Going from eating organics to not organics--

[LabileLotus]

I have a very odd question that no one may have any experience with but I have no clue where else to ask.

Up until about one and a half weeks ago I was eating about 99% organic produce (and most other things organic as well). Then last week I was trying to save some money and bought conventional fruits and vegetables. My stomach has been doing backflips (and I've had some um...trouble issues) ever since that just started backing off a little yesterday. Has anyone heard of something like this happening? The first day to two days I felt fine, but then I started feeling just awful. And I don't think it's a psychological thing because I wasn't that worried about the pesticide residues because I tried to buy some of the produce that have the lowers levels measured (the "bottom 12"). I didn't begin to think I'd have an issue, I just thought I'd be able to save some money. But now...I feel really really REALLY bad.

Anyone know what the heck could be going on here?

[VCN]

My first guess would be that there's a chemical on the non-organic produce that you're sensitive to, and your body is weak to it now that you've been on organic produce for a while. It's an uneducated guess, though. Do you feel sick after eating a specific fruit/vegetable, or is it all of them? I imagine they use different chemicals for different produce.

There are simple solutions to help you deal with some of this, depending on what you are consuming. For example, if you peel non-organic carrots before eating them it helps lower the number of pesticides you're exposed to. I think there are several other fruits/vegetables like this.

[LabileLotus]

It was mostly after eating grapes and kiwi :(

[ripvanfish]

Sounds to me like you just happened to get sick.

[LabileLotus]

I really don't think that's it...
This is only me having a stomach ache/poop issues (which is all god awful) and it's only been the past week and a half starting mostly the day after I started eating conventional stuff again. Interestingly enough it started not being so bad the past two days when I started eating more organics again :-/.

I'm considering doing an "experiment"...get back to mostly organic and see how I feel, then go conventional again and see if this happens again.

[LabileLotus]

So far this is what I've seen:
After that post I continued with eating mostly organics again until the 25th...
I gradually went from feeling awful to feeling good again. The night of the 25th I went out and got some conventional produce. By today my stomach is in knots and I'm again having bathroom issues. You know when you first go veg and you have those "toilet troubles"...it's like that, except I'd even venture to say this is worse than that for me.

The fact of the matter is I don't know why this is happening-- but I'm not going to try and figure it out any more because I feel just awful. I'll just pay the money for organics and cut my budget elsewhere.

[Hekaterine]

Hi LabileLotus (love your screen name btw!)

Sounds like you have become sensitive to whatever pesticides are used in non-organic produce. You could stick to your organic produce and re-introduce one non-organic thing at a time to see if that has an effect or not. I'm thinking you might be ok with carrots (for example) but not grapes? It's a bit of a pain but once you've eliminated the culprits, you know where you are and you just have to avoid certain non-organics.

[rosiem]

Where the grapes grown out of the country?

Because a lot of conventional grapes in my area are from Chile, and I have read that pesticide regulations are a lot more lax in other countries... That could be it.

[LabileLotus]

I honestly don't even remember, but that's a good question!

After I started feeling better again I decided to call my doctor (on Friday) because I felt really off about this whole thing and it was worrying me. The triage nurse that took my call asked me to come in, so I did. They ran a few blood tests and I have an appointment on Tuesday to get an allergy test. I should get the results from the blood test on Monday so that if they find out from that what is going on I won't have to go get the allergy test done. He said that there are grape farmers in, I think it was Greece?, that are having allergy symptoms from working with pesticides and it's absolutely possible to develop an allergy to certain pesticides. I told him I've had conventional stuff in the past, but he said that sometimes you literally become allergic to something overnight and he's seen it happen tons of times.

He said that since it's mostly with certain produce (so far the things I'm noticing flair it up if they're not organic is grapes, kiwi, celery, and some herbs) and since when I buy conventional produce I always get it from the same grocer...it could be that they're supplier for those things all use a certain common pesticide that I'll need to avoid.

This is crazy, I knew pesticides weren't good for you but had no clue you could actually be allergic to them!


EDIT:
I also thought that allergic reactions were always shown in things like hives but apparently they can also present themselves with intestinal issues such as someone who is lactose intolerant.