Nightshade vegetables are a category of vegetables that contains more than 2,800 different species, according to Natural News. The most common nightshade vegetables include eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, pepinos, paprika, cayenne and pimentos. If your doctor suspects that you're allergic to nightshade vegetables, she may recommend an elimination diet. Allergy elimination diets are used to identify possible allergic reactions to foods and are not used to diagnose.
Nightshade Allergy
Although uncommon, you may have an allergy to nightshade vegetables. About 4 percent of adults are diagnosed with a food allergy, according to MayoClinic.com. If you have an allergy to nightshade vegetables, your immune system doesn't recognize their proteins as safe and reacts to protect the body. The chemical reaction in the body causes common allergy symptoms, such as hives, asthma, skin rashes, nasal congestion and digestive difficulty. If you experience any adverse reactions after eating a specific food, call your doctor.
Purpose
The purpose of a nightshade elimination diet is to determine if nightshades are causing your symptoms and to identify which ones cause a reaction. Once identified through a process of elimination and reintroduction, your doctor may recommend allergy testing to confirm the findings.
Elimination
Your doctor will provide you with a list of nightshades that he wants you to remove from your diet. AskDrSears.com recommends eliminating the vegetables from your diet for at least one to two weeks before reintroducing them. Read product labels for the ingredients, because a lot of foods contain pepper, tomato or other spices related to nightshades.
Reactions
After eliminating the vegetables from your diet for a week or two, reintroduce one nightshade at a time. Log which vegetables you introduce and how your body reacts to the nightshade, according to MayoClinic.com. Introduce only one vegetable, once a week to ensure the accuracy of your results. If you experience a severe allergic reaction during the introductory process, stop consuming that specific food and call your doctor immediately. A severe allergic reaction can be life-threatening.
Further Analysis
If you experience significant reactions to certain nightshade vegetables, your doctor may recommend that you see an allergist for further testing. The allergist will inject a small amount of the nightshade vegetables suspected to cause allergy-like symptoms to determine if your body creates IgE antibodies in response.
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