-year-old.

When her friends organised a surprise birthday party for her, things did not go as planned.

One thing that never misses on such occasions is a cake, and a cake she was bought. None of her friends remembered to order an eggless cake because Jane is also allergic to eggs. In the heat of the moment, she went ahead and had a bite of the cake. “I remembered that my body reacts to eggs after swallowing a piece of the cake. It was too late. I was lucky because it seemed the baker did not use a lot of eggs, so the effect was not adverse,” she narrates.

Causes hyperacidity

She has grown up knowing she is allergic to eggs, fish, mayonnaise and cheese but she has never been to a hospital or an allergist (a doctor who specialises in allergic reactions) to ascertain her assumption.

“My mother noticed my reaction when I was very young. At the time, it was just eggs and fish so she completely avoided including those in my meals,” she says.

Jane says her stomach is so sensitive that even kale causes what she calls hyperacidity, but she does not think that is an allergic reaction.

Sandra Mwimali cannot even withstand the smell of eggs. Eating them makes things worse. “Anytime I eat eggs, I instantly get rashes all over my body,” she says.

Like Jane, Sandra has never been to a hospital to confirm if she is allergic to eggs which she has now stopped consuming.

Brian Mberia's food reaction is from pepper. While it can be easily avoided because it just spices up food, when he mistakenly has it on his plate, he sweats profusely. "A friend once put pepper on my food after I had told them that I reacted to it, so they wanted to see the reaction. I sweat, and it was on a cold day,” he remembers.

Harmon Ellen is lactose intolerant. That means her digestive system is not able to effectively break down lactose which is a sugar found in milk and its products. “I get rashes every time I take milk or its products. The reaction can worsen and cause stomach ache. I feel sick and then get diarrhoea,” she says.  “But I am stubborn, I had a milkshake last week.”

Break down food

Dr Priya Bowry, an allergist who works at the Allergy Clinic in Upper Hill Nairobi, says there are a lot of myths regarding allergies that need to be debunked. “A lot of people make assumptions that they react to something when they don’t necessarily have a true reaction. It, therefore, has to be assessed to confirm if it is a reaction that involves the immune system,” she says. “A diagnosis of allergy requires a history, examination, assessment of their risk factor and investigation,” she adds.

An allergic reaction occurs when the body makes an exaggerated immunological response, fighting against something specific in the diet. It mounts a response to something as simple as the food you eat. Other times, it could be a chemical in the food that you react to.

“Food intolerance occurs when the body may not have enough of an enzyme to break down that food and that’s why a patient may have a reaction,” says Dr Bowry.

The bright side of this is that not all allergies are lifelong and that is why an allergist needs to advise if it is possible to overcome that reaction after some time. “People with mild food allergies can manage by avoiding the food they believe reacts with their body. But, those with severe reactions need to be assessed so that they can be given sound dietary options,” says the allergist.

Oral food challenge

To confirm if a patient has an allergy, a test has to be conducted. “You can do a skin prick test. The allergist selects what allergens to test based on the patient’s diet, you then apply the allergens on the skin, and then put a superficial prick through each of the allergens and then observe the skin for about 10 to 15 minutes,” she says.

“Once the test result is read, an oral food challenge is done. It consists of a short period of eliminating certain foods from a patient’s diet and then re-introducing it to confirm what food makes the patient sick and which one does not,” she explains.

Another alternative method is a blood test. “Blood tests are, however, slightly more difficult to interpret because the test is not based on what is in the patient’s diet and it does not give detailed information,” says Dr Bowry.

She urges people to get medical intervention if they feel the reaction affects the quality of their life, and, more importantly, if they want to get dietary advice and options. “A severe type of allergic reaction is called anaphylaxis which is a life-threatening reaction. It tends to affect more than one body system: skin, mental frame, lungs, heart and it could lead to death if not treated with urgency,” explains Dr Bowry.