My husband was allergic to wheat and cow-dairy for quite some time. (I know he’s not me, but since I do the cooking, it still affected me greatly.)
We tried to make do with “close enough” foods. Like I’d buy spelt bread and spelt flour because it’s a relative of wheat that didn’t affect him. We also bought goat-dairy products for the same reason. We didn’t go out to restaurants much because it’s hard to find dishes that don’t have one or the other (or both) of those ingredients. (Did you know chicken broth often has wheat in it?) Waitstaff were often very little help when we asked about ingredients, saying things like, “Oh no, that bread doesn’t have wheat in it, it’s white bread,” or “No, that batter doesn’t have wheat, it’s just flour.” So, we cooked at home where I could monitor what went in.
He claimed that wheat would make him react in some weird way that would start at the top of his head, move downward through the arms and hands and torso, and finish at the feet, making him feel like his guts and everything were itching. When the episode was over, he’d be exhausted for a couple days. It happened before I met him, but we kept this diet for a few years until I realized that sometimes we’d go to a restaurant, find out something he’d eaten was wheaty, and he was fine. I started not believing him, and encouraged him to find a new doc that believed in allergy testing. When the tests came back negative, he worked up to trying a piece of pizza. He was just fine. Now I cook with wheat and dairy, no problem.
So, the way it went down, it was almost like having an allergy myself, without the reaction. I’m the foodie in the house, so I watched his diet (and therefore my own) like a hawk. The current theory is that either it was a temporary allergy, or that what he was reacting to was not what he thought. Anyway, all’s well that ends well, I guess.