Friday, December 18, 2009

Diagnosis

Greetings and welcome to my first blog post!

Over the course of the past month, I've been undergoing food allergy tests. I eat a healthy vegan diet, but for a while, I've been feeling that something's "not quite right" and after learning a little about food allergies at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I decided to get tested to see what's going on.

There are different types of allergic reactions - skin scratches test for one, and blood tests check for another. Based on my random list of symptoms, the doctor suspected that I had both and ordered all sorts of tests.

On Monday I received the test results and was shocked to find out just how bad my allergies are! Blood tests showed that I'm highly allergic to wheat! I knew that wheat was a common allergen and many people have a sensitivity to it, but it never really occurred to me that I would be one of those many! Soy and corn are also allergens for me. The blood tests also showed that I'm also highly allergic to egg and cow's milk, so it's a good thing I'm vegan!

I didn't have any bad reactions to anything in the skin scratch test, but I did have many minor ones. The biggest reaction I had was for almonds. (The beloved almond!) The rest of the foods I had a reaction too are:
Asparagus
Barley
Beef
Cucumber
Walnut
Garlic (Ack!)
Lamb
Pear
Pecan
Black Pepper
Pistachio
Plum
Spinach (Noooooo!!)
Tea (Now this is just getting cruel.)
Turkey
Watermelon
Chicken
Coconut
Buckwheat
Cow's Milk
Goat's Milk

My blood tests also showed that I am deficient in vitamin D and magnesium, and I have a problem with my amino acid transporters.

The doctor prescribed a bunch of supplements and told me to stay away from everything on the allergen list for a few months. I will be going back in two months to repeat the blood tests to my progress can be monitored.

I have so many of the offending foods in the house, and I don't want to waste food and money, so I'm gradually weening myself off of soy, wheat, corn, nuts and all of the other yummy foods I had reactions too. I eat so many of these foods on a regular basis, that this is going to be a difficult few months, but I like to get creative in the kitchen and I'm always up for a challenge, so I know I'll survive it.

The purpose of this blog is to record my progress with all of this. Since I am a creative person, I know it's a little lame that I am using blogger and am not uploading my own artwork, but I've got enough to do right now. At some point, I'll probably be moving the blog over to veggiegirl.com and making it look all pretty-like, but for now, its home will be here on blogger.

Thanks for tuning in...

2 comments:

  1. i am sorry to hear of all your alergies. i have a feeling you inherited alot from i want tell you whom. i was told once that a lot of our problems are of eating too much of any food. i know i have that problem. i went through similar problems when i had pancreatis. did they rule out that you don't have celiac disease? that would explain the wheat problem. i wish you all of the best. i can somewhat understand your problems because of diabetes and also the pancreatis problem that i have. i, though am only a vegetarian.

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  2. It's not celiac disease, just a wheat allergy. I don't have an intolerance to gluten, which is good, because there are other grains that contain it.

    I do think a lot of this is hereditary, but I'm the only one who's been tested! I think a lot of health problems are caused by food insensitivities but most people don't know to get tested for them.

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