Digesting The Facts
It turns out that figuring out which foods cause a reaction and which foods don’t is not as straightforward as it sounds.
‘My body hates me’, has been my standard response to everything for the last week. It probably doesn’t help that I started with the more complicated food groups - gluten / wheat and dairy / lactose. It also doesn’t help that I got a little over excited and didn’t, initially, reintroduce them in their purest forms. Then there is the added complication of underlying health issues that could be causing symptoms without having anything to do with food intolerances. I have been marching through a minefield using the ‘let’s see what happens if I step on the mine’ approach - I’m not surprised that my body hates me.
Out of this muddle I have managed to draw a few conclusions. Gluten and soya definitely cause intolerance type reactions. Nuts, honey, corn and lentils appear to induce no discernible change in symptoms. Natural cow’s yoghurt and butter seem good as does goat’s cheese but mature cheddar cheese in anything other than tiny quantities brings me out in hives (this could be due to histamine or bacteria). Too much fruit or certain types of fruit are also responsible for hives but it’s difficult to pinpoint those at this stage as fruit was not part of the elimination.
I will continue to work my way through the eliminated foods and keep a food diary. My thoughts at this stage though are that my hyper sensitivity to some foods could be caused by underlying health conditions so I need to get to the bottom of those and how they affect the digestive system. I also think that it would be better to come at this process with the support of a health professional. I will be going to my doctor with my conclusions / suspicions when I have done as much as I can and I will be asking for a referral to a dietician or whoever is best suited to untangle this web of interdependent chemical reactions.
Eggs, tomatoes and seeds this week. My body hates me... but probably with good reason.