Comments on: Uncommon allergies – Flax seed!

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:28:03 +0000

I, too, have a flax seed intolerance. Fortunately I was able to deduce what it was very quickly on my own and avoid it all costs. I do want to caution other sufferers to be mindful of fruit drinks/smoothies with “boost” features. I recently bought a bottled fruit juice for a hike and read the list of ingredients on the side panel. All appeared well. I drank the juice at the midway point an in minutes recognized the unhappy gut feeling coming on. I re-examined the list mentioning the issue to my hiking partner. Again, list was good but my friend noticed ANOTHER ingredients list on the other side of the bottle. This was the “Boost” ingredients and, you guessed it, flax was there. I did reach out to the company to share my experience. They acknowledged my note, defended their position, and sent me coupons for more product. Uh, no thanks… Be well!!!

By: alison

alison — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:57:27 +0000

Hi I have a 4 year old who I give flax seed oil to off and on and it just seems like every time I start giving it to him he starts being “ill” mostly getting high temps. No nausea etc. Could it be the flax seed oil?

By: Vera

Vera — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:28:07 +0000

I thought of your post in the middle of the night. Since your body reacts so severely to flax, perhaps you should keep in mind that linen fabric is made from flax.

By: Vera

Vera — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:01:11 +0000

Debbie S., thank you for mentioning this. I use Olivado brand avocado oil and I recently picked up their avocado/flax/olive oil mixture instead of plain avocado oil. I’ll have to be more careful.

By: Vera

Vera — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:51:38 +0000

Wow! I made 2 trips to the ER this past fall and spent several days in bed with nausea, cramps, abdominal pain and a stuffiness under my right breast. In the ER my blood was drawn and I had an ultra sound to check out my gall bladder. I mentioned the flax seed capsules I had been taking, but she dismissed the idea, telling me she thought I was lactose intolerant. I still suspected the flax and totally stayed away from it.

I was searching today to see if flax could be an allergen because I just started making natural hair and body products in January and I use flax seeds and flax seed gel. It didn’t occur to me that I could have external problems as well, until I noticed that the yogurt/flax seed facial mask gave me great results but made my face a little puffy. The second sign came over the past weekend. I scrubbed my scalp with a mixture containing flax and was miserable all night. My scalp was inflamed and horribly itchy yet sensitive. Incorporating flax has been a bad romance for me. The only upside is that I’m quickly losing weight because now I stay away from everything with flax in it, as well as all dairy products. Now I see that the flax has been the culprit, but I don’t want to try dairy again because the abdominal pain was so intense. I’ll just leave it all alone. By the way, I’m using virgin avocado oil as a replacement for flax oil and the benefits for me have been supreme.

By: lyriclemon

lyriclemon — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:13:41 +0000

I’ve had such severe anaphylactic shock reactions to both blackberries and flax seed that I’ve ended up in Intensive Care in the hospital, near death. (And both times I would have died, if I had been alone at the time.) The New Year’s Eve before last, we were at a neighbor’s house celebrating, and she had mango fruit sitting out on the table, as well as some other snacks, including peanut butter. I picked up a piece of mango and accidentally dropped it on the peanut butter jar lid, which was lying (with the side up that is usually inside the jar when screwed on) on the table. I didn’t think anything about it, and popped the piece of mango in my mouth. Within seconds my face was blazing red and I was in the middle of an anaphylactic reaction. Turns out that the peanut butter had flax seed in it! There didn’t appear to be any residue on the bottom side of the jar lid, but there were probably some microscopic particles there.

I’ve also gone into anaphylactic shock from different meds, including Septra and Zestril.

By: Allergic_Vegetarian

Allergic_Vegetarian — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:24:27 +0000

Most people are usually shocked when they react by smell. Anaphylactic reactions by smell is not that common. However, if you are reacting by smell, then I’d watch for signs of a reaction if you touch anything that might inadvertently have a flax seed protein on it. I’d also discuss this with your allergy specialist. I react by smell to… Anaphylactically –> Cinnamon, Chicken; Severe vomiting –> Wasabi, Daikun and Horseradish.

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:51:56 +0000

We had a three day fast at our church and the pastor decided to break the fast with a bread that contained flax…….being aware that I was allergic I didn’t eat any, but because I was there and I breathed it, my blood pressure went up to 200/? and my heart rate was 140. felt like i was going to pass out. went home and took apple cider vinegar with lots of water and benedryl. I am posting this to make people aware that you don’t have to actually eat it to get a reaction if you really are allergic.

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:27:16 +0000

So glad you all took the time to post these matters.I will not have anymore flax seed. I would eat a cereal with flax seed in it. It sure taste good. Well bout 20 months ago I got sick with bleeding ulcers.I won’t talk about the E.R. trips, but will say this hospital was horrible. They actually told me to drink a pop!

I did not want to use modern medicine so we tried natural herbs, change of diet and such to heal the ulcers. About eight months later I was getting better. To try to speed healing up we read the flax seed is great for ulcers. So my daughter made me some homemade flax cookies and then I would add some into my food and almond butter. By the next day, I noticed my face would get real itchy and tinkling. We even made a slush so to speak of flax seed and water. I then got cold sores all my lips. The itchy and tinkling just got worst. It took about 2 to 3 weeks before those feeling went away.

Well at ten months I was getting better. We took a vacation that we have not had in like 10 years. On our way home, the truck just stopped on the highway. When my only daughter got out of the truck a truck doing 65 hit her. Her head had multi fractures, broken neck, 3 broken back bones, femur broken. Her major organs such as spleen, liver and one kidney she about lost. The spleen and liver both lacerated. She had to be brought back twice and had two blood transfusion.

So needless to say, those ulcers opened back up. She is truly a miracle as thousands of people prayed for her all over the world (we have a fee world wide ministry) and she is a live and doing great. However, I’m not.

The bones stick out as I only weigh 103 to 105. I started food combing 4 weeks ago (some of you if not all of us should be doing this). So last week to try to get better faster I started putting flax seed into my food again.

After taking it my entire stomach was gurgling, and cramping. Still took some more the following day. This day I started having stabbing and cramping pains right in the upper right part of the stomach. This pain I had 2 to 3 hours after eating. By day three I was in bed. We were thinking it was my gallbladder. But the entire time my face was all itching and tinkling. So I thought I will lay off the flax see as maybe it is just old. The next day, the itching and tinkling stopped and did not have those horrific pains in my right side. I took a week’s dose of echinacea tea.

After being in bed for 8 days as my side is still sore. I had my daughter make me some non-gluten pancakes. Thank goodness I only had a very small one. 1 hr. post eating my face again started to get itching and tinkling.And then I found this wonderful blog. it has been two hours and still feeling like that. I pray I do not get the right sided pain again. (I am currently taking cabbage juice trying to cure these horrific ulcers.

So no more FLAX SEED for me!

By: Debbie S.

Debbie S. — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:40:14 +0000

Be careful, everyone. Spectrum now makes an “Omega 3″ olive oil – and the Omega 3 comes from flax oil. I’d like to slap whoever thought of the brilliant idea of adding flax to olive oil. Now we have that to add to the list of foods that you’d never suspect of containing flax – Omega 3 eggs, some peanut butters, some soy milks, and now this.