You May Have Hidden Allergies

By Jimmy Scott, Ph.D.
As published in Health Freedom News, December 1984

Many people suffer from distressing physical or mental symptoms for which they have not been able to obtain relief. When they go to a doctor, they may be told that their problems are all in their imagination. Or, they may be diagnosed as having a certain disease, but the prescribed treatment does nothing to help them.

For many of these people, the real problem is allergy. In my nutritional and health counseling practice, I have seen time and time again that when an underlying allergic problem is identified and eliminated, such illnesses simply go away. Unfortunately, many health care professionals do not look for allergy in such cases, and even if they do, they may not use the proper tools to analyze the situation. Thus, for a number of reasons, many of us suffer from unrecognized, “hidden” allergies.

Originally, the concept of allergy was limited to a small group of obvious symptoms, such as runny nose, red eyes, sneezing, or skin rash. Today, many physicians and alternative practitioners recognize that a much wider range of problems may sometimes be due to allergy. These can include:- digestive difficulties, headaches, muscular aches and pains, arthritis, inadequate blood sugar control, addictions, and psychological problems, among many others.

If allergy is suspected in such cases, a variety of tests may be used to try to identify the substances to which the individual is allergic. In my experience, most forms of allergy testing are not sufficiently accurate to identify most allergies, especially hidden allergies.

There are three main reasons why allergies may be hidden:

(I) The symptoms may be masked by mucus in the system.
(2) They may not be directly observable.
(3) They may not be recognized as allergic symptoms.
Let’s look at each of these reasons in more detail.

Mucus Masks Allergic Symptoms

In recent years, we have been discovering that many physical and psychological problems may be due to food allergies. Besides the people with obvious symptoms, many others have food allergies without realizing it, because their symptoms are masked by mucus and other substances secreted by the body.

To understand how this mucus gets into the system, we need to understand how food allergies develop. A primary cause of food allergy is the over consumption of a food. Any food which is eaten every day, all year-round (especially if one feels one cannot live without it), is a strong candidate for causing an allergy.

This is especially true of foods which are nutritionally deficient. Unfortunately, many of the foods we eat today, such as white flour, white sugar, and processed fruits and vegetables, do not contain the nutrients our bodies require. Even fresh foods often are nutritionally deficient due to soil depletion, lengthy delay before eating, and improper preparation. When a person habitually eats nutritionally depleted foods, the body begins to deteriorate. The digestive system begins to malfunction, and because it cannot digest food properly, the undigested food particles get into areas of the digestive system where they should not be. In an attempt to protect itself from these irritating substances, the body secretes mucus. This intestinal coating of mucus reduces the absorption of allergic substances, protecting the person with hidden allergies from experiencing obvious allergic reactions.

As an analogy, think about what happens when you work in a garden. The tool handles irritate the skin of your hands, and so you get calluses to protect you from the irritation. Once you have the callus you do not notice the irritation anymore, but the skin is still being irritated or the callus would go away. In the same way, when you irritate the digestive system by eating allergy-causing food, the intestine secretes mucus to protect itself from absorbing the offending substance.

In the gardening analogy, the callus protects your skin, but you pay a price for this protection —your skin gets dry, cracked, rough, and less sensitive in the callused area. When you get an “intestinal callus,” or mucus, you pay an even bigger price. The “callus” may be preventing you from absorbing much of the substance to which you are allergic. You are also prevented from absorbing the nutrients from foods to which you are not sensitive. This means you are getting less of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that you need. As a result, you become more nutritionally deficient, more allergic, and develop a bigger intestinal “callus.” You are therefore absorbing even less of what you should be absorbing, and so on, in a vicious cycle.

An important part of my program for eliminating allergy is to clean out the system — to remove this coating of mucus, so that nutrients will be absorbed properly once again. But when the intestine is cleaned out, you may seem to become more allergic than previously, because you no longer have the “intestinal callus” to protect you. Your hidden allergies are now revealing themselves. It is important to totally eliminate all allergic foods while the body is repairing the allergy.

One way to clean out the system is through fasting. You have probably noticed that many fasting regimens include elaborate instructions on how to break the fast. One reason for this is that, with the protective mucus eliminated from the system, allergic reactions are liable to result when food is reintroduced. I have found that if your digestive system is up to par it is all right to eat a regular meal after a fast. Of course this is providing you do not eat anything to which you are allergic to! Unfortunately, hardly anyone’s digestive function fits this description, and many people do not know which foods they must avoid.

Symptoms Not Readily Observable

A second reason why allergies may be hidden is that the symptoms they produce are not directly observable. The symptoms may not be typical of those normally evident on allergy testing, or they may be going on in parts of the body which cannot be observed directly. For example, the synovial membrane in an arthritic joint may be undergoing changes, due to allergy, without any reaction being felt. The arthritis may progress to crippling severity without the individual suspecting that it is due to allergy. I have seen clients transformed from prematurely aged, stooped, arthritis victims to healthy, active, happy humans through the elimination of underlying allergies and the proper nutritional program.

Uterine fibroids and fibrocystic breast disease are other worrisome problems which may be produced by allergy. Again, early fibroids or fibrocystic disease are symptoms which may not be readily observable and would not be recognized as a response to an allergic substance on conventional allergy testing. In my practice, I have found that a very large part of the basis for these problems and many others is allergic in nature. This means that a key element in overcoming them is to determine and eliminate the allergic reactions.

Of course, not every case of arthritis or fibrocystic disease may be allergic in nature. It is always important to identify allergy positively, rather than run the risk of missing the real source of the problems and the proper treatment.

Symptoms Not Recognized as Allergy

Other symptoms are more noticeable but may not be recognized as having been produced by allergy. For example, it may surprise you that high blood pressure frequently has an allergic basis. Blood pressure often drops dramatically immediately after eliminating certain foods from the diet. Other things besides food — such as inhaling pollens or chemicals — may also produce allergic high blood pressure reactions.

Muscle tension can also be an allergic problem. One of my clients had had muscle tension in her shoulders for years, so that she carried her shoulders unnaturally high, attributing the problem to “stress.” I ascertained that the tension in one shoulder was due to a legume allergy, when the allergy was eliminated, the shoulder on that side dropped an inch-and-a-half. The other shoulder turned out to be related to a chemical sensitivity, and when that was corrected, that shoulder, too, dropped!

Today, many physicians and alternative practitioners recognize that a much wider range of problems may sometimes be due to allergy. These include digestive difficulties, headaches, muscular aches and pains, arthritis, inadequate blood sugar control, addictions, and psychological problems, among many others.

One of the most important discoveries in the field of allergy has been the connection between food allergies and a wide range of mental and behavioral problems. It is quite common, for example, that when people go on a fast, their psychological symptoms clear up, along with other allergic symptoms. Over the past 25 years, the Russians have been doing very successful research with therapeutic fasts for mentally ill patients. As might be expected, the main problem is how to maintain these recoveries once the fast is over. Many people are likely to consume foods to which they are allergic, once they start eating again. I have observed spectacular changes in some people with severe mental problems when the foods to which they are allergic have been eliminated.

Emotional and behavioral problems caused by food allergies may manifest in many areas of our lives. It is now well recognized that hypreactivity, delinquency, and other behavioral problems in children are often due to allergies to foods and food additives. Everyday emotional conflicts may also have an allergic basis. A number of marriage counselors are now paying attention to the diet of their clients as an important key to resolving their relationship problems.

What You Can do.

Do you have a problem for which no one has been able to help you? Perhaps your symptoms have been dismissed as “genetic” or “something you will have to learn to live with.” If you suspect that unidentified allergies may underline your problems, you will need to find a health professional who understands allergy. They must also use techniques which permit the identification of hidden allergies.

In a subsequent article, I will describe sensitive, new, energy techniques, using muscle testing, which are now being used to identify allergies. These new techniques allow us not only to identify allergies but to determine precise ways to eliminate them. Incidently, these techniques have led to the discovery of at least 14 different ways people can react to foods, which are not allergic reactions.

Once the substances to which a person is allergic have been identified, I set up a complete, multi-faceted program to take care of the allergies. This program includes complete elimination of all allergic substances from the diet; systemic cleansers to remove the mucus, eliminate toxins, and promote absorption of nutrients. Supplements may be needed to provide the body with the materials it needs to repair itself; and an adequate diet. On such a program, the body becomes healthier, and the allergies are eliminated.

Simply because you have been told there is nothing wrong with you, it does not mean there really is nothing wrong! Also, if the treatment you are getting does not help, it does not mean there is no possible treatment. There is a solution for many supposedly “untreatable” or “nonexistent” problems. The answer often lies in the identification and correction of hidden allergies.