Elimination Diet Foods
For 2 to 6 weeks, focus diet on fresh fruits, vegetables, potatoes, yams, animal protein (fish, poultry, lamb), non-glutenous grains (millet, buckwheat, rice, amaranth). Eat organic foods if possible; otherwise you will need to remove pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and formaldehyde with special washes. Avoid foods that contain sulfites, which are most commonly found in canned vegetables and fruits, pickles, olives, vinegar, wine and canned tuna (albacore). Read labels. Know that "vegetable protein" is either wheat or soy, thickening agents and stabilizers are either wheat or corn, and food starch is usually wheat or corn; then there's corn syrup, "fructose," aspartame, etc. It is much easier simply to avoid processed food and faux food while on the diet than to determine all the additives in prepared foods.

After 2 to 6 weeks of maintaining a strict elimination diet, you should experience a relief from symptoms. You may also lose some weight.

Begin Your Challenge
Start with the least likely culprit — the food group you feel is the least problematic. Eat several servings from that food group throughout the day. For example: if you are challenging dairy, have milk with breakfast; include cheese, cream and yogurt in your lunch and dinner menus; drink milk at meals; and snack on dairy items. Then wait. Do not continue to add that food group to your diet. You only challenge a specific food group for one day. You should then wait for at least 48 hours, during which you eat only your elimination diet foods. Do not include challenged foods as you go. These are challenged only one day, then eliminated again while you test the next food. If you do not experience a return of symptoms after 48 hours, go on to the next suspected food group.

Continue this process until you find the problematic food group. In most cases you will experience a return of symptoms within 48 hours. Rarely do symptoms appear several days or weeks later. If, however, you want to wait more than 48 hours, feel free to do so. This will only increase the accuracy of the diagnosis. A week between food group challenges is optimal. But remember to only challenge one food group at a time.

Option #2
Maintain your regular diet, eliminating only the food group that you believe to be causing your symptoms. Eliminate all items in that food group for at least 1 month. If your symptoms disappear before the month deadline, continue to abstain from that food group for another week after your symptoms disappear. If, for example, you find yourself symptom-free after just a few days of abstinence, you must still continue to avoid that food group for another week before you can effectively challenge.

When you challenge, follow the guidelines outlined in Option #1: eat several servings of the suspect food group during a 24-hour period, then return to the elimination diet and wait. More often than not you will get immediate information about how your body is interacting with a problem food group.

Symptoms associated with food challenges may not be the same as the symptoms you were experiencing before you began the elimination process. For example, while you may have experienced chronic sinus pain prior to embarking on your elimination/challenge, you might find that upon challenging the suspect food, your stomach hurts. This doesn’t mean the food group being challenged is not causing your sinus pain; it is just that your body and immune system may react a bit differently when reintroduced to the offending agent.

Some possible symptoms that can occur on a food challenge include headache (may be brief or prolonged), nausea, sleepiness, irritability, depression, anxiety, excitability (feeling "hyper" or "buzzed"), stomachache, sharp abdominal pain, sore throat, stuffy nose, runny nose, itchy nose or eyes, tightness in the chest, skin rash or itching, facial flushing, red ears, muscle twitching or humming or aching, insomnia, fatigue and apathy. Of course, there are as many ways of manifesting sensitivities as there are people who suffer from them, so be observant.

Elimination/challenge is the most effective way to determine food intolerance. It also provides you with an excellent opportunity to explore and understand your relationship with food more directly.

While undertaking an elimination/challenge it is important to focus on calming the bladder with soothing urinary tract tonics. These will help to heal the bladder and related nervous irritation.