Allergies vs Intolerances: Which one is causing your symptoms?

Last Updated: 10th November 2022 · Written by Donna Mastriani

Our bodies are strange, even at the best of times, and we are still adjusting to it.  When you are looking to get to the bottom of strange symptoms and that general feeling of simply being unwell after you’ve eaten, you’re certainly not alone. Almost everyone suffers from headaches, but not everyone realises that they may be caused by food intolerances or allergies.

When you feel like you’re having strange reactions to food, or experiencing headaches then you may be dealing with food intolerance. 

Unique from a food allergy, a food intolerance doesn’t make you feel like you can’t breathe or give you a rash.  It just means that your body can’t really digest or work with the food, so you start to feel unwell after eating it. Help stop your headaches today with a food intolerance test.

Allergy vs Intolerance

A lot of food intolerances get misdiagnosed as a mild food allergy, or they get missed entirely because they are attributed to other common health issues. A lot of symptoms like headaches are generally caused by other health causes.

That’s why food intolerance testing is so important when you are looking at making sure that you are as healthy as possible.  To break it down into detail, let’s take a look at an allergy and a food intolerance side by side:

• Allergy: An allergy takes place when your body sees a certain food as attacking the body.  The body then retaliates, resulting in a physical reaction as it fights.
• Allergies can range from mild to severe.  Common symptoms include rashes, shortness of breath, flushing, hives, and, of course, the dreaded anaphylactic shock that is so common with allergies such as nuts or soy. 
• Most severe allergies are present at birth but can develop at a later age as well.  Allergies can also vary in terms of their type when exposed to the allergen.  That is, what may be a simply annoying case of hives or itchy eyes and a runny nose one time, maybe shortness of breath and sneezing fit the next time. 
• Allergies are not always the same severity and should be taken seriously in terms of avoidance.
• Intolerance:
• An intolerance is when your body is simply unable to process something that comes into it.  While it doesn’t attack the “intruder” in your body, it does react to it.
• This reaction’s severity depends on how much of the food that you have.  The less you have, the smaller the reaction.  Common symptoms include fatigue (especially after eating), a bloated stomach, heartburn, headaches (even migraines) and diarrhoea. 
• With proper intolerance testing, you can figure out what the trigger food is and avoid it as well as monitor how much causes a reaction so that you can continue eating it in small amounts if preferred.  Common intolerances include wheat intolerance, gluten intolerance and lactose intolerance.

While allergies tend to get all of the fame and glory, understanding the role a food intolerance can play in your life, as well as making sure that you are aware of it and can avoid it, is just as important. 

When you want to get rid of those strange mystery symptoms, as well as those constant headaches, then you can turn to a Lifelab Testing kit. You will then generally feel better and healthier. 

Whether you knew you needed it or not, grab that test and see for yourself just what the results are. If you are not sure which item is causing your variety of symptoms, you can get your hands on our Complete Body Test!