Story by: MAGGIE GIBSON A MARCH woman says her life has been transformed after she discovered that some of her food was making her ill. Freelance careers researcher Barbara McGowan often felt bloated when she ate, endured daily cramping pains in her abdom

Story by: MAGGIE GIBSON

A MARCH woman says her life has been transformed after she discovered that some of her food was making her ill.

Freelance careers researcher Barbara McGowan often felt bloated when she ate, endured daily cramping pains in her abdomen and constantly felt tired and under the weather.

Barbara said: "It was awful. I felt very, very unwell for so long and it got me down. Sometimes I just couldn't get on with work.

"The pain could be really awful. I thought there might be something seriously wrong, but my GP had some blood tests done and the results came back negative."

Her doctor suggested food intolerance might be the problem and then she met someone who had taken the YorkTest, a food intolerance test.

She recommended it to Barbara, who researched it on the internet, checked it with her GP and then sent off for a testing kit.

The simple test involved requiring her to send a finger prick of blood to the York-based laboratory to be checked.

The results which arrived four days later showed she was intolerant of a range of foodstuffs including yeast, dairy products, eggs and some nuts and spices.

Barbara set about transforming her diet, replacing dairy food with their soya equivalents - milk, butter, cream and yoghurt; and bread with crisp breads, oat cakes, potato cakes or tortilla wraps.

She had to give up wine, but could drink champagne or gin, which did not contain the rogue yeast. The real challenge was to avoid food that could feed yeast.

Barbara said it was very difficult at first but she persevered and after 33 days of changing her diet she began feeling better. Now she says her health has undergone a fantastic change.

Contact: www.yorktest.com. Tel: 0800 458 2052.