Allergic Reaction? Rashes? Nobody Knows?

[Death4242564]

For two years I've been having reactions to food I eat. I've never had reactions before but suddenly I'm having trouble with random foods. Even weirder is these allergies seem to change. Sometimes I can eat a certain food, say apples, other times it'll make my mouth hurt, cheek swell, and cause rashes. Can allergies change so rapidly? I saw a few doctors and they had no idea what to do for me. Out of desperation I saw a Naturalist. After awhile he found some Herbal Tinctures that temporarily relieves me from these reactions. I take two of these Tinctures for about a month and then my symptoms disappear for a month or longer.

He has no idea how or why these Tinctures are helping. He theorized that maybe I have "Leaky Gut" but apparently Leaky Gut isn't a proven thing. SO I'll list the ingredients to the Tinctures and if anyone knows why they might help please let me know! I'd love to know if there are alternative/more permanent treatments.

Herbal Tinctures 20 DROPS 3X DAILY

1. Rosemary, Garlic, Burdock Root Mullein, Water & 20% Alchohol
2. Couch Grass, Pipsissewa, Flax Seed, Slippery Elm, Water, Alcohol

The first is labeled PLEG and the second SPCF.
      

[Paxiled]

What you can do is buy a good herbal and look up the individual herbs being used.  I have a lot of experience with herbal formulas, having managed health food stores for 18 years during which I did a lot of reading and was trained by some of the top herbalists and naturopaths in the US (most of them also own product companies and write books, so they wanted us to be able to sell their names and products and promote their books and, also, not harm anyone using their products).  I also worked with local herbalists and homeopaths and naturopaths because we were basically their pharmacy.  I have to say, these are very odd combinations of herbs.  Usually I can see a combination and tell you what it's for but I can't with these two formulas.  I can tell you that slippery elm helps repair and coat the mucousal lining of the digestive tract.  The second formula seems partly a formula for the urinary tract.  The first has some minor anti-inflammatory effect from the rosemary, antibiotic and anti-fungal effect from the garlic but you wouldn't usually use it in alcohol tincture form for best results, burdock is for the skin and the liver, and mullein helps clear out mucous from the lungs.  Of course, herbs are often used for many purposes, some more proven than others, some more widely known than others, which is why reading an herbal might be useful.  Now, if you were trying to see what foods you were allergic to, the way to do that is to stop eating everything but a small number of foods that are almost never a problem, such as rice, and then add in the foods you usually eat one at a time and see which ones bother you.  The most common ones that bother people are dairy and wheat, followed by soy and corn, but an individual can be bothered by virtually anything -- there are allergies, but also intolerances to certain foods.  I'd also ask, have you ever tried using a natural toothpaste that doesn't contain some form of laurel sulfate?  That often causes sores and mouth pain.  Rashes are a more likely result of a food problem, but it can also be caused by clothing, fabric, plants, medications, etc.