Medsarticles. Medical Weblog

The principle of a rotation diet is to manage your diet formally, so that you only eat certain foods at given intervals. Its purpose is both to prevent and to cure. It helps prevent you developing new intolerances or allergies by keeping your diet varied and unrepetitive. It can help cure mild allergy or intolerance by reducing the load of a food in your diet, while still allowing you to eat it in moderation.

A rotation diet is usually planned on a four-day basis. You are allowed to eat a particular food on one day in the rotation, and not again until that day comes around once more. The foods that you tolerate are allocated to each of the days of the rotation and you stick to that system. So on Day One you have a list of foods from which you can choose what you will eat that day; on Day Two, you have your Day Two list, and so on.

A four-day basis is chosen because four days gives the body time to clear the food from the system, and most people are able to tolerate foods well at four-day intervals. You usually start out on a four-day rotation, keep to it strictly and then modify it to suit your own system, or way of life.

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Allergy and sensitivity to chemicals is a contentious and highly controversial area. Many doctors and scientists would agree that they have an inadequate understanding of many people’s apparent reactions to chemicals in their environment. There is little research data to explain what chemicals cause reactions, what symptoms result, and what the underlying mechanisms in the body actually are.

The areas that are best documented, and where most doctors and scientists agree, are those of allergy to chemicals (where the immune system is involved, and which can be detected by skin and laboratory tests), and irritant and toxic reactions, where exposure to high levels of chemicals, usually at work, causes symptoms and disease.

The area that is most disputed and under-researched is the one which some doctors call ‘chemical sensitivity’. The definition of chemical sensitivity is substantially empirical, based on clinical practice and observation of large numbers of people with a common history of disease and presenting symptoms. In this definition, chemical sensitivity means adverse reactions to tiny or very low levels of chemicals in the environment, in which the immune system is not demonstrably involved.

It may appear to you, if you react to chemicals, that this controversy over allergy versus toxic reactions versus sensitivity has very little relevance for you. However, it is important in that it conditions the response of any doctor who may treat you. You will get very widely differing diagnoses, sympathy and treatment, according to the individual doctor’s own beliefs and attitudes.

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Outerwear

Tracking down outerwear or snowsuits that are not of man-made fibre or of polycotton mixes is virtually impossible. It is occasionally possible to find corduroy snowsuits, anoraks and leggings with brushed cotton linings. These still have polyester wadding, but since these are enclosed by 100 per cent cotton, they cause less problems. Heskia produce a range of such outerwear. Their clothes are sold by John Lewis and House of Fraser stores.

Footwear, Socks and Tights

Cotton corduroy boots and padders in 100% cotton are made by many firms and are easy to find. Pex make 100 per cent cotton socks in newborn and baby sizes. These are widely available in children’s shops and large supermarkets. Hundred per cent cotton tights in baby sizes are sold by mail order by Cotton On and by Schmidt Natural Clothing.

Cotton On’s range is specifically designed and chosen for babies with eczema and skin conditions. Their clothes are formaldehyde-free, chlorine bleach-free and do not use other well-known irritants. Cot’n Kids, Fix and Schmidt Natural Clothing also sell formaldehyde-free and chlorine-free clothing. The Green Catalogue sell unbleached cotton underwear. Schmidt Natural Clothing sell silk, silk blend, wool and wool blend clothing.

The large mail-order catalogues companies (such as Littlewoods, Freemans, You and Yours, Grattan) also often sell a selection of cotton jersey sleepsuits and underwear.

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The following companies are suppliers of anti-dust mite bedding and covers: Allerayde, Derpi, Green Farm, The Healthy House, Medivac and Slumberland.

The anti-dust mite covers allow ventilation of pillow and mattress, and evaporation of damp without allowing dust mite allergens to pass. They are made of pure synthetic, or synthetic and cotton blend materials. Medivac and Green Farm supply anti-dust mite pillows and duvets which are washable at home at high temperatures. All of these products are sold free of VAT to people who need them on medical grounds. Derpi offers a further discount to people who are members of allergy charities.

Fogarty manufacture Superfil feather and down pillows and duvets in which the filling is treated with a special coating which stops the escape of any fibres which might cause allergy. The outer wrappings are 100 per cent cotton. Fogarty offer a lifetime moneyback guarantee if you react to them. The products have been selling since the early 1980s and none has yet been returned. The prices are similar to ordinary feather and down pillows or duvets.

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Pollens are the fine powders produced by plants, trees, shrubs and grasses to fertilise and reproduce their species. Pollens are probably the most common cause of allergic reactions.

The symptoms most closely associated with pollen allergy are those of seasonal rhinitis (also called hay fever) – sneezing, itchy eyes, runny and itchy nose, sore sinuses. Asthma, eczema and any other allergic symptoms such as headaches or joint pain can also be triggered by pollens. You can get late phase reactions – symptoms developing several hours after your exposure to pollens, often at night.

Contact dermatitis can sometimes result when airborne pollens come into contact with exposed skin. These reactions can sometimes be delayed by up to a few days.

If you know that you are allergic to pollens and want advice on how to cope. Spores of fungi and moulds are the subject of a separate section. If you want to know more about pollens, where they are found and how to detect pollen allergy, read on from here.

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