Reducing your reaction to food allergies

I've lived with many food allergies all of my life. The most severe being to legumes (peanuts, chick peas, soy, etc.). I have always went through live avoiding the foods that I am allergic to.

When eating sushi, I always avoided the soy sauce and didn't eat the tofu in the miso soup. Because the borth in miso soup itself is soy based, I would still get a mild allergic reaction. A puffed up lip and scratchy throat. I do enjoy my sushi so I kept eating more and more miso soup. What I found is that over time (about 2 years) I could finish the soup without any reaction at all!

That led me to ask my allergist and she told me (off the record) that if you eat only small quantities of food you're allergic to your immune system will build up and you can eventually not be allergic. Similar to an allergy shot...the reason I say "off the record" is that an allergist would never recommend this for fear that you have a severe reaction to even a small amount of food and die and then they get sued. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us allergy sufferers then don't get told the truth and don't realize we can "self medicate" using this method.

I have a trip to Japan coming up in November. Starting the end of this summer, I decided to get rid of my soy allergy. I started with eating the tofu at the bottom of the miso soup. It wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world, but just a mild reaction. From there I began to dip my sushi in soy sauce (it's actually quite good). Finally, once I could handle those two food with no reaction (was very quick, only 2 months or so), I went for the grand finale: edamame. For those of you who don't know, edamame is baby soy beans. So if I could handle that, it meant I'm cured! About a month ago I accomplshed eating a whole cup of edamame with no puffed up lip, no stomach ache, and no reaction at all! I cured myself!!!

So now I'm all set for my trip to Japan and have no worries about eating soy, a staple in many of their dishes. Does anybody else have similar stories around ridding themselves of food allergies?

I am on the other end of the spectrum. I have been eating soy my whole life and didn't realize I was allergic until my body at 36 years old went crazy and started breaking out in rashes all over and cold sores in mymout. The minute I stop all soy, I was all better. Now if I eat anything at all that has evne a trace of soy I know it within hours. Sometimes the reaction is the throat swells and bleeds, nausea, rashes. I never know how I will react. I would not dream of risking my life for this product. I am glad you where abled to overcome your problems. I just feel that my body can't digest it or whatever the case maybe. I am ok without it at this point.