[Sca-cooks] allergies vs. sensitivities

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

>As a general rule, a sensitivity will get better over time with exposure, but an allergy will get worse.
>

I disagree with you on this point.  Sensitivities do not neccisarily get 
better over time.  As I stated previously, celiac disease is an immune 
disfunction, and it does get worse with continued exposure.  It is an 
autoimmune disorder, just like an allergy, hypothyroidism, MS and many 
others; as such, it can theoretically go into remission, but that's 
fundamentally different than "getting better".  Celiac sufferers will 
experience greater and greater destruction of their digestive tracts the 
more they eat gluten, and that damage will heal slowly only in the very 
strict absence of gluten.  If the damage is healed, depending on the 
sensitivity of the individual, he or she may or may not react strongly 
to an instance of contamination.  That is, the immune reaction will 
still occur, but how much physical damage and pain it will cause is 
variable.  What is not variable is that the sufferer will redamage the 
digestive tract if he or she were to decide to go back to a glutonous 
diet, and go back to suffering significantly.

Lactose intolerance doesn't go away either.  It will get worse over time 
with or without exposure.

Finally, yes, some sensitivities may get better with exposure.  But, if 
your response is pain and nasty digestive... expulsions... well, why 
would you want to expose yourself in that manner in order to "get over 
it"?  Especially knowing you may or may not actually get better in the 
long run.  Particularly, why would you want to do it in a situation like 
a feast, where you'll be spending undue amounts of time a port-a-potty 
and sleeping in a tent for the rest of the weekend?

-Magdalena

-- 
Tara Sersen Boroson

'Normal' is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it. -Ellen Goodman

[T]o admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. -Virginia Woolf