There may be intermissions of relatively good health lasting months to years. In other patients the illness begins abruptly and progresses rapidly without prior symptoms. We can think of overlapping layers of problems which emerge over time. Food allergy may coexist with eating disorders, metabolic problems, diabetes and other disease states. Symptoms are intermittent or inconsistent, because the human body is not a linear machine but a complicated, changing, wavy device, like the weather or the sea.
Illness is an expression of chaotic events.
We permit uncertainty about the mechanism of the problems and focus on the likely source of the disturbance and a likely solution. I suggest that diet revision, properly conducted, will resolve a great number of problems simultaneously. As the expressions of food allergy evolve over time, different parts of the body tend to get most of the activity. Some patients with severe eczema seem to be spared effects on other target organs - as if their skin soaks up most the food allergy problem. Diagnosis Traditional diagnostic methods try to separate each problem into individual named boxes.