Ask HN: Reading recommendations for understanding food allergies?

I searched online, had family in the medical research hunt for papers and finally made an appointment with a renowned allergist in DC - I flew there just for the appointment.

I left disappointed. My allergy is too unusual, there is no research available. What I need does not exist. For the common allergies - like kids and nuts - there are plenty.

The net/net from my experience is seek out an allergist, and be very specific in your requests.

What I do is (1) avoid the medical community like the plague (except for dentists); (2) take other advice without immediate rejection, unless it is plainly wrong, but skeptically nontheless; (3) over a long time gather relevant information and always be on the lookout for it; (4) try some of this information in practice with personal experiments to see if and how it works and do not expect it to work forever if it works at first; (6) try to define what exactly you mean by "food allergy" preferably before attempting to fix it.

Generally what has helped me has been a balanced lifestyle with moderation in all aspects including diet, sleep, exercise, work, play and spirit, since they all interplay, but this balance may be highly individualized and can take some trial, error and instrospection to determine and may vary with time. In USA society work can typically be a big imbalance and has been so for me.

My experience is that much of what people commonly call food and other "allergies" is due to cumulative negative emotional responses or stress often coinciding with a lack of happiness in life. In such cases the cure is to find and be that hapiness.

What is the source?

I forgot to mention that both daughters had blood in the stools after eating allergens. This is commonly connected with cow's milk protein intolerance but can happen with other allergens.