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Fermented foods and rashes?

Messages
49
I've developed rashes on my joints and face around the same time I added fermentable foods into my diet. I have a history of unexplained face rashes, but no history of previous rashes located near joints. I've read rashes and fermented foods can be an issue due to histamine. Does anyone know if this means one should ditch the fermentables all together or is it possible to keep eating small amounts until your body gets used to them?
 

BrightCandle

Senior Member
Messages
1,152
I have been doing 3x a day probiotics, fresh Kefir in the morning, Kombucha with lunch and Kimchi in the evening. I also take about 50-200 billion CFUs in a variety of different probiotic capsules too.

I started Kimchi first 6 months ago. Initially it made me very bloated and I just took it in occasionally and in smaller quantities and gradually built up the amount I ate. Now I am on about half a pot a day.

I started Kombucha about 6 weeks ago as a premade drink in a bottle. From the very first drink it caused spots on my forehead and it still does. The effect is reducing somewhat and I am finding that its persisting over days, I think it may take months to go away but it is lessening. I probably take in 2-3L a week.

I started making Milk Kefir 4 weeks ago and take in 250ml daily, most of it for breakfast. I also occasionally eat Kefir yoghurts from the supermarket. Initially it produced a slight headache and meh feeling for a few hours, that happens occasionally still.

So I think all the probiotic foods have had side effects and I am certainly seeing the skin thing with Kombucha. But the positive side of all this is the constipation is much improved, I go a lot easier now and have tapered off one of the two doses of Psyllium husk I took to make my stools passable. I don't know if I have to continue this to have a functioning gut or if I can taper off them at some point in the future when its in a better state but I am fair from being done with them and I'll probably do this for 6 months more.

My microbiome test showed serious problems with Bifidobacterium so I will likely make yoghurt with that soon. I may just see if I can buy that as preparing all this food daily isn't ideal and yoghurt is more hassle I could do without but its easy to get yoghurt starters with Bifidobacterium. I have about 1000x the amount of ammonia and lactic acid producing bacteria than I should making me the worst person on biomesight they have ever seen. Just probiotics don't seem to be cutting it hence the ramp up and continued addition of yet more, intention is I will test again some time in roughly 6 months time and hopefully have made some progress.
 
Messages
49
You can try to desensitize by only taking very,very small amounts of what bothers you. But you are taking a bit of a risk. Do you really need to eat that sort of stuff?
I've read positive experiences about adding fermented foods. My mom swears that her issues were cured by eating yogurt. I don't seem to see any positives or negatives with diet manipulation. I've tried low carb and carnivore, and yogurt, nothing happens one way or another. I don't know if rashes are a sign of a true allergy issue or if my system is just getting used to something new.
 
Messages
49
@BrightCandle I have also seen changes and improvements in constipation and constipation is my main issue with my gut it's like total paralysis, so anything that starts to change that around seems like something I want to stick with. I haven't seen any of the bloating you experienced.
Another thing I've noticed is a sudden acne break out. I haven't had acne in over a year and suddenly have several cystic nodules.
I'm thinking cutting back to smaller amounts. I'm not even sure if it's all of the fermented products or certain ones that are a issue for me. I probably started off too quickly and with too much.
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
It took me a long time to understand my histamine issues. I stopped all fermented foods, and many more things. I'm still prone to skin outbreaks, but nothing like before. There's a lot of histamine info at https://healinghistamine.com/, and many other places. NB Yasmina, lowhistaminechef, is no longer alive.
 

BrightCandle

Senior Member
Messages
1,152
@BrightCandle I have also seen changes and improvements in constipation and constipation is my main issue with my gut it's like total paralysis, so anything that starts to change that around seems like something I want to stick with. I haven't seen any of the bloating you experienced.
Another thing I've noticed is a sudden acne break out. I haven't had acne in over a year and suddenly have several cystic nodules.
I'm thinking cutting back to smaller amounts. I'm not even sure if it's all of the fermented products or certain ones that are a issue for me. I probably started off too quickly and with too much.

Good to hear. I am still improving, I am fearful of removing the last husk pill but I think I could now, I may have cured my constipation completely I am just hesitant since picking hardened stools out of ones own arse is an unpleasant experience to say the least and while my back is in bad shape there is no chance I voluntarily test if I may still get to that state! This definitely works, kefir, kombucha and kimchi in these quantities has produced a gradual and positive change on constipation. The spot response is almost gone, the kefir now doesn't make me feel rubbish its just part of my food intake.

I also improved my diet yet further and went hard on feeding F. prausnitz based on the best information I can find on the topic, every meal has something directly for improving this one bacteria or Bifidobacterium and ideally both. There aren't a lot of ingredients I am eating now that aren't either probiotic or prebiotic targeted.
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,493
Location
Great Lakes
For a long while I couldn't do fermentables except maybe a little bit of sheep yogurt. Now after being on antibiotics (abx) off and on for the last year, I can handle naturally fermented sauerkraut again. (It has to be the naturally fermented kind though. I can't do vinegars at all.)

The sauerkraut (as well as some grapefruit seed extract) actually helped my stomach after an herbal caused some gastritis for me.