Eggs - is this an intolerance and can I cure or improve it?
Discussion
Noticed over the last few years that eating egg in any relatively lightly-cooked form - fried, omelette, pancakes etc - has a rather unfortunate digestive effect resulting in hurried trips to the loo the next day. Seems fine in eg a cake, not sure if that's because it's a relatively smaller 'dose', or cooked for longer, or perhaps somehow stabilised by the starch etc. Anyhow, it's not great, particularly as I'm a hoist user so do not have fast access to a toilet when away from home. (The Changing Places campaign is doing great things but that's still only a thousand toilets in an entire country I can use!)
I'm pretty sure it isn't an actual allergy, given the slow onset of issues and absence of any other symptom.
So… can I get rid of it or make it less bad? I'm not above staying at home and necking loperamide the day after when that's possible, but I've fought damn hard not to be housebound and so it often isn't possible and I rather resent the need. Is there some kind of graded exposure thing, something to calm the system down, or better arm it to deal with the relevant proteins, or something?
I'm pretty sure it isn't an actual allergy, given the slow onset of issues and absence of any other symptom.
So… can I get rid of it or make it less bad? I'm not above staying at home and necking loperamide the day after when that's possible, but I've fought damn hard not to be housebound and so it often isn't possible and I rather resent the need. Is there some kind of graded exposure thing, something to calm the system down, or better arm it to deal with the relevant proteins, or something?
JimmyConwayNW said:
Would you not be best off just avoiding eating them?
Mostly, I do, and will continue to. But I'm vegetarian, so sometimes they're the best available protein source, and also I really enjoy the occasional fried egg or pancake, so I'd like to be able to enjoy them without the after-effects if I can! LordGrover said:
I'd simply avoid them, but then I've not eaten any animal products for over a year, including eggs and dairy. There's no need to 'boost' protein levels so long as you eat only plant based whole foods.
I don't manage quite as good a diet as you do! Mostly, I do avoid them and will continue to do so, but it's a group of foods which I really enjoy and which are sometimes nutritionally useful, so I'd very much like to tackle rather than just avoid the problem if I can. (It doesn't help that I absolutely f*cking hate lentils and similarly-textured things. I'm a terrible vegetarian.
)I had stomach aches for months, every weekend pretty much without fail.
Gave up booze, coffee etc with no effect. Then one Saturday we bought some duck's eggs from the market, Sunday morning I had a duck egg omelette and within half an hour was sweating, vomiting and had loose stools for the rest of the day - cramps, the lot.
Thought I had a virus.
Next Saturday, duck egg and the same effect - the penny dropped. I googled egg intolerance and found that a lot of people have triggered a mild intolerance into being a more violent one through eating duck's eggs due to there being more of a certain type of protein. Since I would generally have eggs for breakfast every weekend, that explained the mystery stomach aches.
Since then I've largely avoided eggs and been fine, the odd bit of quiche now doesn't seem to be a problem, I had half a fried egg which came with a cooked breakfast on a weekend away with no ill effects but on the whole I'm egg free and have had no issues since.
Your condition sounds similar - I can eat products with egg in them (even small amounts of mayonnaise) without a problem but get a stomach ache if I eat much egg in a more 'undiluted' state.
Have you had any stomach aches that you haven't been able to explain in the past which might tally with eating eggs? My doctor told me these things can become more apparent with age, I'm 47 and always eaten a lot of eggs.
Probably the first thing to do is to see how much egg triggers an 'episode' (or 'eggisode') and try to stay below that limit for a while, doc told me to 'work up' to eating hens' eggs in gradually larger portions but to be honest I'd rather just avoid for now.
Gave up booze, coffee etc with no effect. Then one Saturday we bought some duck's eggs from the market, Sunday morning I had a duck egg omelette and within half an hour was sweating, vomiting and had loose stools for the rest of the day - cramps, the lot.
Thought I had a virus.
Next Saturday, duck egg and the same effect - the penny dropped. I googled egg intolerance and found that a lot of people have triggered a mild intolerance into being a more violent one through eating duck's eggs due to there being more of a certain type of protein. Since I would generally have eggs for breakfast every weekend, that explained the mystery stomach aches.
Since then I've largely avoided eggs and been fine, the odd bit of quiche now doesn't seem to be a problem, I had half a fried egg which came with a cooked breakfast on a weekend away with no ill effects but on the whole I'm egg free and have had no issues since.
Your condition sounds similar - I can eat products with egg in them (even small amounts of mayonnaise) without a problem but get a stomach ache if I eat much egg in a more 'undiluted' state.
Have you had any stomach aches that you haven't been able to explain in the past which might tally with eating eggs? My doctor told me these things can become more apparent with age, I'm 47 and always eaten a lot of eggs.
Probably the first thing to do is to see how much egg triggers an 'episode' (or 'eggisode') and try to stay below that limit for a while, doc told me to 'work up' to eating hens' eggs in gradually larger portions but to be honest I'd rather just avoid for now.
Edited by Mark Benson on Tuesday 5th September 09:43
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