Are You Allergic to Kefir?

[starryeyes]

Hi All,

I'm talking about homemade kefir, not store-bought. I've been making my own kefir and drinking some daily for a month and I've been itching like crazy all over my body and now it's just constant. Then I read this:

http://www.lifeway.net/Portals/1/health6small.pdf

This article seems to be saying kefir helps with allergies. But you know how everything is topsy-turvy with CFS. I'm going to stop the kefir and if this itching goes away, and God I pray it does, then I'm staying away from it.



tee

 

[Hysterical Woman]

tee

Good luck with the change, Tee, and please let us know how it works out.

 

[_Kim_]

teejkay, I think you are right to exclude kefir and see if your itching subsides. Pack up your kefir grains in a jar with fresh milk and stick it in the back of the fridge. They can stay like that for a looooong time. If it turns out that kefir is not the culprit, just take out the jar and resume culturing. The grains might take a batch or two to become fully reactivated.

Ya know, there are lots of bacteria and yeasts in kefir. It's certainly possible that you are allergic to one or more of them.

 

[starryeyes]

Good advice Kim and I'll let you all know what happens. That itching was just out of control. It figures, I'm allergic to everything but I can still handle yogurt at least. The good plain kind from the health food store.

Update: 11/12/09 --

I didn't drink any kefir today and the itching is gone...or at least back to normal.

 

[Kathi]

I think that as you drink more and more.............you may have problems with toxicity. I had to quit for awhile because I got severe neck pain after being on it for several months. But I am back on it and love it. I believe that it helps. But I may need to get off it again as I build up toxins in my system.

 

[zippy]

Tee,

I drank milk kefir for over a year. But I began to have increasing problems from it. Things really went south when I started drinking 32 oz/day. I guess that was too much (like duh), but I really
did like the taste. I could drink a quart and still want more.

Anyway, like you, I started getting bad skin reactions, including itching. I have lots of skin reactions to start with (I think I have something like Mastocytosis). I suspect I became reactive to the yeasts in milk kefir.
Hopefully, I will be able to return to a reduced dose (like Kathi) one day because, my gut was REALLY happy the whole time I was drinking it.

Itching skin sounds like a histamine/mast cell reaction. Some people with CFS, like me, seem to have a tendency toward that path of immune goofyness.

Zippy