Hello,
Thank you so much for your wonderful website! For the past 5 weeks I have been dealing with an unknown illness. I have been to the ER 7 times due to severe hives and swelling. Once by EMS due to anaphylaxis. I have seen loads of specialist including....General practitioners, Allergist, Internal Medicine, Infectious Disease, Rheumatologist, Dermatologist, Chiropractor, and an Acupuncturist. I have spent $$$$ on labs and hospital stays. I have had swollen joints, horrible body aches and headaches. I have been tested for EVERYTHING from bacterial infections to autoimmune diseases. All of my blood work comes back with nothing present except a high iG E showing a very strong allergen present. My allergist tested me for a laundry list of foods...nothing coming back on the moderate or even high side of positive. The final diagnosis was chronic idiopathic urticaria. This diagnosis is unacceptable by me and I refuse to live my life on antihistamines and prednisone!! After 5 long weeks of not being able to care for my 7 month old son alone (my husband works offshore and had to come home), shedding tears every day, being prodded and poked, feeling hopeless and slipping into a depression a dear friend of mine who is a newly licensed Neuropathic doctor gave me the name of a Chiropractor in Austin, TX who performs Applied Kinesiology. Now I know that AK gets a bad wrap in the medical society since it can not be proved by science but I believe in it and after everything I had been through I thought why not. I made the drive to Austin only yesterday to meet with this amazing man. I spent about and hour with him discussing my symptoms. He performed the muscle testing technique and told me that 90% of hives are caused by some sort of food allergy. After only 5 minutes of testing he told me he knew exactly what was causing my illness....MSG!!!! I was shocked!! I knew I was allergic to MSG because I had a reaction as a young child that did NOT involve hives but rapid heart beat and severe headache. My whole life I have tried avoiding MSG at Chinese Restaurants or labels that specifically do not list MSG as an ingredient. I would have never guessed that this could be the culprit of my current allergic reaction. I was amazed...he never looked at my lab work but this made since. My labs shows a high amount of allergen in my blood but is also showing that I am not allergic to any foods. Well this makes since! I am not allergic to meats or vegetable but could I be allergic to what is going on them? He continued to explain to me that a true food allergy will occur 30 minutes to 2 hours after ingested and will leave your blood stream rather quickly where as MSG stays circulating in your blood stream longer; hence my continues hives. I have been consistently ingesting MSG therefore I am consistently covered in hives. He went on to explain how every physical body has a threshold and it seems as though mine has been maxed out. My eating habits have changed immensely after having the birth of my son. My time is limited so my diet consist of quick and easy meals being mostly frozen or canned. I even try to get " healthy frozen meals" lol. He went on to explain that MSG is hidden as other ingredients and I was shocked to find out that almost everything that has been going in my mouth contains MSG!! Even my hair and facial products. He told me that he is very confident that this is what is causing the hives etc and recommended that I eat a STRICT NO MSG diet for 2-4 weeks to see if this is in fact the culprit. I came home and began researching MSG on line when I found your very helpful website. I would love a laminated card by the way. :-) Today will be my first MSG free day; probably in my whole life!!! I am anxious and nervous to get to the grocery store, but excited for the challenge. I know this will be a lifestyle change but if this means I get my health back and get to hold my child pain free then I won't look back. I will keep you updated on my progress and if in fact I am hive free in 2-4 weeks then PLEASE you this as a testimonial!! I really appreciate your informative website and thank you for making this information free and available to the general public.
Thanks again! Here is my address for the laminated card.
[Address and other information omitted for privacy.]
Kind Regards,
Jennifer B.
Reply:Jennifer,
What an amazing story. We would like to share it on our website as well as our forum at www.misfitcityforum.com and our Facebook page which you may want to join. It is called Say No To MSG. Search for it and look for our logo. Your story is being repeated around the world and particularly in the US where there are more and more people becoming dependent on processed food. We hope our efforts will not only help people, but also let them know it is OK to get angry and loud. We recently had an inquiry concerning whether a particular brand of "100 % natural chicken nuggets" had a recall. We explained that there is no such thing as a 100% natural chicken nugget and don't eat it whether it had a recall or not. There is a whole generation of people that have been raised on processed foods, fast foods, frozen foods and flavored snacks and so they just aren't aware of the damage being done to themselves when they eat these chemical stews.
We started our journey with eliminating msg and other excitotoxins in 1998 when we were traveling in Florida and Sassafras would get sick every other day. We discovered in Florida, everyone uses a fix-it on the lettuce to keep it from browning and this was making her sick. The next fall we bought our first computer and started researching. Sassafras is a web builder and I suggested about 10 years ago she share the information we had accumulated with others that are suffering and our website Say NO to MSG - Monosodium Glutamate - Index is the result of that effort. We are traveling again, as we do a couple of times a year and are in the New Orleans area for a couple of days. We'll get the pocket card out to you ASAP. If you have any questions concerning ingredients feel free to email us or better, call us. We are here to help.
Keep up the good fight.
Warmly,
Mick and Sassafras Zellar