black bags under eyes?

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It's related to being extremely tired, but the direct reason for it occurring is having not slept enough, such as if you stayed awake for 36 hours straight. In this context, it goes away by itself, simply by getting a good night's sleep (approximately 8 hours).

I get these too. Mine are probably as bad as the ones pictured on wikipedia :/

Hey this is exciting for me, there are some preaty well informed people on this forum. The ones concluding that the Allergic Shiners (as we call them in Aus) or black under the eyes can be caused by allergies and food intollerance. Just wondering if people also realise the whole allergy/food sensitivity ASD connection. Also how glaringly close this gets to the ideas of those who tout a cure for Autism?

I know this is very controvercial topic and I am honestly not here to cause any upheaval. Just looking for like minded people, as there seem to be so few on WP. So if anyone wants to comment but perfers anonimity on this topic, PMing me would be OK by me.

May not be surprising considering the screenname but I get this pretty badly. It's nothing to do with how much sleep but I do have a bowel problem. I'm also aware of the signicance of the brain/gut connection but not as it pertains to autism, will need to look into it.

My gut problem is the main reason for a lot of the negative traits for me mainly due to distraction but there's more to it than that. You should also keep in mind that this bowel condition is an auto-immune disorder which is not uncommon in aspies from what I can tell. Another thing to bear in mind is the endocannabinoid system, this helps control a lot of the processes in our body such as temperature regulation and surprise surprise the immune system. A lot of the endocannabinoid receptors are located in the bowel and I read that people with immune disorders have as much as twice as many as those without, it'd be interesting to see how many autists without presenting immune disorders would have. This is all new ground as far as I know and research is only been done in the last few years.

I'd be wary of saying it definitely is or isn't 'allergies' as it oversimplifies it far too much. I'm not allergic to any specific food it's just the presence of food that causes problems as it moves past the affected areas of bowel lining. If I'm allergic to anything it's the natural fauna in the gut, my immune system sees it as a threat and tries to get rid of it. People still insist that I must be allergic to some specific food and that if I just avoid it i'll get better. They're just trying to help but theyre wasting time that could be spent looking for other ways of feeling better.

Same goes for the word 'cure'. I have no doubt that at certain times my AS (if that's what it is) is worse than others. If I could identify exactly what caused it to get worse and lessen or eliminate it then I'd show less autistic traits more of the time but I wouldn't be cured. I know you knwo that just stating the obvious.

I don't think the above is impossible just very very difficult. Difficult due to the autistic traits themselves, most of the people doing the research don't really know what goes on in our brains and can only relate to it in an abstract way which to me isn't good enough. There needs to be much closer involvement of actual autistic people in the planning and execution of this kind of research.

Which leads to the other reason why it's difficult, the money. The reason the research is even being done at all is because of the vast sums of cash parents of autists are just dying to spend on the latest miracle cure. Anything getting between that cash and the drug comanies should watch out.

Went on a bit there and I can't say anything I said is accurate just how I understand it from the bits and pieces I've read about here so would appreciate any comments or corrections..

Oh yeah the black eyes, I quite liked B9s theory. No idea how true it is but like it.

one of my bosses who was female and about 55 had a serious problem with bags under her eyes.
she tried to cover it with makeup.

the bags under her eyes were like crocodile skin travel bags that were dusted with skin glow to make them look at least a pinky shade of dark brown.
it was a very unsettling sight.

Ha ha B9,

I can just picture this and it makes me laugh. The sad thing is she obviously thought no one noticed them because of the make up, when infact it made them far more obvious than if she just left them alone.

Hey racooneyes,

Done any reading on the gut- brain connection in Autism? What did ya learn? Did you see anything on Leaky Gut Syndrome in Autism? coeliac,colitis,IBS, even chronic constipation, diarrhea, paradoxical diarrhea, fecal loading? Lovely topics I know but very interesting in the way it pertains to many people with ASD, ADD, ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, allergies even Chronic Fatigue.

Yeah I think you are right about auto-immunity issues in Autism. Both my kids and I have underactive immune systems and have needed to be on different kinds of immune support for years. I read this is common.

I don't know alot about the Endocannabinoid system but you spoke about temperature regulation, that is an issue with at least a couple of people I know with ASD. You know it is not always about what research has been done in what ever field sometimes when people have differing sorts of chronic health problems they are not interested. All they are interested in is what will help with the problems they are having right here and right now. For some reason (I say $'s) no in is interested in individual children obtaining a better quality of life through methods that do not involve drugs. You tell me what was the last really helpful and appropriate thing mainstream medicine offered to children(for one example) with ASD. So much of the stuff that we used is not the latest and greatest and hugely expensive drug but simple things like pre and probiotics, slippery elm, aloe vera, apple pectin, may be giving the gut abreak from wheat, may be dairy, may be corn, may be soy, may be sugar..........whatever.

There is also the issue of inflamation in the gut and else where.

Also why so many ASDians have issues with food. Many eating hugely restictive diets for their whole lives. This ties in with LGS to a certain extent.

I would also be very interested to see what adult ASDians say about these health issues in themsleves. I certainly know what alot of parents say.

As far as me or others saying it is definitely allegies that cause the black under the eyes. I don't think anyone did. I know I said this CAN be caused by allergies, which implies, to me anyway, that it also may not be. You know another thing other than tiredness that people may consider.

I also was not only talking about food allergies/sensitivities but allergies in general causing the problem.

I'm sure there are multitude of things that can cause black under the eyes , but I'm sure I don't know them all. I don't know about anyone else, but the ideas I had at the time are what I suggested.

It's interesting that you also said you didn't have food allegies as such............. unless it was to your own natural gut flora. You said just the presence of any food caused irritation where the gut linning is broken down. Part of the idea behind resting the gut from...... for example Gluten and Casien is apparently they are generally more of an insult to the gut linning than many other things are. SO it's not that there is an actual immune reaction (allergy) but more an irritation in the gut which is more what can be refered to as a sensitivity. There are also a few other reasons that certain foods are problematic to people with already damaged guts linings that do not actually involve allergies.

As far as the word cure goes, as I said I have a problem with that too. We are playing semantics to an extent however for me when I think of the word cure I think some where along the lines of being cured of say........... Diabeties. This would mean no more injections, no more pills, no more monitoring blood sugar levels, not having to consider the regimented diet and intake of food....... A total cure. This is not my experience of what happens at all. Many of the treatments are ongoing, you stop them the outward signs of ASD, ADD ADHD or what ever you are talking about return, the same as it would if you were talking about diabetes. Is having treatemt for the symptoms of diabetes and living and productive life better than having no treatment and dying a less than ideal death? You would have to answer that your self.

I can only talk for myself here, I am not on about changing behaviours or the appearance of ASD's my main concern was always health or more spcifically lack of it. Wouldn't someone be considered neglectful if they had all the information available explaining their childs health issues and still did nothing to allieviate their suffering.It just so happens that many of the behaviours and therefor appearance of ASD can dissappear when health is restored. One example you said yourself that your gut pain affects your ability to pay attention.To me it seems if your gut was healthy then you would not have any or so much trouble with retaining attention. It's all very simple stuff.

As far as ASDians themsleves doing the research about their own brains. I am in 2 minds I agree that would be preferable especially because some ASDians seem to be in possesion of the dogged determination it must take to get the answers. However for research to be of any use it has to be without bias (one of the reasons so much of the research being carried in many areas, not only ASD I believe cannot be fully reliable. Especially when much of the research is sponsored by big pharma) Then the issue of "ASDians knowing what goes on in their own brains"...............Do we?

Not sure what you meant by your comments why research is ? being done at all? cash? parents of ASDians dying to spend cash on the latest miracle cure.

I would however agree with your comments re anything getting between the cash and big pharma needing to watch out. A huge part of the reson why ,atleast. alot of what I do is demonised by so many. People go on and on about the research, the research says this and that, this is now disproven, this is acceptable. All one has to do to know who is biased and benefitting in all this is follow the money trail.

The other thing I have realised too is that the people that are the most vocal about so called CURES don't take the time to find out all that much about any approach before they lable it "another miracle cure" and go on the attack. I think it is fair enough to attack any approach but be as informed as possible before you do it. Don't just lump all treatments for the health/ function issues for ASDians in one lot and reject them as one. People could be missing something that will make one or any aspect of their life easier.

cheers

Yeah, I always had dark bags under my eyes, as far as I can remember. To this day, I still do not know why I have them.

Great post saywhatyamean, oh it was years ago I read about brain/gut connection but not about how it's connected to autism, would love a link if you have any. When I read about it it was just to do with how mood affects bowel health and vice versa. It's hard to believe at first but when you think about butterflys when you're nervous, feeling sick when traumatised, our stomach blushes when our face does etc Been reading about the visceral nerve which is where we get our 'gut reactions' from, all very interesting.

What you've said about restrictive diets is so right, must be a massive factor. There was one period in my life where I was eating a proper varied diet and looking back it was the happiest time I remember. What you said about allergies just made me think about my hardcore summer destroying hayfever too, hmm.

I just overreact when it comes to allergies as it seems like one of those less than useful catch all terms that could obscure details. For example if I mention crohn's people often tell me to cut this out and cut that out and you'll be sorted right out when it doesn't work like that at all. Then there's the special diets and treatments that are just snake oil but still so very expensive and people like us are so very desperate for relief so we'll spend the money in the hope it works but... allergy talk hits a bit of a nerve is all.

I think what I meant about research is that it generally doesn't get funded at all unless there's the potential for a good return on the initial investment. Science is business these days and autism is gearing up to be big business. Even research from public institutions can be biased in this way. Look what happened when the US Gov ran research to find the link between cancer and cannabis for example, they found a link all right but not the one they wanted and the research was buried.
It's only when the public health costs along with bad PR/public opinion outweigh the financial benefit that the bias will swing the other way such as seen with tobacco. That's the way it looks from my cynical viewpoint anyway

I mentioned fauna/bacteria as from what I've gathered it's the cause of crohn's disease, the immune system mistakes indiginous bacteria for a threat and inflammation goes into overdrive all over the body.

Yes I agree with what you're saying about ASD people in research, I just meant in the consultation process as I believe only to looking at it from the outside would would lead to much timewasting. There could potentially be a lot more time wasting if it were a project run by only people on the spectrum lol

Anyway I agree with your post and today I'm definitely being distracted but if I think of more to say I'll be back for an edit

This is like me too, though my face is slightly on the pudgy side so I don't know if that makes the bags look more prominent. To my knowledge I don't have any food allergies, though.

I also have purplish marks under my eyes too. I had them ever since I was very young. Never figured out what caused them. I remember a few teachers when I was younger always use to question me about my sleep. My mom has them also. The funniest part is that there are times that they're light and other times they're dark but they never seem to go away.

I eat lots of fruit and vegetables, it doesn’t help.

bags under eyes - my mother has them, I have. It’s very bad and almost impossible to get rid of. I use a lot of foundation. Also my health is a mess anyway. No-one knows what’s wrong with it.

I have them quite badly under my eyes, I am not paticualrly stressed, but dont sleep much in the week.
A freind of mine has HUGE bags under his eyes (he looks like fat tony of the simpsons)