Bee pollen & stomach pain?

I have been trying bee pollen for a couple of months and found at first I had no reaction and felt absolutely great (but ever so slightly nauseous)this encouraged me to take more - I then began to get stomach pain (quite severe) and had to stop. So I went back to building up gradually and would then reach a point when the pain would return - this has gone on for a few weeks - I did try mixing the pollen with honey which made no difference and then tried Agave cactus syrup - with this I don't get the pain but I do feel the onset of other reactions i.e more fatigue/irritably/headache & other symptoms. I have had quite sever allergies for most of my life and have had M.E type symptoms for more than a year - I am keen to continue trying as the initial positive benefits have given me a taste of what is possible but not clear if I am doing the right thing to get to that point with the pollen.

Angela's Comments:

The first thing I would suggest doing is finding out if it is the brand of pollen that is causing the stomach pain and nausea. Have you been using the same brand for the entire year? If so, I would suggest trying out another quality brand to see if it is the specific blend of pollens that you are consuming that is causing you problems. If you do try another brand, be sure to start out with very small quantities and build up to the full dose again as companies source their pollens from different parts of the world. You could be exposing yourself to completely different types of pollen in the new brand and with your allergic tendancies, you'll want to be ultra careful.

I would also suggest that you find out where the pollens you were buying that caused the stomach pain were sourced from. It could be a matter of low quality pollens that were contaminated that was causing the nausea. The fact that you experienced more nausea with larger doses leads me to wonder if this might not be the problem. Trying another high quality brand will help determine if this is the issue.

Let me know once you've tested this out. If you do get symptoms from the new brand as well, I would suggest you try blending your pollen into a smoothie with several other foods etc. (protein/greens powder/flax seed/efa's etc). (I'm assuming you're currently taking your bee pollen on an empty stomach?)

You might also want to try soaking your bee pollen in water for 12 hours before consuming it. This will help make the pollen more easy to digest. I often recommend this to people who have impaired digestion - something you likely do considering you have allergies. Most people who have allergies have something called Leaky Gut, which will be impairing your digestion.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.