Mango Allergy (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Mango Allergy

[ericabiz]

Hi Steve,

Have you tried NAET? It's supposed to help with food allergies.

NAET - Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques are alternative allergy medications used to reduce or eliminate allergy and disease

Best done by an acupuncturist who is licensed in your area.

I tried it for a while when I was having weird issues, but then I was diagnosed with Celiac disease and stopped (NAET won't work for autoimmune diseases like Celiac.)

I dd try NAET on my strange citronella allergy and haven't had issues since.

If you try it, I'd be curious to see what your results are, as it does seem you have a bona fide food allergy.

-Erica

[ssandra]

I have the same thing with Spinach. I used to love spinach, but all of the sudden one day I ate some, and now I cannot eat not even 1 bite.

Not raw, not cooked, not a la creme...

I don't mind. I can live without spinach

[Miss Rosie]

I wrote to you a few times last year reporting my successes on the raw diet, but unfortunately I became terribly ill and I couldn't figure out what was doing it. I was having terrible back pain and stomach cramps which would leave me virtually bedridden for days.

For a time, I thought it was because I occasionally move heavy sound equipment, then I thought perhaps I had some rare form of some horribly painful cancer. Believe me, I was one miserable human.

I ended up in the ER late one night in severe pain and vomiting, and the doctors in their wisdom (har!) told me I after all of the tests and scans they had performed that I must just have the flu! I remind myself that they are just practicing medicine, one day they will get it right!

After another 2 months of this, it happened that I was too broke to buy my usual supply of nuts which were my mainstay for desserts and other goodies. Lo and behold, I didn't have the pain that week! The next week I bought my nuts, and the pain returned...and I was bright enough to put two and two together.

Apparently I am allergic to some nuts, I already knew I couldn't eat walnuts, but now I have to add pecans and almonds to the list.

I would be curious to know if anyone else has experienced the problems with the severe lower-mid back and abdominal pain. I am happy that I now know what causes it, but sad to lose a yummy part of my diet.

[Odyssey]

Knowing that mango has some very strong chemicals, particularly in the peel, I once used an almost all-mango smoothie purposefully to vomit when I was ill from a flu or something similar.

It was also intuitive -- I've long had a feeling if I ate too much mango smoothie I'd get an upset stomach; I've had hints of that in the past with too much mango at once.

(My day-old or half-day-old flu went much better after purposeful mango-induced deep vomiting, BTW.)

Some people are allergic to mango peel; you can google that, too.

[ArthurHung]

Awesome.

I had the same thing... with smoking. I didn't smoke, but there were times when I was around it and it didn't bother me at all, and I was very happy to connect with smokers.

Then recently I started coughing again around smoke, and even seeing a smoker made me cough. I realized it was time for growth. I bought the book "reinventing The Body, Resurrecting the Soul" by Deeppak Chopra, reread a bit of Soul Love: Awakening your Heart Centers by Sanaya Roman and listened to a bit of Orin and Daben, and then Abraham Hicks on YouTube.

The aha moment came when I heard the Abraham Hicks on YouTube: Are there things in your life as you want them to be? Keep telling that story. Are there things in your life not as you want them to be? Don't keep telling that story.

I realized instantly so many things. What is it that I have that I admire and love and appreciate?

1) An expanded vision and version of humanity that I see in the present moment: (for example) a perfect mode of transportation involving teleportation, smoothness of colors and sensory aliveness almost like a huge organic symphony.

2) An understanding that everything is just symbol (even these understandings), there are so many unknown abundant opportunities that are coming/already here for the essence and that's the most powerful way to manifest.

I see everything and everybody as being evolved beings of shining examples of health, and I love co-creating with everybody on this forum

[danas]

I just happened to be eating a juicy mango when I entered your blog

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by danas

I just happened to be eating a juicy mango when I entered your blog

I'm drinking mango juice

[andreelerowes]

From what I've experienced and observed, it's quite common to develop an allergy to things you had never been allergic to before, especially as an adult. For me, it was cats, dust, and pollution. Unfortunately, I can't really avoid any of those things, so I take cetirizine (zyrtec) and it's fine for the most part. My sister developed an allergy to strawberries as an adult and my partner developed one to hazelnuts. It happens. You got mangos.

I have a friend who is allergic to a strange array of very specific foods, not ones you normally would expect, like carrots, pitted fruit, and parsnips. I was at a doctor recently and they had a big poster on the wall listing common plant allergies and what times of year they are at their peak. The fascinating part, though, was the list of cross-allergies for each thing. It seems, from what I could make of the chart (which was in German, to boot) that if you're allergic to say, birch pollen, other things like carrots, pitted fruit, and parsnips will actually trigger that allergy. So you're not actually allergic to carrots, but something in the carrots sets off your birch pollen allergy. Wacky stuff.

I think it would be worth going to an allergist, just to see what they say.

[fo2137]

I don't think its a good idea at all. I know you want to eat mango's again but it's best you don't and maybe test them out every once in a while. If i keep eating McDonald's everyday my body will do its best to adapt to that diet while I may be totally unaware of the damaging long-term effects.

[Erinn]

The Mango allergy topic just came up in the teacher's lounge this week. Apparently Mango is related to poison ivy and the peel, as Odyssey began to say, has the same chemical that causes the skin rash. The leaves and vine also have the chemical. I have heard that people develop an allergy to poison ivy after continued exposure, similar to how you developed your Mango allergy. Maybe you could try a Mango without the peel?

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Erinn

The Mango allergy topic just came up in the teacher's lounge this week. Apparently Mango is related to poison ivy and the peel, as Odyssey began to say, has the same chemical that causes the skin rash. The leaves and vine also have the chemical. I have heard that people develop an allergy to poison ivy after continued exposure, similar to how you developed your Mango allergy. Maybe you could try a Mango without the peel?

I never eat the peel. Even eating mango puree or fresh mango prepared by someone else or store-bought mango that's pre-sliced with no peel has the same effect on me. Avoiding the peel isn't enough.

[ellie]

I get the same symptoms for watermelon. It's the high fructose levels in the melon. I wonder if mango is high in fructose as well?
Actually I don't get a rash. Just severe pains, and feel like throwing up.

[jtrikster]

A friend of mine became allergic to certain foods randomly because she was eating too much of it too often. Sometimes that happens when you eat the same foods nearly every single day. I'm not sure why, but, like I said, it happened to a friend.

She's a vegetarian and now she can't eat soy, certain vegetables, and other foods.

[SatvikBeri]

My wife developed a pretty severe lentil allergy. After a year of not eating lentils at all, she has been gradually trying some and the allergy seems to be gone.

A lot of allergies seem to be something that's mostly in your head, and something you can easily LoA away. Have you tried setting an intention for mango to feel pleasant and digest easily?

[Bliss Sage]

I was born with a critical allergy to peanuts. Yet, it has definitively diminished in severity as I have gotten older. When I was younger, I could smell anything with peanuts in it without ever putting it near my mouth. Nowadays, my innate "peanut detector" is worse, but my reaction to eating something with peanuts has become less severe. In fact, I accidentally ate some last night (toxic Thai...) I can't even taste peanut anymore, but I feel it immediate as my lips and throat start to swell. So I think this method of gradually increasing mango intake may work.

It also seems I have developed a similar allergy to avocado. It makes me sick, but thankfully not so much that I vomit. I can avoid those for the most part anyway.

Oh! Other allergies I had that diminished almost to nothing in my adulthood are my asthma allergies.

So, I think it is totally inaccurate to ever assume that an allergy you have is permanent.

[Marc Robertson]

I went to a raw vegan potluck this past evening in Grand Rapids Michigan. I thought it was fantastic. The host apologized that there wasn't more creative foods there. It's interesting that it could be even better!

On the other hand, one of the guys brought Mango Nectar. I drank some for the first time in my life. At that very moment, you were writing this blog entry. How ironic.

I've heard that the profile of allergic reactions have an interesting profile. On one hand, you you come into large amount of contact with certain materials, you can become allergic to them. If you have a small exposure to the same materials when allergic, you can build up a tolerance to them. It is very strange how that works.

I'm all for any research towards nullifying allergic reactions. I find it quite interesting that you are willing to put yourself through trials of knowingly making yourself sick. I hope that your trials work out for you Steve.

[Jake Birkett]

I have this weird thing that if I encounter a bad organic smell (even one created by myself ahem) my nose begins to run and I have to blow it. I'm pretty sure it's psychological and I could train myself out of it if I wanted. I also sneeze around some artificial smells such as perfume, like my body is rejecting the VOCs in them - again I think it's all in the mind but I also wonder if there is some evolutionary reason for it? I do have a strong sense of smell anyway and seem to notice smells that other people can hardly detect.

So I'm wondering if the Mango allergy has as psychological component too - I believe that lots of allergies do. That said, I dislike mangos because there is something about their smell (and therefore taste) that is odd, and I don't feel right eating them.

[Savage]

Drank another mango kombucha this morning -- no problems with it at all.

[Parthon]

No problems is awesome to hear Steve!

I myself have always gotten an upset stomach from raw tomato. Cooked tomato is fine, but raw tomato makes me feel ill and just the thought of the taste of it makes me wince. Cooked, stewed or mixed in with salsas is fine, but not with salads.

It didn't even help when my mum made me eat it even when I didn't want to.

I've been wondering if there's a biological reason for it at all. Like our bodies don't require any of the nutrients in the food so it rejects the food.

[skinnyninja]

The peanut thing is huge, and is directing the research right now.

People who have the peanut allergy usually have a fatal reaction to it (anaphylactic shock). I have had the allergy to peanuts from birth and can go into anaphylactic shock just from smelling an open jar of peanut butter in the same room. Other peanut allergy sufferers are typically much the same.

However, they have basically cured it. And, they did it in the same way as what Steve is doing with his mango problem. Building immunity to the allergy over time through very small (but increasing) doses.

The problem (last I checked) is that the FDA will not allow the testing for the peanut vaccine to go forward in the US. So they are doing this research in other countries right now. (I think that is the current status, might be wrong).

I think Steve is on to something. I think allergies will be dealt with eventually by building immunity to them.

[Gec]

OK guys, so here goes. I'm surprised to see that most (not all, but most) of you (including Steve) see this allergy thingy as something to be fought, and you're trying to concoct some strategy to win over it.

Here's my point of view: you can develop resistance to iocane powder in a manner similar to the way you develop your mango resistance. That doesn't make it less than a poison.

Most of you guys (at least those who commented on this topic before me) don't even think about trying to identify the cause of the allergy. I mean: why do you get those symptoms when you eat mango? After all, mango is supposed to be "food", and from eating food, you shouldn't get such problems.

I would say that you're also eating something else, which disrupts your system and makes it believe that mango is bad. In many cases, that thing is cereals. In the long run, they give autoimmune reactions. You can consider mango (or cats or whatever) poison and stop eating (or smelling etc) them. Or, you can try to discover the real cause of your allergy, the real poison, and stop eating that.

Just curious, how many of you (the ones with allergy problems) are eating cereals?

Cheers!
Gec

Edit: PS: @Skinnyninja: I think you should be grateful that they don't allow testing this "peanut vaccine" in your country. And yes, as I said, you can build immunity to just about anything, but that "cure" will only attract more problems in the long run. It is treating symptoms, not the underlying cause.

[Beuford]

Originally Posted by Gec

In many cases, that thing is cereals.

I don't think Steve eats cereal.

[Gec]

Then it must be something else

[Beuford]

Like.... mango?

[Gec]

Assuming it really was mango (I don't think it is, but if it was): your body thinks it is poison, who are you to argue? Your body knows best. You can "build resistance" to meat, diary, cooked food, poisons as well, but why would you do that?

It's like you drive your car and some red LED lights up to indicate a malfunction, like for example the oil level is too low. Then what you do is, you think "oh this stupid car, thinks it can't run with low oil level" and you open the hood and adjust the oil sensor sensitivity so that it won't light up any more. Then the led light turns off and you drive on, problem solved.

[Beuford]

But your car can't be trained to run on low oil. A human can.

[moonrambler]

I did something similar to this with gluten. I eliminated all gluten for six months and then slowly introduced it back.

What I don't understand at all is why latent allergies show up. For me, I figured I was eating too much gluten, and I was also under a fair bit of stress when I started getting rashes. But why would somebody start having allergic reactions to mango? With Steve, we can discount the cereal theory. Why would somebody start having allergic reactions to spinach or avocado?

Gec -- if you don't think Steve actually is having a reaction to mango, then why would he be having symptoms when he eats mango? And why are you so sure it isn't mango . . . simply because to you, mango is "food" compared to other substances people consume? Steve, you're a near-perfect guinea pig because of your eating preferences.

Aren't nuts food? Then why would nut allergies be so common? If it's due to cereal intake, then why would people be having reactions to nuts instead of to cereal?

I don't see this as trying to get a car to run on low oil. I see it as a glitch with the indicator lights.

[Gec]

Originally Posted by Beuford

But your car can't be trained to run on low oil. A human can.

Yes, as I said, human body can be trained to run on just about anything (cooked food, meat, dairy, mango ) - the question is: do you want it trained on such fuel?

@moonrambler: OK, OK, I get it. The cereal was just an example anyways. Here's something that happened to me: I had an allergy to detergent. It took me a while to isolate it. I was also under medical treatment taking some pills at the time. Anyway, to make it go away, I would rinse my clothes 2 or 3 extra times when washing them, and that fixed it. After I finished the treatment, I thought I'd try "normal wash cycle" again. And guess what, no more allergy.

So, my conclusion was: detergent is bad. It's not so bad that human body can't cope with it, but it's still bad. And when the body is weakened by something else (like the pills I was taking), it doesn't have enough energy to cope with detergent, therefore it gets an allergic reaction.

So, maybe those allergies more of a sum of factors. Maybe mango and nuts are bad after all, but not that bad - and only when the body is weakened by something else (stress, gluten etc) it gets these allergic reactions. Steve, what is draining your energy?

By the way, something very interesting: I don't know anybody here in Romania who's allergic to nuts, but I heard it's very common in the USA.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by Gec

By the way, something very interesting: I don't know anybody here in Romania who's allergic to nuts, but I heard it's very common in the USA.

And getting a lot more common, which is also interesting. After reading this thread, I looked for the research on peanut allergy vaccines, and the link I found for the current clinical trial said it used to be 1 percent and now it's 5 percent.