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Help. Quick. Anyone with red food dye sensitivity?


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Yes. Red face, red ears, red temper. Irrational, whether in anger, fear, or impulsivity. No fuse at all.

 

My child with the red dye sensitivity is my most deliberate thinker, my most steady and reliable teen, so responsible, calm, kind and fair...unless he eats a Twizzler or something and then he loses his mind.

 

It is Jekyll and Hyde. Thank God, at 14 he can police his own diet now. It was my full-time job until this year.

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Yes, I first noticed it the day after Valentine's Day. My ds woke up with a strange look in his eye. He was crazy, wild the entire day. On an outing to the park someone clued me in. The day before we had done a valentine exchange with our homeschool group. He had a lot of red dye candy that day.

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Yes, about 15 mi tues after consumption my son will search screaming and being crabby over nothing or little things or just because he wants to, it is very annoying. I can tell when people did not listen to me about food dyes the moment I walk in to pick him up. :glare:

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My little one would explain to people when she was younger how she couldn't have red dye, as it made her violent. (true)

 

Anyway, yes, I notice both for her and myself that anger and intense feelings are a big effect of exposure. (It makes me mad that most ibupofren has red dye in it, and I need it for pain management).

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Yep, red #3, horrible. I think its in Sudafed, made one of my kids depressed and angry when it was taken over days (a few doses are ok). When he was younger, it was in the liquid antibiotic and at day 3, he went into a 45 minute temper tantrum over something stupid, way out of character for him. I called the doctor, he said he was sorry, he would mark his chart. Red #40 was ok.

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YES!!! My 5yo absolutely cannot tolerate red #40! In fact I am ridding our pantry this week of all food dyes as I suspect yellow may be a problem also.

 

Yellow #5 was a problem, in fact, when ds was a toddler, he went into a fit, dh up to that point didn't believe me about the dyes. We dove into the trash can to see what was in dinner, the pickles, gatorade, and mac and cheese ALL had yellow #5 in them. Yellow #5 is in everything, cake mixes, chips, pickles, yogurt, drinks and much more.

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Does the sensitivity manifest itself in irrational anger? Off to google, but looking for true life too.

Or irrational hilarity, in this case.

 

And bouncing up and down, laughing uproariously. This is a daughter, not a son. He's fine with the same things.

Edited by TranquilMind
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Yellow #5 was a problem, in fact, when ds was a toddler, he went into a fit, dh up to that point didn't believe me about the dyes. We dove into the trash can to see what was in dinner, the pickles, gatorade, and mac and cheese ALL had yellow #5 in them. Yellow #5 is in everything, cake mixes, chips, pickles, yogurt, drinks and much more.

 

Yep...I'm going to start cooking everything from scratch. It isn't dose related either if they eat one drop they may as well have a bucket full!

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YES! Frightening reactions! Not sure if it was only red 40, as we eliminated ALL dyes. And she was completely incapable of controlling herself- no amount of punishment, restraint, begging, bribing, or anything made a difference. Her eyes- they were weird- like she wasn't "there."

 

When DD was 3 or 4, she was barely 5th percentile on the weight charts- my 250lb DH could NOT control her- as in "bear hug" her to keep her from causing harm.

 

And it's not only in food... we had to eliminate EVERYTHING- toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, lotions, medicines. Read every label, every time.

 

When she was going through her episodes, before we figured it out- she only wanted to wear blue jeans and white shirts- no dyes- indigo/denim is plant based!

 

many years later, she can tell when she's had dye by mistake (or an ingredient in, say, a pot-luck or restaurant meal where we couldn;t read the ingredients.) She feels "sparkly" inside her head.

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And it's not only in food... we had to eliminate EVERYTHING- toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, lotions, medicines. Read every label, every time.

 

We've had trouble with hand soaps when not at home and have started "wet washing" followed by safe hand sanitizer while we're out. We're the only ones yelling at our kids in public bathrooms "DON'T USE THE SOAP!"

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Yes, very much so. Our dd11 is highly allergic to it. We had no idea it was causing her "episodes" of anger. We were n the middle of getting her evaluated with a Psychologist when we figured it out. She turned into a totally different child once we took her off of it. She accidentally got it at a restaurant(in bbq sauce) and went into a rage. It was so bad that she climbed up the windowsill and tore down the curtains in our playroom. It also causes her to have no filter or self-control. It is awful, awful stuff. It is in things like make-up, chapstick, soap, shampoos, etc. We have to read labels all the time due to companies changing products. One of the hardest is when we eat at people's houses. I have learned to bring a snack for her when we go places in case something has red dye in it.

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My girls can't do any food dyes. Rage, aggression, stubbornness, tears, inability to focus...it ain't pretty. We do mostly home made, and life is good (except that I'm in the kitchen a lot--still working on that).

 

Amy

I just realized how much I'm in the kitchen. When I'm not things to go heck in a hand-basket pretty quickly.

 

Our diet is pretty clean. There is some soda (that got eliminated today), crackers, coffee, and eating out (which sometimes can't be avoided in a work situation), but overall it is a whole foods vegetarian diet.

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One of my children is very sensitive to red dye, and gets angry. A couple of the others get a milder case of the sillies. (I probably wouldn't have noticed the latter if we hadn't eliminated artificial colors from the house. It isn't terrible in their case, just annoying.)

 

Our super sensitive one also reacts to annatto, which is used in orange cheese and a lot of natural/organic candy and desserts. It comes from plants but has been found in some studies to cause even more problems than azo dyes. We had to tell Santa and the Easter Bunny to shop at European import grocery stores instead of the health food store. European candy tends to be free of artificial dyes, and to use beta-carotene instead of annatto.

Edited by Eleanor
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Okay thanks everyone. I think we might be on to something. Here. Interesting how many of you listed that it is a boy who reacts.

 

We found the problem in dd when she was 4yo. We've also found that she cannot have caramel color as well. If you suspect red 40 is the issue, make sure to check every food label. It's in lots of brown things, not just red. hth

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I wonder if this is part of ds's cycling?!?!

 

He's been getting candy after therapies; usually swedish fish and some other "workout" candies. More recently i have been allowing slushies because of heat, and some other edible junk just to get food in him! Hmmmm, it looks like i have a diet to overhaul again.

 

OP, thank you for the very timely thread.

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For ds1 it wasn't anger, it was hyperactivity. We knew it was the dye and not just sugar because he could drink sprite with no ill effect but not koolaid. Same problem with Doritos but he could eat Lays potato chips (plain--just potatoes, oil, salt) and be just fine.

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Wait a minute.....you mean I have to get rid of it in SOAP too! Oh my word! I'm going to have to clean out the entire house!

 

I thought I had found some strawberry yogurt that was due free in my usual grocery store until I bought it the next week and it had dye in it. So now I have to read the label EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! How annoying!

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Wait a minute.....you mean I have to get rid of it in SOAP too! Oh my word! I'm going to have to clean out the entire house!

 

I thought I had found some strawberry yogurt that was due free in my usual grocery store until I bought it the next week and it had dye in it. So now I have to read the label EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! How annoying!

 

Simply Gogurt http://www.yoplait.com/products/yoplait-simply-go-gurt does not have dye.

 

And carmine/cochineal is ground up beetle. gross, not Kosher, but doesn't cause mine to react.

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One of my children is very sensitive to red dye, and gets angry. A couple of the others get a milder case of the sillies. (I probably wouldn't have noticed the latter if we hadn't eliminated artificial colors from the house. It isn't terrible in their case, just annoying.)

 

Our super sensitive one also reacts to annatto, which is used in orange cheese and a lot of natural/organic candy and desserts. It comes from plants but has been found in some studies to cause even more problems than azo dyes. We had to tell Santa and the Easter Bunny to shop at European import grocery stores instead of the health food store. European candy tends to be free of artificial dyes, and to use beta-carotene instead of annatto.

Thanks for posting this. I'll keep it in mind.

Edited by Parrothead
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I wonder if this is part of ds's cycling?!?!

 

He's been getting candy after therapies; usually swedish fish and some other "workout" candies. More recently i have been allowing slushies because of heat, and some other edible junk just to get food in him! Hmmmm, it looks like i have a diet to overhaul again.

 

OP, thank you for the very timely thread.

Your welcome. If your ds was anything like my dh this afternoon, you've found your answer. It was mind boggling how irrational and angry then irrationally angry he became.

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Does the sensitivity manifest itself in irrational anger? Off to google, but looking for true life too.

 

Our youngest son becomes totally out of control if he gets ANY food dyes. Irrational Anger would be just the beginning. Think totally out of control rage with throwing things(he becomes very strong), hitting, biting, kicking, climbing on and jumping off of or from one thing to another, the list goes on and so can the rage for over 90 min. sometimes to start up again. It is not a fun time. Hasn't happened for a long time but we do watch very carefully.

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Yes. Red face, red ears, red temper. Irrational, whether in anger, fear, or impulsivity. No fuse at all.

 

My child with the red dye sensitivity is my most deliberate thinker, my most steady and reliable teen, so responsible, calm, kind and fair...unless he eats a Twizzler or something and then he loses his mind.

 

It is Jekyll and Hyde. Thank God, at 14 he can police his own diet now. It was my full-time job until this year.

 

This is my daughter as well. "Unofficially" diagnosed when she was 3 years old. Completely irrational temper-tantrums which included: pulling her hair out, snapping at anyone who tried to restrain her (biting), spitting, screaming, throwing things, etc. She was normally very calm and sweet, and we noticed she turned into Reagan from the Exorcist every time she drank this 100% fruit juice or ate cereal with colors (a popular snack at her babysitter's house).

 

She just turned 20 years old last month, and the allergy is still there, but it manifests itself by making her very hyper, then very tired, followed by a UTI two weeks later.

 

We had to be very careful about ingredients in items. Most children's medications, yellow items, purple items, blue items...all contain red dye 40 in them. Also check your 100% Fruit/vegetable juices. Some of those contain red dye 40 as well.

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I suspect red dye caused my husband's last two panic attacks. He had gross red gatorade. He hasn't had it since and hasn't had a panic attack. But I have not eliminated all red dye other than naturally through cooking all our foods whole and home made. But he did have Twizzlers recently at the movies and was fine. Maybe it was a different ingredient in the gatorade, but I still think it was the dye.

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We found the problem in dd when she was 4yo. We've also found that she cannot have caramel color as well. If you suspect red 40 is the issue, make sure to check every food label. It's in lots of brown things, not just red. hth

 

Also white things (frosting, refrigerator biscuits, crescent rolls, etc). :glare:

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My son has red dye #40 sensitivities. Irritability and insomnia. I clued in pretty quick to what was causing it because my niece was the same way. Amoxycillin (pink antibiotic) would turn her into a little hose beast.

 

So yes, make sure your kid's chart at the pediatrician is flagged. If you are having problems finding dye-free medications (especially cough syrup) check in the diabetic section. Typically their sugar free medications are dye free. And yes, it's incredibly difficult to find dye free foods. But as far as eating ground up beetles, tell them it's for their Ancient History class - you're just doing what the Egyptians did. :)

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My 4yo has the red dye sensitivity, for sure & my daughter has the annatto sensitivity too! So crazy. We get all our dye-free candy(LOVE Yummy earth Lollipops!) & cold/cough syrups through our local Frontier co-op. I can usually find dye-free vitamins at the health food store but I've noticed recently that even Walmart has the gummy fish oil/omegas dye-free now, too. We always skip red icing & I make Julie hold her gumball to make sure Caleb doesn't get red or else they have to switch! LOL! Evidently yellow gumballs are not dyed with annatto, so she's good on gumballs :D

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