5 weeks ago I was walking down the street and saw the world in a whole new light, as if I'd been wearing sunglasses for years and finally remembered to take them off. I felt like I had suddenly been thrust into my own 3D movie...and it felt amazing.
I’ve been feeling that way ever since, and it’s such a positive change for me that I’ve decided to share my story about how food allergies have impacted my life.
For years I didn't know I was making myself sick. I was living in a distorted reality that I thought was normal. I considered myself healthier than most. I love whole grains, rarely consume caffeine or simple sugars, buy organic and eat a mostly vegetarian diet (with fish or an occasional serving of kielbasa thrown in). I go to the gym, take my vitamins, get at least 8 hours of sleep and drink several glasses of water a day. I rarely get a cold or the flu anymore.
The only thing I’ve ever really suffered from is allergies. Hay fever and dust mites would get me here and there, but the real culprits were in the food I ate. Somewhere in my 20s I realized that bananas, which were my favorite fruit, made my throat itch and the tip of my nose peel. So I reluctantly removed bananas from my diet. A few years later, I learned that my paternal grandmother was allergic to grapefruit; it made her skin itch. I’d been living with itchy skin for years – especially on my lower legs – and cutting grapefruit juice out of my daily smoothies did the trick. After seeing an allergist, I learned I was allergic to orange and citric acid as well, so I lopped oranges out of the diet immediately. That helped, but the itching and nose-peeling would still come and go, even without the citrus or bananas. So I suspected there was yet another allergen.
Then there was the wine. I’d always had a problem with red wine, as many people do, and I’d get a migraine headache that would last about 24 hours after I drank. What was different for me was I only needed a glass or two to bring on the migraine. Belgian beers had the same effect. It wasn’t until I was in Italy with a friend and decided “when in Rome” (Florence) that I was successfully able to down several glasses of wine without the headache. I was excited and decided to experiment more. After drinking my way through Italy and France, I went home to Northern California and tried some local reds. Bam – the headaches were back.
I’d spoken to various doctors and allergists about getting tested for food allergies, and the consensus was that the only way to truly diagnose them was via an elimination diet. After reading about what that involved, I decided I was willing to stick to European wines and scratch my legs every once in a while.
Yet in recent months, my cognitive abilities took a downward turn. I noticed that I couldn’t retrieve simple nouns when speaking, and both my short- and long-term memory had become embarrassingly poor. Having grown up an honor student used to multitasking and having lightening-quick thoughts, I now felt feebleminded and slow in comparison. I took on a new job and found that it was taking me much longer than usual to grasp new concepts. People said it was just a part of getting older, but I knew it had to be more than that.
To add to that, I also started to get nighttime wheezing, a chronic daytime cough, and I started to require at least 9 hours of sleep.
After ruling out hypothyroidism and other potential health issues, I recalled how cutting sugar and caffeine out of my diet in 2004 had dramatically stabilized my mood swings. If food had such a profound effect on my moods, perhaps it was affecting my cognition as well. So one Tuesday morning on the way out the door to work, I finally decided to take the plunge.
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