Eating is something that makes most of us happy. A night out with friends or a fun afternoon treat out at the shops: food is often the centre point of our lives, even if we aren’t necessarily aware of it. This often changes when you are dealing with a food intolerance. These can develop over time and can worsen as we get older without us even knowing it.
Proper identification of a food intolerance is crucial for protecting your digestive health and making sure that you can continue getting your proper nutrition even with any changes that may be needed. The first step is going to be in figuring out that you are actually dealing with an intolerance.
5 common signs of food intolerance
There are quite a few symptoms and warnings that are dealing with a food intolerance of some sort, but quite a few of them can get ignored or simply assumed that they are due to another issue entirely. If you notice that you’ve been having one or more of these frequently, it may be important to take a look at where the cause really is.
- Nausea or vomiting: Nausea could be simply an upset stomach, or it could be strong that it could make you have to vomit. These symptoms could be within an hour after eating, or later on in the evening after a few hours have passed. Often, people tend to think that they are due to poorly prepared food or expired food ingredients.
- Heartburn and indigestion: Heartburn and other digestion-related issues are genetic, but they could also be connected to the food that you are eating. When you have a food intolerance, your body is unable to digest a food ingredient effectively. This will create indigestion which can cause heartburn as a result.
- Headaches or migraines: An hour or even hours after eating an intolerant food, you can suffer from a headache or a migraine. It could be a dull headache that simply pounds in the background, or it could be a sharp migraine that forces you to rely on painkillers or other methods of taking care of it.
- Irritability or fatigue: If you find yourself dragged out and irritable as a result, this too may be due to having a food intolerance. Your body is putting a lot of energy into breaking down and digesting a good that doesn’t agree with your system naturally. This means that you have less energy for anything else. The fatigue and irritability will often go together, though some people don’t notice the connection.
- Feeling ill: If you simply feel under the weather or truly ill after eating something, it may not be due to actually being ill or eating something rancid. It could just be that you ate something that didn’t agree with your natural digestive system. It could be feeling cold and achy, or even a mild fever.
Your body relies on you to make sure that you are taking in the right foods that agree with its natural systems. Unfortunately, they tend to be a little subtle in sending you signals that what you’re eating is not, in fact, agreeing with its natural systems. Keep a watchful eye for these symptoms and be ready to get a food intolerance test to know for sure.
