I was reading on here about food allergies and remembered my 2 bad experiences after eating Chinese food. Don't know if it was the MSG that is found in most Chinese food or maybe a Soy reaction but here's what happened to me.
Within 1 hour after eating Chinese food, I started having symptoms of anxiety. I felt light headed and very nervous. Although it got better after a few minutes the anxiety lasted about 2 days. This was after I got LD. I never had this happen pre-LD.
Months later, I tried eating it again, but this time I only ate a small amount and nothing happened. Thus I thought the first time it happened that it was a coincidence. Maybe I just had an anxiety attack.
I waited a few more months and ate Chinese food again thinking all was okay, and the same thing that happened the first time happened again. Anxiety that lasted for 2 days.
What do you guys think caused this? MSG? Soy? Or something else?
Of course now I don't see the need to try Chinese food ever again, although I do like it. I know its not a good lyme diet anyway, but I am curious as to why this happened. Any ideas?
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- It's not weird at all. If MSG was involved, that's a very typical reaction, really.
Chinese food can be wonderful. Why avoid it?
It's the MSG and other additives that need to be avoided. When eating out, go only to restaurants that are 100% MSG-free, including any prepared sauces and seasonings they have in the kitchen.
MSG is often added to soy sauce - and, even without it - soy beans are naturally are high in glutamine &/or glutamic acid so that can present a problem even if it's a wheat-free tamari. Seaweed is also high, naturally.
Foods that are high in glutamine convert to glutamic acid in the brain and that can cause all kinds of excitatory problems. We can handle a little bit and really do need some glutamine - but sometimes it doesn't take much above the daily allowance to push us over the hyper mark.
You can ask for just STEAMED veggies, chicken, etc. and add your own seasoning that you can take with you. This usually works best.
Many restaurants are MSG free with Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai foods (and other similar cuisines).
You also have to be careful with ANY restaurant. Mexican or Spanish Rice is often loaded with MSG and added gluten in the flavor packet ingredients added during cooking. And many add sugar.
Call in advance. Study the websites, etc.
You might call the restaurants where you ate and had a reaction - and ask if they use MSG. If not, ask when they started that policy.
For all the names so you can avoid in products you buy for home cooking, Search Google: MSG
Excitotoxins - The Taste That Kills - by M.D. Russell L. Blaylock
This is the 1997 edition
No customer reviews at this link but you can look inside the book and read (59 customer reviews) at the link for the 1996 edition of that book - http://tinyurl.com/as6je7
The customer reviews, in themselves, are an education. -
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- For anyone with anxiety or reactions to MSG, this may also be helpful: -------------
Topic: L-Glutamine powder (for someone with seizures?) -
Posted by Michael_Venice (Member # 17254) on :
MSG.
I never had issues with it pre-lyme. After being sick for a while, I identified it as something that made me feel shockingly bad.
I accepted the idea that people were sensitive to it, and I tended to avoid it in a general way before lyme...but now....it's poison.
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- For lyme patients, one reason that MSG has turned to such a force is that the NMDA excitatory nerve receptors in the brain are on overdrive from infection toxicity and the stress on liver and kidneys.
MSG sends the NMDA excitatory neurotransmitters to the moon on a rocket.
MAGNESIUM helps to calm that down but no amount of MSG is really safe for anyone with a toxic infection and liver stress. Just a trace can be very shocking, indeed.
Detail in this article also relates to everyone with lyme, if they have any kinds of hyper-excitatory symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety, easily being overwhelmed, etc.: --------------
EPILEPSY AND SEIZURES - by Lawrence Wilson, MD (August 2010)
The author discusses in detail the adverse effect of glutamine (glutamic acid) for those with seizures. Even certain foods are to be avoided -- or always balanced with magnesium. -
Posted by randibear (Member # 11290) on :
my husband has a very strong reaction to chinese food. we know it's the msg.
so he asks them not to put it in.
funny, but i don't have any reaction at all.
Posted by n2themystic (Member # 27315) on :
Besides the msg a lot of the dishes have soy sauce which contains wheat unless they use wheat-free tamari.
I love Chinese food and now I just make the majority myself or if I do go out I ask if they use msg or regular soy sauce.
Posted by seekhelp (Member # 15067) on :
Keebler, my allergist today said MSG mainly just can cause people itching and redness, nothing neuro. Strange, huh? He's the chief allergist of a major hospital.
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- I think his thought process is very limited. I have to say that the allergists that I worked with were clueless regarding many of my reactions to all sorts of things. I just have to say that lyme changes everything.
But - MSG toxicity reactions are not the same as an allergy reaction. This is what most allergists just can't wrap their heads around.
Anyone with any kind of neurological condition need to be aware of the NMDA reactions to MSG. See the last link below for details.
AMINO ACID SUPPLEMENTS I: GLUTAMINE - with Reference to the Related Compound Glutamate
-by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D.
Excerpt, half way down the article:
. . . Glutamate in Neurological Diseases (regarding limiting it) -
Posted by apljack (Member # 14233) on :
While I've eaten Chinese food with no problem, I had some canned enchilada sauce last night and was in very bad shape very soon after and most of today. I have no idea what was in it as was already recycled. NEVER again. Immediately my face swelled, I look like a stuck pig. Today I probably should have taken a Benedryl but I didn't. Bad headache, had to go back to bed.
I think our local Chinese restaurant already doesn't use MSG so that's why it doesn't bother me.
While I have been leaning away from anything processed, I think it's just not possible anymore to "try" it now and then.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
MSG ..
Unless you're gluten intolerant too and that made it worse. All soy sauce at restaurants contains gluten.
(P. F. Chang's would be an exception!)
Posted by Shahbah (Member # 28735) on :
Do you have babesia? It may sound weird but I am convinced that food allergies are due to babesia, when I eat chinese food, I get red patches on my faces and I know they are from babesia going crazy and breaking my small vessels...
Posted by seekhelp (Member # 15067) on :
I would be SG has Babesia based on her symptoms, but I don't think her doc treats her for it. I have it too. Hmmm....Babesia causing food allergies? That would explain some stuff.
Posted by randibear (Member # 11290) on :
geez, my husband gets a really bad headache, practically out of it. feels itchey, sick to stomach, blood pressure goes up.
ain't an allergy i don't think. but every time he eats msg or chinese it happens.
Posted by Pinelady (Member # 18524) on :
You could be having a nut allergy to soy products.
If He has to have it--he might try some benedryl to see if it helps...
Posted by GiGi (Member # 259) on :
With hardly an exception, all the people who took the Allergie Immun test were allergic to soy as well as to corn and wheat/gluten/gliadin, i.e. most grains. Many supplements are soy-based and do little good for that reason other than stressing the body even more. Correcting the allergies is the only solution that I know of to stop the malabsorption problems leading from one problem to the next.
Take care.
Posted by elizzza811 (Member # 24713) on :
I know those with OCD and seizures are known to have excess glutamate in their brains and are supposed to avoid MSG...
Posted by gwb (Member # 7273) on :
Same thing happened to me quite some time ago. I have no doubt it was the msg. When I order chinese now I make sure it's msg free. No problem when they eliminate it. Soy isn't a great thing for us with lyme disease either. GIGI explained it well.
I avoid soy at all costs as it is not the "health food" many people believe it to be. Google "Dr. Mercola and soy" and you'll learn a lot about this.
Gary
Posted by METALLlC BLUE (Member # 6628) on :
Depends where you bought it from and their position on additives to their product. You know the typical MSG argument, as well as other potential allergies to eggs, wheat, soy, etc.
I'd try to avoid anything that gives you that reaction, and ask about whether they add things like that before you eat.
Posted by sutherngrl (Member # 16270) on :
Interesting replies! I think its the MSG. I actually think since I have a "mood disorder" that maybe I already have too much glutamate in my brain and MSG is adding fire to the flame.
Seek, I already treated for babesia, earlier in my treatment, with Malarone. Might not have treated long enough though. I use to think I probably had babs, but not sure if I think so anymore. I am still gradually improving on doxycycline. I guess anxiety would be considered a babs symptom, thus I have one babs symptom.
Thanks for all the replies!
Posted by linky123 (Member # 19974) on :
Msg used to break my son out in a rash. Both my kids acted like they were drunk as coots after eating at a Chinese restaurant that used it.
It gives me a nasty headache.
So we try to avoid it; there is a good Chinese place here that doesn't use it.
Posted by pj1954 (Member # 11722) on :
one other thing to look at is blood sugars !
rice turns into sugar in the stomach asap, next time you have a reaction check to see if your insulin level is high !
lyme increases insulin resistance you may get sweaty or a shaky feeling !
my endo had me check my levels for two full years and the only time mine were out of the normal range was right after eating japanese food !
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Preservatives such as sulfites, etc. also need to be considered. Dyes, too. -