A Rotation Diet Helps Manage Allergies

Dr. Mohr established a private practice in 1998 after 21 years in academic medicine. Her current Allergy Relief Service successfully manages patients with inhalant, food, chemical, and insect allergies.

Dr. Mohr’s practice includes patients with severe allergies, typically manifested by allergic dermatitis, asthma,
congestion, itching and watering nose or eyes, postnasal drip, sinusitis, and fatigue. In the process of evaluating patients, she found that many of them have problems with foods that cross-react with their inhalant or latex allergies. Other patients have IgE antibodies to multiple common foods, other food intolerance, masked food allergy, or food restriction for other reasons such as acid reflux.

The standard for management of a food allergy is to omit the food from the diet or to use a rotation diet. After the appropriate time lapse, anywhere from two weeks to two years, the food may be tried every four days (or more). Complete avoidance of the food must be achieved for any food that has caused anaphylaxis or other severe problems. The most common offending foods for anaphylaxis are peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, fish, milk, soy, wheat, corn or eggs. Foods from the same family may, or may not, cross-react; therefore, they should be introduced with caution, for example, apples and pears. Foods that cross-react with inhalant allergies must be avoided in season, for example, ragweed and melons.

The most complex part of management is the use of foods for a rotation diet in order to diagnose and treat symptoms. If the patient avoids a suspect food for four days, then introduces it on the fifth day and has problems we then know to proceed with an avoidance/rotation diet. This procedure is not followed with a food that has caused anaphylaxis or one that results in high IgE level on blood tests.

We have found that everyone can benefit by this healthy rotation diet approach. Even pregnant women who are allergic can help their unborn children by initiating an appropriate rotation diet before, during, and beyond pregnancy. If the child’s father is also allergic, there is even more reason to use the rotation diet. It is multiple small exposures on a daily basis that initiates allergy in a genetically predisposed person

Dr. Mohr’s most recent academic position was Professor of Otolaryngology Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and Chair of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Her previous position was Professor and Director of the Chevalier Jackson/Norris Center for Bronchoesophagology at Temple University Health Sciences Center in Philadelphia.

In May 1998, Dr. Mohr earned an MBA from Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, and in September 1999, became a Fellow of the American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy.