we like eating indian food in our house but my only problem is that after eating indian for a while - lets say about a week of eating indian food more so than usual I tend to develop dermititis on certain parts of my body. It noticably flares up when i have eaten a lot of indian food, so my question is: what ingredient/spice in indian food is most likely to cause this?

im not aware that i have any allergy/low tollerance to any foods and i eat chillis quite a lot, so what spice would you advise me to omit from the cooking to see if this helps with my dermititis?

i relly enjoy indian cuisine so i would like to find if i have a low tollerence to a certain spice.

thank you.

Difficult to say Frankie, the only way to find out is if you stop (withdraw) 1 spice at a time for a week and see if it tells you which one you have problems with. I have known people being allergic to black pepper, a spice contained in garam masala.

Mamta

Hi Frankie. Spice allergies are actually pretty rare (2% of total) but I realise that isn't of any comfort to you. Some of the wider spice allergies recognised are to mustard, corriander, caraway, fennel, paprika and saffron, so it may we worth starting with those.

Problem with spice allergies is that symptoms are often delayed or (as may be in your case) by repeated exposure.

It could be worth having a word with your doctor about possible referral for patch/needle testing which could speed up the elimination process to track down the culprit/s. You may also be able to rule out some food stuffs (such as mustard, garlic, corriander) if you also use them in your non-Indian cooking without ill-effect. Good luck!

Frankie can I ask what you normally eat when you aren't having a week of eating Indian type dishes? It could help to highlight what other things you normally eat that have similar spices in, helping to eliminate them from the list..

Steve