Living the Free Life

I’ve always had allergies.  It affected my childhood to some degree, and they still bother me to this day.  But I never thought I was allergic to food.  I had taken allergy tests using the skin prick method years before, but food did not come up as a problem.  So, fast forward to a couple weeks ago and where I met with a naturopathic doctor who wanted to take a different kind of blood test to look at food allergies again.

“Me?” I thought?  I don’t think so. “No, not food allergies.” I said to the doctor  “Everything else allergies but not food.  I love food.  Food loves me.  I don’t have any digestive problems.  But I do have these dark circles under my eyes.” I said.

Doc said “Those are allergy shiners, a classic sign of a food allergy, the kind that is more subtle and can happen up to 4 days later after you’ve eaten something.” Great……

I had been changing my diet over the past few months (coffee) and thought I was doing good with oatmeal in the morning, a healthy wheat bread sandwich at lunch, dinner is another story – sometimes healthy and sometimes not.   But the point is, I took the darned test and it came back with allergic reactions on a majority of food and some food groups.  I was allergic to all dairy, eggs, wheat, wheat gluten, barley, oats, pork, turkey, and on and on.  Veggies like garlic and tomato – what? Did you say tomato?  Holy smokes, I’m growing 12 tomato plants in my garden alone.
I could go on and on, it’s easier to think about what I can have vs. what I can’t have.  I’m changing my diet, one step at a time and eliminating foods as much as possible.  There is a huge learning curve to this, and I am figuring out food labels.  The more I know, the more I’m shocked.  But so far so good. I’ve had a couple of set backs, but I just keep on trying.  The best cookbook I could find that fit my condition was one a diet for  AD/HD and Autistic Children, and Celiac Disease (which I don’t have). So I am learning food all over again, but going more organic, whole.  No breads, sugars, processed foods.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.  I have already seen some weight loss, I’m all for that!

So I’m living the free life now — wheat free gluten free dairy free wooo hooo….

UPDATE AUG 14:

In going with my new food plan, I decided that I would first focus on elimating the processed foods dairy and wheat, but keep some of the real fruits and veggies in my eating plan, even though a few were on the bad list.  So last night I ate a delicious tomato and basil salad, despite tomatoes being on my list.  But I figured I’d know how it would react since everything else I ate was on my “good” list.  So, in the middle of eating the damn salad, I start sneezing. Then 20 minutes later I’m using my inhaler.  I guess I am allergic to tomatoes – for now anyway.  I keep hoping that I can get back to food I love like this. But it is sobering. I’m not sure I would have really put that together without doing this plan.  And the killer is I have 12 tomato plants growing.   How can an Italian survive without tomatoes??  :sigh:  Or deal with the reaction. One or the other.

I think the hardest part is that I don’t like to identify myself as “allergic” to anything.  It’s not how my mind operates.  I wonder if that thinking keeps me in that vibrational pattern or not.  Time will tell.