Diet taboos for urticaria

It is clear that allergenic foods are absolutely taboo. During the acute phase, try to avoid foods with high histamine levels and that are easy to induce. There is no need to blindly follow the trend of taboos for controversial foods. The actual reaction should prevail.

In the past few years, I have been doing health education in the dermatology department. I have seen too many people put all "hair products" on the blacklist as soon as they are diagnosed with urticaria. They eat white porridge with stir-fried cabbage, and their face is sallow. The rash should be committed or not. The essence is that they do not understand that the core of taboos for urticaria is "individual differences". There has never been a unified list of taboos that suits everyone.

First of all, there is no controversial red line: as long as you have confirmed through allergen testing, or you have tried it many times and found that you have an allergic reaction after eating it, don’t touch it regardless of how nutritious others say it is. There was a 12-year-old patient who was clearly allergic to cashew nuts. The last time he took a bite of the cashew nut cake at the same table, his lips swelled into sausages in less than ten minutes, and he was covered in wheezes and couldn't breathe. It took a long time for emergency treatment to recover. There is really no need to take chances with this kind of food that is clearly "offensive" to you.

In addition to these clear allergens, there is also a type of high histamine foods that are recommended to be avoided during the acute stage. After all, the essence of an urticaria attack is edema and wheals caused by the dilation of small blood vessels in the skin and mucous membranes and the massive release of histamine. At this time, eating a bunch of foods with high histamine content will basically add fuel to the symptoms. For example, stale fish and shrimp, leftovers that have been stored for two or three days, pickled bacon sausages, fermented cheese and fermented fermented cheese, as well as red wine, pineapples, tomatoes, and spinach are all recognized as big histamine consumers. There was a patient who worked in foreign trade who usually drank white wine without any problems. At the last party, he drank half a glass of red wine. The next day, he broke out in rashes all over his body and stayed up all night. After repeated tests, he found that it was caused by the high histamine in the red wine. But you don’t have to avoid it all the time. If you have been stable for a week or two, and you don’t experience any itching or rash after eating some steamed shrimp, you can eat it when you need to. You can’t avoid seafood for half a year just because of hives, and your life will be boring, right?

As for whether or not to avoid the "hair-raising substances" that everyone is arguing about the most, there are indeed differences in the recommendations of Chinese and Western medicine in this regard. Western medicine generally believes that as long as you are not allergic to eggs, milk, beef, mutton, or spicy foods, you can eat them. After all, if you supplement enough high-quality protein, your immunity will be stable and you will get better faster. However, TCM dermatology usually recommends that in the acute phase, especially for wind-heat urticaria where the rash is red and itchy, and is more severe when exposed to heat, try to eat less spicy and warm foods, such as spicy hot pot, braised beef, and fried spicy chicken. Many patients report that the itching becomes more severe after eating, and the rash disappears slowly. In fact, there is no need to worry about who to listen to. You will know after you try it once. If the symptoms do get worse after eating spicy food, then tolerate it for two weeks. If you have no reaction after eating something, just eat what you should. There is no need to listen to relatives and neighbors talking about it.

Oh, by the way, there is another pitfall that many people miss: everyone only focuses on the ingredients themselves, but ignores food additives. Preservatives, artificial colors, sweeteners in many bagged snacks and instant products, as well as unknown flavorings added in outside restaurants, may be the culprits in inducing urticaria. I once had a programmer patient who avoided all kinds of chicken, fish, eggs and shrimps, but still had attacks every week. After repeated searches, I found out that it was caused by the potassium sorbate in the packaged instant noodles he ate as a late-night snack every day. After he stopped, he never had the attack again.

In fact, there is really no need to use the online list to compare what you can and cannot eat one by one. Instead of not daring to eat this or touch that, it is better to spend two weeks keeping a simple food diary. If you eat something on a day and have an attack, just write it down. If there is no reaction, just eat normally. After all, eating well and relaxing are the key to getting better from urticaria quickly.