AIBU to be intolerant of food intolerances?

[MrsJeff]

Well, not really the intolerances themselves, just people who BANG ON ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME. A girl I work closely with has a number of intolerances - fine, nightmare, must be difficult, and I sympathise, but I truly don't need to hear about them every day. Nor a blow by blow list of what the canteen is serving and whether she can or can't have it. Or to cover for her when she's off sick having eaten a truck load of "bad things" the day before and made herself ill.

Please let me know - AIBU???!

Its never Ok to bang on about anything is it?Unless you're someone with AS or something I guess

I have food intolerances- well 4/6 of us do,severe ones, with Horrid Side Effects (you don't want to know).

But whilst i'll ask for a black coffee and expect someone not to mind that I brough ds4'sfood rather than eat what'soffered, that'a about it.It's not a riveting subject for me, why should it be for anyone else?

Only time it bother me is when Sis thinks its all made up (like ASD, unemployment (plenty of jobs if you look apaprently ),MS,.......
or when my boys kick off that they can't hve kiwi.The one fruit in many available that makes my throat swell- er nah LOL

Mind, with IBS (post below, PC /MN playing up so cannot see poster names atm sorry)- can be nasty, DH has it and has had to change what he eats;BIL was diagnosed with it, turned out it was a mis diagnosis, waiting now for surgery that becuase of the delay could kill him or leave him with a stoma for life but equally his colon could rupture at any time and kill him. So when people do seem to comlain a lot about IBS I tend to suggest getting any investigations they ahd done repeated on a JIC basis.

Message withdrawn

Lodlass- yes thats what we get reaction wise, it ws sufficient to cause ds1's birth weight to fall from 5lb 5oz to 4lbs and cuse2/3of my others boys to have patch of being FTT

I am presuming that had spya not been available (millenium baby, no professional would see him re diet when at worst due to the time of year) ds1 would be dead.

Can't decide if YABU or not. Food allergies and intolerances can make life pretty miserable.
That said the imaginary intolerances masking eating disorder/ need to be on permanreent diet really hinder those with proper allergies - like my two dds.

Some people are just attention seeking bores. Lots of us though, have very real food allergies/intolerances (I have coeliac disease) and just get on with it, trying to make minimal fuss about it.

You never realise how much of life rotates around food until you can't eat a lot of it

I have a friend like starlight's.

She is very thin and very neurotic.

She went to a health food shop and she had to hold some metal bars or something and they told her she was intolerant to chocolate, coffee, alcohol, bread, cheese etc.

So she cut out all those things.

Lunacy.

Ah yes

kinaesthesiology

they toldme (as a gullible youngster) I was intol to everything exceptrice, water and potatoes

In fact, its milk (casein) and oats with a kiwi allergy.

Nuts (and as I was pg potentially dangerous if I hd beleived her)

My friend reckons she has intolerances including dairy and she witters on about it all the time. It pisses me off though that she'll be a pain in the neck and insist on soya coffee or somesuch while we're out and about but when she fancies it she'll have real butter or wolf a dairy milk. Not that intolerant then.

It has become an issue with regards to her children though and she insists they have "allergies"- I accept her older one might have one and is receiving medical supervision, but the younger one doesn't. I think it is a form of control for her and also attention-seeking.

peachy that's so dangerous though, they were saying that you should eat nothing but rice and potatoes, and drink nothing but water? That will make you ill.

Probably another thread though.

I do sympathise with you- you don't need to hear a blow by blow account of someone's health problems of any nature. But food intolerances are a pain in the bum (quite literally often) and take over ever aspect of your life (expecially if you have to go to the loo 15-20 times a day or are in constant pain as I often am) and maybe your colleague has lost her sense of proportion about them. Unfortunately if she is gluten intolerant like me there is virtually nothing mainstream that she can eat without being ill afterwards- going out for a simple meal with colleagues to a pizza place or somesuch is a minefield for example. And you end up either eating only a salad, or asking if it's possible to go a place where they also do jacket potatoes (and thereby incurring the wrath of people who fancied a pizza) or going along with the plans and having the same as everyone and then being ill for several days. It's not just a health problem, d'you see? It affects you socially as well. And even more so if you go on at length to colleagues about it.

conclusion: YAmaybeNBU, but you don't sound overly sympathetic either.

RainRain, this is the problem with the people that claim multiple intolerances to things like bread etc. It undermines the severity of real food allergies.

Yes and no

Peoplesay severity of severe foodallergies as if an intolerance cannot be severe; it can

read about ds1 and his FTT below; me I get vomiting, diarrhoea,migraines enough to disrupt my life.

however if you said 'It undermines the severity of real food reactions'I would entiely agree with you

I think (and it's a bit of a generalisation) that people with real intolerances/allergies don't bang on about them - they know that if they eat the problem food then there are real consequences for them, so they make sure they don't. The ones that bang on about it are generally the "poor me" types who just want a bit of attention, but who don't have the foggiest idea of what a real intolerance is like. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh here, but my Dad just died, partly because of colon cancer brought on by coeliac, so I get a bit when people get precious about pretend intolerances.

I agree Gerbil IME people with genuine conditions, illnesses etc dont tend to go on and on about them. They are too busy trying to get on with their lives. So much of their lives revolve around their illness, the last thing they want to do is discuss it with all and sundry.

Its different on the internet though. Its often the only chance people get to really vent with those who understand. Specialist forums can make people look like self obsessed nutters. But in real life they keep it all to themselves.

If I had allergies I think I would want to keep things quiet to avoid the looks yoiu get from people thinkig 'here we go, another loon'.

It makes it hard to be taken seriously when you try and explain a problem, people think they know what you mean but often dont. ie. phobia does not = a bit scared, allergy does not = feel a wee bit queasy and intolerance does not = my tummy rumbles a bit.

This is actually AIBU to find dull people really dull.

The intolerances are not the issue. She would be just as dull if she were on a diet - and if she ever plans a wedding or get pregnant I would suggest you resign.

DS2 has really really bad food intolerances and the only people I ever speak to are those who have reason to provide or serve him food and people who ask me.

I have managed to live for 10 years with many of those I see daily not knowing.

YANBU
A family member of mine has a chocolate/cocoa (?) intolerance. If he eats chocolate he gets terrible headaches. So fine, just don't eat chocolate. But why should the rest of us have to never eat chocolate in his presence without him going on about it. Recently, at a restaurant, he wouldn't eat the desert because there was a 'squiggle' of chocolate sauce on the OTHER SIDE OF THE PLATE. It was a good few inches away from touching the rest of the food, but he still sent the desert back. FFS.

Coincidentally my DH gets a rash on his face if he eats chocolate. He never really mentions this to anyone, and solves the problem by NOT EATING CHOCOLATE. Cunning hey! If he gets given to chocolates by someone he just gives them to me !

BTW it is a totally different situation when the person could ACTUALLY die if they ate something.

YABU for misdirecting with your thread title but not for being annoyed with an utterly boring person whose sole apparent interest is her food intolerance.

However - intolerances themselves are a PITA (and are different from allergies), so sometimes they have to be mentioned - but I don't "bang on" about mine, nor do I expect others to pick up the slack if I deliberately eat something I shouldn't (v. rare - I hate the fallout).

Sounds like your colleague is just using her intolerances as an excuse for being irresponsible (and utterly boring, sorry, I've already said that, repeating myself, banging on, you know... )

Hear hear.

I really don't get if I get flamed for this but you can all bog off with your intolerances. Either you're properly, medically diagnosed allergic and will die/be very, very ill if you ingest certain foods or you're not.

Yes, sometimes people get bloaty and farty. It's called digestion, it's part of life and happens. Cows fart all the time, are they allergic to grass?

There are far too many people in this world with not enough to eat and it winds me up when people turn their noses up at food without good reason.

cumbria, you are ignorant and rude.

YANBU
I have sympathy for people who have genuine food allergies ( frinds son has peanut allergy - carries epipen) and coeliacs.
BUT cannt abide attention seekers who harp on about being unable to digest that this or the other as it makes them bloated ( boohoo!)

Cumbria, take a look back at my post.

Imagine if a piece of cheese suddenly gives you agonising heartburn that can make you cry with pain and can even mimic a heart attack, you're taking strong medication (at double the standard dose, as instructed by a gastroenterologist) and most of the time it works, but you might have a bad day, week or month where any bit of cream, butter or chocolate sets it off.

Imagine that acid bubbling into your oesophagus carries a risk of serious oesophagal damage over the long term (and a particularly nasty and incurable form of cancer).

This only started happening to me about 9 months ago and I'm still trying to figure out what I can eat and when. It's complicated and very much a process of trial and error. It needed a series of tests including an endoscopy.

I really wish there was a neat and tidy answer to it like, 'Avoid dairy' but some days, I'll find I can scoff chocolate easily. Other days, a tiny piece of ginger or a peppermint or a square of chocolate can cause agony.

I /do not/ bang on about this to my friends. I pick my meal in a restaurant depending on how I'm feeling and don't mention my issues. But you're being an idiot if you start shouting about how food intolerances only count if they cause anaphylaxis/are diagnosed through allergy testing/whatever arbitrary rules you set.

Crohn's disease is not an allergy. It is an inflammatory immune-based disease involving hyper-reactivity of cells other than those that produce antibodies. To be an allergy, the antibody IgE has to be involved. It isn't in Crohn's; nor in ulcerative colitis or other forms of inflammatory bowel disease, all of which could cause lesions in the bowel, peritonitis, septicaemia and potentially death; to say nothing of the bowel cancer risk from persistent tissue damage. there may be associated food antigens that cause a flare-up - but not an allergy.

Coeliacs disease isn't an allergy. Anaphylaxis is not usually a response in coeliacs; gut destruction is. The villi that help to absorb food are flattened, destroyed by antibodies in response to gluten. This can lead to bleeding, ulcerated guts and malnutrition. Can even be fatal; but it's not an allergy as allergies are defined.

CarmenSD - I presume you have been tested for Helicobacter pylori?

'Hear hear.

I really don't get if I get flamed for this but you can all bog off with your intolerances. Either you're properly, medically diagnosed allergic and will die/be very, very ill if you ingest certain foods or you're not.

Yes, sometimes people get bloaty and farty. It's called digestion, it's part of life and happens. Cows fart all the time, are they allergic to grass?

There are far too many people in this world with not enough to eat and it winds me up when people turn their noses up at food without good reason.

Wrong.

1.an intolerance to dairy in my breastmilk almost killed my baby ds1 when it wsn't picked up. He was at 4lbs when we picked it up.

1. if I eat dairy, or my boys, we vomit, get severe diarrhoea with no warning (lovely that, maybe we should visit you for a cocoa?), get migraines that meds struggleto control

1. Many people who know about these things find a link between food intolernaces and autism severity.

1. Of course there's a difference between anaphalaxis and intolerances, only a dunce woulod argue otherwise: but plenty of allergies are less severe-DH's rash from strawberries in no way compare to the familial casein intolerance we have, and my throat sweller of an allergy to kiwi is far lessof a PITA than the dairy; far easier to avoid for a start!