The Italian national had assumed her chronic bloating was simply the price of a carbohydrate-heavy diet
A marketing manager who grew up on pasta and pizza discovered that the food she’d been raised on had been behind a lifetime of severe digestive problems - despite years of NHS checks failing to identify the cause.
Serena Basso, 33, who moved to East London from Lake Como in 2012, spent years accepting painful bloating after meals as the price of eating large portions of carbohydrates.
“For as long as I can remember, I felt bloated after eating. We would go out for pizza, and I would have to lie down due to stomach pain,” she recalled.
But a home finger-prick test eventually revealed that Serena had 37 separate food sensitivities, including gluten, lactose, rice, potatoes, oats and almonds.
The discovery came despite years of routine blood tests and annual health checks returning no abnormalities.
“We were in the car when I got the email from Supply Life, and my mum was waiting for us at home with a big pasta plate,” she said.
Over the years, the food allergies had done more than inflict pain on Serena; they’d also taken a toll on her confidence.
“I would hate myself for wearing a tight dress,” she admitted.
But cutting the triggers didn’t come without difficulty either. The first weeks brought stomach aches as the body adjusted.
She has since restructured her diet around fish, chicken, vegetables and grains - all of which she’d previously never eaten. She now bakes her own gluten-free bread and biscuits at home.
What's the difference between a food allergy and intolerance?
Unlike allergies - which typically trigger an immediate immune response - food intolerances produce more diffuse symptoms.
Gluten sensitivity is one of the most common forms of intolerance and presents with slower warning signs that can make it difficult to identify.
Oftentimes, symptoms are attributed to overeating or stress.
Lactose intolerance, caused by suboptimal levels of the enzyme lactase, tends to produce similar symptoms without hours of dairy intake.
Sensitivities to foods like almonds and oats may show up on the skin, or simply cause low energy alongside gut symptoms - once again making the connection to diet easy to miss.
Because the reaction is often delayed, sufferers frequently fail to link their symptoms to a specific food. And without targeted testing, neither do their doctors.