We met Barbara at one of our Your Stories In Song events at Hampden Park Library. She told us this amazing story of how she finally got to the bottom of a lifelong allergy:
I was christened Barbara Anne in 1958 (which perhaps was fitting given that American allergists and one British doctor saved my life.) I had an unhappy childhood. I was an ill child; my brain did not function well and I felt nauseous to milk. I had no idea what was wrong with me and I felt a freak. I never heard in society anything about food reactions. When I was an adult, my mother told me the baby clinic had recognised I could not digest cow’s milk and they had tried me on various versions of it. I suspect my grandmother had food reactions and my mother had no empathy. Since Pasteur and the germ theory, medicine only recognised/accepted allergy like hay fever that you could prove by skin or was it blood tests, but my form of allergy’s aetiology was unknown. British doctors vary today, but call it hypersensitivity, sensitivity or intolerance, although they still don’t accept it can cause mental symptoms.
I was too unwell to follow hobbies, did poorly at school and felt a failure. In my twenties I saw a psychiatrist for depression (I had first felt aged 5, and later turned out to be due to a wheat reaction.) I became suicidal on antidepressants (in hindsight probably an allergic reaction) and at Beachy Head, whilst sat in my car, one drizzly dusk, a lingering family possibly saved my life. I prayed for ECT to work, it didn’t and I went off God.
Then a light bulb moment was the publishing of a book, in 1976, called “Not All In The Mind” by British Dr Richard Mackarness [2] about common foods causing mental and physical illness. On a trip to America he had learnt about the treatment from American allergist Theron Randolph M.D [3] (who later pioneered work on chemical sensitivity to common chemicals in food and the environment.) Dr Randolph was ostracised, lost his hospital job and had to go private, but was loved by his patients. British Dr. Mackarness’s ideas were not accepted either, but he was inundated with patients and although he could not see me, he sent me information to take to my G.P. Their attitude was that it was not mainstream/orthodox medicine and they could not help. A bedridden patient of Dr. Mackarness’s who he got well was Amelia Nathan Hill who, after receiving letters for help, founded a charity called Action Against Allergy [4] which was a great source of help. It closed in 2019 due to lack of funds but the website remains.
I vowed to get myself better, a mission which, in my 30’s, led me to Birmingham, Alabama to consult allergist C.O.Truss M.D [1]. for the candida vaccine immunotherapy he developed for gut yeast infection or allergy to it. He saved my life and I was much improved. At 75 yrs old, his skill and care was a great life lesson. These doctors stood for the truth, going against the status quo. He did not treat food reactions and in my 50’s when I came across Dr Randolph’s book on food and chemical reactions I finally got to grips with it. I now, laugh and am happy, glad to have survived.
I want to use what I have learnt to make others aware and to try and get the medical profession to look for these causes first, before pills.
By Barbara Rutland
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Additional research notes
[1] – Restoration of Immunologic Competence to Candida Albicans C. Orian Truss, M.D.1 chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.thecandidadiet.com/wp-content/uploads/research/1980-v09n04-p287.pdf
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This is the song written in response to Barbara’s story:
Not All In The Mind
written by Milton Hide ©MiltonHide 06/12/24
At school she was unhappy
Felt she was a freak
Couldn’t think like the other kids
A body frail and weak
Taken to the doctors
But nothing could they find
They told her.. it’s all in your mind
She felt a sense of failure
Depression cast its hook
And held her back until the day
She found answers in a book
It stood for the truth
Went against the status quo
It said .. It’s Not All In The Mind
A trip to Alabama
To see an allergist
The missing diagnosis
Was found at last
You’re not alone,
It’s not just you
But it takes time to find the truth
It’s not all in the mind
It’s not all in the mind
©MiltonHide