Corn reactions

[Walkie]

You guys might like to try cutting out corn, experimentally.  Yeah, it's insanely difficult. If you thought that a gluten -free diet is difficult, you haven't tried going corn-free yet. But bear with me a moment.

As I've probably mentioned, i have nasty reactions to corn. These are identical to my gluten reactions, and like the gluten reactions, they get worse with continued exposure. For that reason, I cut out corn sttarch, cornflakes, white sauces, brown sauces, red sauces etc , pills (which almost alwaus have corn starch as the filler) any processed foods that have vegetable starch (or unspecified vegetable anything) glucose(which might be made from corn) , glucose-fructose syrup (which is always made from corn) , vanilla flavouring (usually made from corn)  vegetable oil, most of the artificial sweeteners,   etc.

I did all that years ago and hoped for best as regards some of the "hidden "corn  that I was probably taking in via additives like citric acid (which is usually made from  corn, not from citrus) ;actic acid,  vitamins, etc.  Seemed to me that I'd eliminated enough already, seeing as  the nasty, acute  reactions had ceased. Then, a few weeks ago I started getting very bloated for no apparent reason. I was concerned  because that's the first sign of a food rreaction, usually, and if I don't eliminate the problem food quite quite quickly, then i soon get worse symptoms than bloating; worse and worse and worse, up to and including the kind of pain that makes you hope you're dying , because dying  would put an end to the pain.  ( Seriously. My GP thought it was probably my kidneys, but she couldn't see why gluten would affect my kidneys like that.  It was just that the  pain was in the right place and she didn't have any better ideas) So, naturally, whenever I get signs of some new reaction, I try my best to track it down before it gets near to that particular stage.

so, I thought, well let's try cutting out those last traces of corn  (along with a few other not-so-likely culprits that I've been over-indulging in a bit  lately) ASAP and see what happens.  No more additives, no more Xanthan gum(usually grown on corn) no more....ooh hecj\k, wgen i looked it up there were a few things I hadn't ever thought of ....OK, no more frozen veg , just for a while,  because, apparently they often spray veg with cir\tric acid before freezing them, and there's no requirement, of course,  to mention such treatment on the packet. Well, that's a blow, but hry! it's only for 2-3 weeks,  and I surely won''t die of any vitamin deficicies on that timescale. Olive oil?  Most of the distributors  sneakily cut that with cheaper oils such as corn oil, unless it's organic  ( I guees organic is more likely to be rigourously tested so they don't dare? ) . Ah well, one small  bottle of organic olive oil won't kill the budget. Confectioner's sugar (they add 2% corstarch to make it flow more freely) Heck,  If I'm gonna do this , better do it properly and leave no doubt.

The bloating took a few days to go down, but it did go down.  Much more surprisingly, a lot of other things got better at the same time. And by "other things" I mean a bunch of chronic conditions that were getting worse and worse, and which  didn't appear to be connected with my food sensitivities at all. My Trigeminal neuralgia suddenly went from almost constant to almost absent.  My eyes, which  were almost constantly werping, often inflamed and often aching like mad, suddenly dried u. , And a few other things showed a sudden , dramatic improcbement besides. Coincidence. Possibly, But a couple of cautious re-introductions later,  I'm sure it isn't coincidence . So now I'm stuck with an even  more restricted diet than before, and astronomical grocery bills.  But it's better than the alternative. 

So why am I suggeesting that you guys put yourselves through this hell? well...just for a couple of weeks,  perhaps.

Because, meantime,  I've been doing so much research on this issue that I've clean lost track of my best links, being too fast to forge on to the next and the next, And what I've found out is this :

it's recognised that some Celiacs are also sensitive to corn . The most authoritative authorities believe  that's  rare , but some disagree.  One study suggests that most celiacs react to corn, but then, one study is just one study, and I don't know enough to tell if it''s good or bad science.  Some others suggest 25%. The most obvious thing is that it's seriously under-researched. Also it's obvious that most people would never , ever suspect they have an issue with corn, for the same reason I failed to suspect: they're consuming it all the damned time, and more and more often. The food industry is currently finding  more amd more uses for corn and it's numerous products, and it's already more ubiquitous than gluten ever was, and even more cleverly hidden than gluten ever was.It's not amongst the top 8 {or top 14, depending where you live) allergens, so no use expecting moderation or transparency. In short, how the fuck would anybody know?

So if you guys would care  to experiment on yourselves, you might just find out something useful. I certainly wish that I'd tried this experiment years ago, even decades ago. 

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Gluten-free and lactose-free diets are surprisingly easy to follow these days. A lot of people don't eat lactose or gluten for perceived health benefits rather than because they are allergic or intolerant. So I can go to a pizza shop and order a gluten-free pizza, or I can order a soy cappuccino like I did this morning. Occasionally I have a piece of cake or some pastry, and I can eat a moderate amount of cheese that isn't too high in lactose. I am intolerant rather than allergic.

The problem is that some very stupid people make the assumption that it is all just a fad (which for some people it obviously is). So, for example, you order a pizza and pay the extra $3 for the gluten free base, and some stupid arsehole just serves you up the regular base on the assumption that you won't know the difference. For me it's just means a few lavatorial emergencies and my wife not wanting to sleep in the same room as me. For some people it could be life threatening.

The other one is giving you skim milk instead of soy milk in your coffee if they have run out of soy milk.


I guess it beats ordering a cocktail in Bali and dying because they deliberately spiked it with methanol.


In terms of corn, I haven't had any bad reactions to it.

[Walkie]

Gluten-free and lactose-free diets are surprisingly easy to follow these days. A lot of people don't eat lactose or gluten for perceived health benefits rather than because they are allergic or intolerant. So I can go to a pizza shop and order a gluten-free pizza, or I can order a soy cappuccino like I did this morning. Occasionally I have a piece of cake or some pastry, and I can eat a moderate amount of cheese that isn't too high in lactose. I am intolerant rather than allergic.

The problem is that some very stupid people make the assumption that it is all just a fad (which for some people it obviously is). So, for example, you order a pizza and pay the extra $3 for the gluten free base, and some stupid arsehole just serves you up the regular base on the assumption that you won't know the difference. For me it's just means a few lavatorial emergencies and my wife not wanting to sleep in the same room as me. For some people it could be life threatening.

If only it were that simple.  A "true allergy" is defined as a reaction that involves IgE antibodies. An "intolerance" is anything else (usuallly involving IgG antibodies of some kind). 
The logic applied by the NHS (and most other medical bodies, I believe) is that IgE reactions can lead to anaphylaxis, which can be life-threatening , therefore these must be taken very seriously. Intolerances are not to be taken seriously....with a few odd exceptions.

Celiac disease is one of those exceptions. It can't lead to anaphylaxis , but it can lead to any number of life-threatening complications in the long term.  Therefore, to save argument , it is usually classed as an allergy.
Mast Cell disorders are another major exception. They don't involve IgE antibodies, but they do involve massive realease of histamine, which is the chemical that causes anaphylaxis.   Most of those notorious  fatal reactions to insect venom are caused by Mast cell disorders not byv allergioes, as such.   But, again,  patients with these disorders are usually classed as, and reported as "allergic' to make it clear that we're talking something serious here.

Then there's a great big grey area, and a great big poorly-understood and under-researched area, where all bets are off, IMO.  The idea that mere intolerances can be brushed off as unimportant has been pretty much eroded to the core, by now, and re[resents  just another example of that fatal  "What you don't know can't hurt you" logic.

Now , given that any number of auto-immune disorders such as MS and Rheumatoid Arthritis cansometimes  be sucessgully treated ny a gluten-free diet, should we brush off thise cases as "mere intolernce to gluten ' . Of course not. We don't. ...at least not when the diagnosis of auto-immune disorder precedes the diagnosis of gluten intolerance.  It's only when the diagnosis of gluten intolerance precedes any other diagnosis that you're screwd for being taken seriously.

Ten years or so back, "Non Celiac Gluten Intolerrance " didn't exist as a medical diagnosis, and sufferes were told not to be so silly and go back on a normal diet.  I was one of those sufferers. and I still don't know if I might have been one of those cases where they said "Oops! she's celiac, after all" if they's looked at my bowels, because they never looked at my bowels. But given that my symptoms were a lot more dramatic, a lot more numerous, and a lot more painful  than yer average Celiac's symptoms, I decided to ignore the doctors and stay on the diet. I'd already done a proper (supposedly "gold standard") elimination diet. It was clearly the gluten causing those symptoms, never mind what their text books said.

NCGI is now an actual thing (and about 4 times as common as actual bona fide CD, last I checked) and i've since been diagnosed with it, on the basis of symptomology. Not that the medical profession think it's a big deal, it's just that they now accept that i'm not an attention-seeking nutjob, after all.  Interestingly, if you check out the Celiac websites, these days you'll find that most, perhaps all of them accept NCGI sufferers on an equal basis., because the symptoms are the same as that of CD, the trigger is the same,  and almost nobody believes that it's something to be lightly dismissed any more, unless maybe they're employed in working out Health budgets.

I've had to do a lot of research for myself on these issues, on account of the NHS' dismissive attitude. in the face of symptoms that i couldn't tolerate any longer. Literally, could no longer tolerate. It was a choice between finding a way to curtail the symptoms, and quickly,  or finsding a way to kill myself faster than this.  But should note, I am definitely an oddball. Nobody has as many symptoms as i do, and there actually is a clear histamine involvement at some stage. I saw an NHS allergist a few years back and he was hugely sympathetic and understanding , but just had to give me the old " Unfortunately, the NHS won;t take this seriously, because we don't understamd the underlying mechanism " spiel .  Well actually, that's old logic , new spiel, because I'd never heard a doctor put it half  so honestly before.

So , here I am, still dabbling in things that I'm not qualified to entirely understand, that wou;dn't normally interst me that much, purely in the intersts of keeping myself alive and half-way heathy. I would much sooner leave it to the Doctors, but they just don't have the time and resources.

In terms of corn, I haven't had any bad reactions to it.

I think you missed, or misunderstood my point, that you probably wouldn't know? not unless you mean that you have no bad heath problems that could conceivably be linked with corn

I've had flare-ups  of Rheumatoid Arthritis since my teens, didn't worry about it, assumed they were "growing pains" . By the time I was thirty, the episodes were severe enough to drive me to see my GP, who gave me that diagnosis. Back then, there was no known treatment, if I understood her correctly, and no internet.  In my late forties, I gave up gluten, on account of my bad reactions to that (though the link between thos acute symptoms and gluten was by no means evident until I eliminated gluten on a trial basis, It's too ubiquitous) , To my great surprise , my worst -ever RA flare-up simultaneously melted away , and the symptoms didn't return until, a few years later,  I started having bad reactions to corn.  so I cut out the corn (or at least the most obvious corn) and that seemed to fix it.  Might be coincidence, but  probably isn't, given that RA is now known to respond to such  dietary changes

Simillarly, I've suffered from  TN since my early twenties. Can't say it's got "worse" as such (the pain is about as bad as pain gets) but it's become  increasingly frequent , and has gradually crept all over my face and head.  30-odd years later. i seem to be uncovering evidence that this (along with a bunch of other things)  was a reaction to corn in my diet, all along. triggered by constant exposure to  teeny tiny traces of corn, which  I had to be a whole lot more rigourous in eliminating. And I would surely call that a "bad reaction" if so. It's just the first time I've thought that it might be a reaction at all.

Well, that might be just coincidence but it fits the emerging  pattern.

Not much is known about TN, but- maybe tellingly- atypical TN (such as mine)  sometimes emerges an early symptom of MS (an auto-immune disorder)

[Walkie]

Hmm. More grist to the mill.

I was making a grocery order today, and couldn't recall if calcium sulphate is on the no-go list, so did a quick Google. Well, it was meant to be a quick Google, but in the process I stumbled on  a list of foods to be avoided if you're allergic to sulphites.  And it looked strikingly similar to lists of foods to avoid if allergic to corn .

I also stumbled upon the info that suphites are commonly used in  both corn farming and corn processing. Hence the similarity between those lists, I suppose.

Also, apparently 5%-10% of asthmatics are sensitive to sulphites. (Also, I know ar least one person on this forum who is sensitive to sulphites)
This Canadian site is quite informative:

https://foodallergycanada.ca/food-allergy-basics/food-allergies-101/what-are-food-allergies/sulphites/

So how do you tell if it's sulphites or corn that you're reacting to? I dunno. Can't find a single site that helps with that question.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

All good Walkie, I wasn't very clear about what I meant by "intolerances".

I don't mean mild allergies.

What I mean is that I cannot properly digest certain foods. I don't get a rash, nothing swells up, a lot less arthritis than my parents had at my age. No blocked sinuses or runny nose.

I always had the odd bout of tummy trouble, never thought much of it. But it got lot worse from around 2002 (probably triggered by stress and exhaustion), went to a useless doctor and a useless nutritionist about it in 2003. Because, like most people, I was eating a variety of foods, I had to eliminate all possible foods that might be causing issues, wait for things to completely settle down, then introduce a relatively large amount of each suspected irritant and see what happened. I found that wheat, milk, beer, citrus fruits like lemon and orange, were causing big problems. Nausea etc. Also some dodgy food additive/s that some Asian restaurants add to the food. But not MSG apparently.

Corn? I rarely eat much that would have corn in it. But sometimes when I am really hungry but too lazy to cook, I will eat a couple of big bowls of cornflakes (with soy milk), with no apparent consequences.

[Walkie]

Corn? I rarely eat much that would have corn in it. But sometimes when I am really hungry but too lazy to cook, I will eat a couple of big bowls of cornflakes (with soy milk), with no apparent consequences.

huh. you're not normally this dim, MOSW. or maybe my OP  was too long (didn't read)
I mean, thought i'd made it abundantly clear that you're consuming  corn all the time, if you have anything approaching a normal gluten-free diet.

Do you only drink organic, additive-free soya milk?do  you never eat manufactured sauces? and when you make a sauce, do you never thicken it with cornstarch? you never drink soft drinks? (if you find one that doesn't have caramel, artificial sweetens,  and/or citric acid in it, please let me know, cos i'm seriously missing my Coke) .  you never buy frozen veg from the supermarket , you always freeze your own? you don;t eat jam, preserves or candies? ( you canfind preserves that don't contain glucose-frictose syrup or similar, but not easily, nor remotely cheaply. but  i'm seriously stumped on the candies.they all have something dodgy nowadays. none of them are made with straight-up cane sugar anymore.  ). you don't take any meds? (almost all of them have cornstarch as an inactive ingredient). you don't eat fried food? (or else you make sure it's not fried in corn oil, vegetable oil or non-organic olive oil) . you don't use canned tomatoes ? (or you always buy the Biona ones) you don't eat canned peaches, pears, etc.? you don't eat gluten-free bread? (or by sheer good luck, you found that super-rarity, a  corn-free brand?) you don't use xanthan gum, vegemite, baking powder, iodised table salt....you never eat out? (or you always settle for a plain baked potato, and salad w/o dressing)

here's a good starting place for anyone trying to manage a gluten-free, corn-fre diet :
https://www.glutenfreeliving.com/gluten-free/beyond-gluten-free/gluten-free-corn-free/

Not really expecting you or anyone to try following it, but would be nice if you got my drift.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Cane sugar rather than corn syrup is still the main sugar used in Straya.

I am following Walkie, I get what you are saying. I will explain in a bit more detail after work.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Sorry Walkie, that was just me not being very good at staying on topic.

I don't believe that I have food allergies as such. There are certain foods that I cannot digest properly and they cause issues such as nausea and being called "Mr Stinky" by my wife. These foods are mainly wheat, lactose and citrus fruit. And beer, unfortunately.

Now I always buy "gluten free" wheat alternatives because "gluten free" generally means "wheat free". And wheat is the real problem there.

The way that I can tell if a food or drink is an issue is to cut out all possible irritants from my diet and then re-introduce a significant amount of a food. For example, if my tummy is playing nicely for a few days and I suddenly eat 8 slices of toast for breakfast, I get a reaction and I know that wheat is a problem. For a while I thought coffee was a problem and then I worked out it was the milk in the huge coffees I was drinking that was the problem.

So I've done that test with corn, when my tummy has been playing nicely I will eat a couple of bowls of corn flakes and I'm all good. I even make meatloaf with cornflakes instead of bread crumbs.

I think I'm okay with corn in other words. I do know that some people have more serious allergies than I do and I can sympathise because even I get people who assume that my dietary issues are in my imagination. And it's annoying and I do want to strangle them.

[Walkie]

http://www.intensitysquared.com/index.php?topic=25706.msg1210213#msg1210213'
https://www.foodsmatter.com/allergy_intolerance/corn_maize/joneja-02-15.html