dairy, hay fever, inflammation and prolapse

Hi Ladybug

I see that this topic has been up for a couple of days and nobody has responded.

It is great news to hear that you had such a textbook response to cutting out dairy foods. I am exploring inflammation issues myself and I am very keen to see the new DVD. I suspect mine is multiple foods that I am a little sensitive to.

When you think about it the body uses its immune system and the inflammation response to deal with any foreign protein that enters the body, whether through skin, lungs, eyes, nose or whatever. Now, the digestive tract is just a very complicated tube that runs from one end of the torso to the other. What is food, other than foreign protein (and other stuff)? And it is not a long stretch of the imagination to think of animal protein as being a very special form of foreign protein, very similar to our own body proteins. Digestion is a process whereby stuff foreign to the body is taken in, nourishment is extracted from it, and it the rest is broken down thoroughly and expelled at the other end, being no further use. Blood is drawn to the gastrointestinal tract when it is active. I guess this means that it is 'inflamed' in some way when it is actively breaking down food.

The trick is to get nourishment from foods that do not inflame the body.

I would think it is possible for inflammation to have a role in infertility. We were in that boat too, trying for our first two pregnancies. BTW, if you are not planning on having more babies, and have cut down your inflammation levels by cutting out dairy, I would be keeping my knees very firmly together! ;-)

Re pregnancy and breastfeeding, that's a new one on me, though I am sure the body is quite different in many ways during pregnancy and breastfeeding. I would not be surprised if your theory is true. The body is indeed mysterious.

Cheers

Louise

I've been on-and-off dairy free.
first time we went off dairy was when dd was a baby, saw a huge improvement in her behavior, didn't notice anything about my own health, probably because I was so wrapped up in getting that child to stop crying.
after that, I went off dairy each time I had a baby, they were all 'reflux-y' and the dairy made things so much worse. but I'd gradually start reaching for a quick cheese sandwich by the time the babies were toddlers.
when I finally went off dairy for my own good, I noticed some significant changes, primarily that my fibromyalgia calmed down and my PMS symptoms were milder.
my dh kinda-sorta went off dairy, because I stopped preparing it, and his allergies calmed down and he had less than half his usual bouts of sinus infections that winter.

I think that most of us could probably tolerate some dairy, and probably organic raw products are best (if only I could find reliable sources). but for me, I know I do best without dairy in my diet.

Foods That Fight Pain is an interesting read next time you get to the library. he's got a chapter on menu plans and recipes in the back too, which I enjoyed.