What to do After a Food Intolerance Flare-up

In today’s post I wanted to share with you my best tips for what to do after a food intolerance flare-up.

From living with food intolerances for most of my life, coupled with my years of study and practice as a Dietitian, I’ve learnt how to manage my intolerances well. But recently, I slipped up (it happens to all of us). Lo and behold I ended up in bed with one mean stomach ache, and my goodness, I forgot how much they sucked. Fortunately, these tips helped me to recover as smoothly and as quickly as possible. So, I of course wanted to pass them along to you and help you build your very own flare-up toolkit.

Go back to baseline foods.

Keep out all trigger foods for several days and only eat safe foods. For example, if you have IBS and react to fructans, remove these from your diet until symptoms subside. If you have a food chemical intolerance, revert back to low until symptoms subside (depending on your tolerance you may be able to include moderate foods but check this with your dietitian).

As you probably know, intolerances work on a dose-dependent relationship. Unlike allergies, there is a certain dose or amount of your trigger food you can tolerate before symptoms occur. When you’re in the midst of a reaction, however, you need to get back to baseline levels before you can tolerate any of that trigger again.

Eat light meals.

It’s always good to keep nutrition up by including some light meals. However, whilst you’re recovering from symptoms, I encourage you to stay away from things that can be aggravating to a sensitive stomach like spicy and fatty foods.

Consider your threshold.

Your personal dose that you can handle can be impacted by a little thing we call a threshold. Stress, illness, hormones and/or medications can lower your threshold, which lowers the amount of dose that can trigger symptoms. Thresholds explains why sometimes you’ll react to a certain trigger and other times not.

By pinpointing what could be lowering your threshold, you can work to counteract this. If you’ve been unwell, it may be best to avoid your food trigger/s until you’re well again. If stress is lowering your threshold, you may want to schedule in more rest, or start introducing breathing exercises.

Gentle movement and stretching.

Gentle movement and stretching can help to move digestion along. This is my go-to when I have a stomach ache. And what’s great is that there are plenty of stretches you can do from bed. Just try it out and see which movements help to get things moving along!

Gentle abdominal massage.

If the stretching isn’t hitting the spot, gentle abdominal massages can help give you some relief and help move things along. Simply place your hands on your stomach and massage in a circular motion.

Stay hydrated.

If anything, make sure you stay hydrated! If you’re experiencing constipation it can help to soften the stool and make it easier to pass. On the flip side, if you’re experiencing diarrhea, drinking more water can help to make up for water losses and prevent dehydration.

Use heat packs.

If you don’t already own a heat pack, it’s an essential. Some warmth on your stomach can really help ease the pain.

Consider over-the-counter medications.

It’s important to consider all the potential medications you may need. This would ideally be done in collaboration with your GP and dietitian. But some potentially useful medications would be pain medication, laxatives, antidiarrheals and electrolyte supplements. There are also potentially helpful supplements, including peppermint oil which is popular amongst people with IBS.

Wear comfortable clothes.

This is an intuitive one, but comfortable clothes are the only way to go during a flare up. Tight or restrictive clothes, especially around the stomach area may exacerbate the pain you’re experiencing.

Learn from any mistakes.

This is, of course, super important to prevent us from making the same mistake in the future. If you’re still a little unsure about your food intolerances, I suggest booking in to see a Dietitian. If you know your trigger food well, consider the doses and your threshold levels (Are you ill? stressed? hormonal?).

Be prepared.

It helps to already have things on hand for when a food intolerance flare-up hits. With what we’ve discussed, start prepping a toolkit with things you think would be helpful. Some of the things you may add include: heat pack, pain medication, laxatives, antidiarrheals, electrolytes, supplements, comfy clothes and non-caffeinated tea.

Do you have any other suggestions for easing a food intolerance flare-up? Leave them in the comments below! And if you find that you experience anxiety around your food intolerances, check out my post here.

Talk soon,

Chanté x