While awaiting my arrival of the lab test kit, I am carefully watching what I consume.
My question is...how long after you eat an offending food will the reaction start?
If I had a reaction start mid-afternoon, could it be something I ate at lunch, or would it be from the night before due to the time it takes food to digest?
Just want to keep eliminating the offenders!
Unfortunately there's no simple answer to that question. Reaction times can vary by the individual, and they can vary by foods. Some of us react to certain foods within a few minutes. Those almost-immediate reactions are usually due to IgE-based reactions (IOW, classic allergy reactions), or inappropriate mast cell granulation, otherwise known as mast cell activation disorder (MCAD), which seems to be commonly associated with MC.
Typical reaction times are often somewhere in the range of 3 to 8 or 10 hours. For some foods, though, and some individuals, reactions can take a day or 2, or even 3, in a few cases. That's why keeping a food/reaction journal can be so helpful for spotting trends, when connections aren't obvious due to delayed reactions.
Yes, a mid-afternoon reaction would very likely be associated with something that you had for lunch, but as noted above, there are exceptions.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
