Let's begin with the most asked question I get. No I didn't have this all my life. I found out when I was about 26, so yes I do know what everything tastes like, but over the years, I have started to forget what things taste like, like cheese, and ice cream, horrible I know!
So I'll start from the beginning. When Mr. and I were dating I had no problems. I would occasionally get a stomachache after eating, but justify the reason why. I ate a donut for breakfast, I ate too much Mexican food, I'm just really full. I kept explaining away my stomach problems. I was also getting sick a lot, getting sinus infections every 6-7 weeks. It was awful!
Mr. and I got married and were in wedded food bliss for about a year and a half when the stomach issues started getting worse. I decided to keep a food diary, I wrote down everything and how I felt afterwards. We narrowed it down to dairy, cheese, ice cream my beloved food. So we thought maybe I was lactose intolerant. I started taking those Lactaid pills. It worked! ...for about a week...
Mr. and I discovered that BJ's had the BEST happy hour ever (not sure about now, since this was quite a few years ago). We were frequenting it at least once a week. Each week we would get different mini pizza's (half off), a beer and of course their famous Pizookie
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When I woke up feeling much better I knew I just wasn't lactose intolerant, that it had to be the cheese...little did I know. I made an appointment with an Allergist for just after the new year. I went in, she asked questions about my diet, what I ate the most of, did I eat this or that..first we took a blood test to see if anything would come up in my blood work. It turned out negative, I was disappointed, I knew something was wrong.
The next step was to do the famous "scratch test". Let me tell you it's as awful as it sounds. Especially if you are allergic to everything like I am. I had over 80 scratch test performed. And by the time she was done even putting the allergens on my back, the first ones were already starting to react. But we had to wait 20 minutes to get a full reading. My mom was with me and she was staring at my back saying, wow this is amazing, you are allergic to a lot. I told her, I know, it hurts! Around the 10 minute period the nurse came and and with wide eyes, said, I think you're allergic to his, let me wipe it off to give you some relief. They were starting to bubble. 20 painful and itchy minutes later the doctor came and "read" the results.
Want to know what it said? Come back next week, haha, just kidding. It said that I was allergic to EVERY tree, plant and grass in Southern California. Crazy right? It also said I was allergic to milk, soy, corn, peanuts, chicken and most nuts. I can eat cashews, but I just don't like them. I'll let all those allergies sink in for a second.
Think of everything that has corn syrup in it...yep all those things gone. Doing a quick search I found this site with a list of corn products and a list of potential corn products. Did you know that food labled with anything 'ose, like dextrose, sucrose can be a corn derivative? Also carmel color, ascorbic acid, sorbitol (used in gum), citric acid...those are just to name a few others. It's everywhere.
It was a hard adjustment, but I think this has gotten long enough, next time I'll go into the first few months and how I dealt with it. Let me just tell you, there was a lot of pity parties, party of one going on.
