food allergy back pain

Do food allergies really cause lower back pain? The answer is yes, but this association is an atypical allergy manifestation and only appears in a small number of people with delayed food allergies and basic immune disorders. Because the manifestations are hidden, more than 90% of the cases will be misdiagnosed as lumbar muscle strain, lumbar degenerative disease or even kidney disease.

I met a particularly impressive patient during my follow-up in the allergology department last year. He was a 31-year-old Internet operator who had been suffering from back pain for 10 months. Three MRIs of his lumbar spine showed only a slight bulge. He underwent bone-setting, acupuncture, and shock waves. The patient relapsed within two or three days at most. In severe cases, he found it difficult to even sit for an hour. Finally, he mentioned it himself. Every time he suffered from back pain, he had the habit of eating whole-wheat sandwiches with cashews for several days. We did a food challenge test on him, and it turned out that it was a delayed allergy to wheat and cashews. When he went back for a follow-up visit in the third week of withdrawal, he said that 70% of his back pain had disappeared, and even the bloating after meals that he often suffered before was gone.

Of course, this conclusion is quite controversial in the medical community. Many doctors in traditional allergy departments do not recognize the connection between food allergy and low back pain. After all, in the public perception, allergies are rashes, sneezing, diarrhea, and low back pain, which are musculoskeletal symptoms. No matter how you look at it, they have nothing to do with allergies. Many people even think that linking the two is a marketing gimmick for functional medicine. Especially now, the food IgG test promoted by many institutions has no unified standard for sensitivity and specificity. It is easy to produce false positive results and mislead people to stop eating.

But on the other hand, doctors who practice clinical immunology and functional medicine have accumulated a lot of similar cases. Our explanation is that delayed food allergy is different from the well-known acute allergy. It is not an immediate reaction mediated by IgE, but a systemic low-grade inflammation triggered by IgG or immune complexes. These inflammatory factors will circulate with the blood. Traveling to various parts of the body, if you have old injuries such as lumbar muscle strain or fascial adhesion in your waist, the blood vessel permeability in these parts is already high, and inflammatory factors can easily accumulate here to stimulate nerves and induce pain. To put it bluntly, you have "weak spots" in your waist, and the inflammation caused by food allergies is the match that ignites the pain.

So how do ordinary users distinguish whether their back pain is caused by food allergies? In fact, there is no need to spend money on a lot of tests. Just recall the rules first: If you have low back pain and have checked orthopedics and nephrology but can’t find a clear cause, and conventional treatments can relieve it for a few days at most before relapsing, and are occasionally accompanied by unexplained rashes, abdominal distension, migraines, and rhinitis, and you have eaten certain fixed foods a day or two before each attack, then it is worthy of suspicion in this direction.

What’s interesting is that nine out of ten of the patients we have come into contact with have a particular preference for the foods they are allergic to. Some eat a glass of iced American croissant with croissant every day, and some eat crayfish three times a week. When you say you want to quit, their first reaction is “Ah, I can’t live without this.” This is an interesting little rule.

If you really want to check, don’t rely on the online tests that cost hundreds of dollars to check dozens or hundreds of allergens. The most accurate method currently recognized is the food elimination-provocation test: first, under the guidance of a nutritionist, abstain from all common highly allergenic foods such as wheat, dairy products, nuts, and crustacean seafood for 2-4 weeks to observe whether the back pain is significantly relieved. Then add back one food every three days. If the back pain suddenly worsens after adding a certain food, the allergen can basically be identified.

However, a word of warning, don’t blindly fast at home for a month or two. It is easy to lack protein and B complex, which will damage the body. And even if you are really diagnosed with a certain type of food allergy, you will not be unable to eat it for the rest of your life. After most people quit for 3-6 months, they can gradually reintroduce it in small doses and slowly regain tolerance. There is no need to list a bunch of dietary taboos for yourself.

It’s quite interesting to say that the former operation patient still sends us messages occasionally, saying that he now dares to eat bread once a week to satisfy his cravings. As long as he doesn’t eat it continuously, he won’t have back pain at all. He spent more than 20,000 yuan on physical therapy but finally solved the problem by adjusting his diet. Many friends find it mysterious when he tells it, but only those who have experienced it know how effective it is.

After all, the human body is not designed according to textbooks. There may be simple triggers behind many symptoms that seem impossible to treat. It never hurts to pay more attention.