Need some advice.

[no-more-muffins]

I just went to my PCP to see if he'd order some allergy testing for me. I feel like I have been shooting in the dark to figure out what foods are bugging me. (As a reminder, my enterolab tests were: gluten 6, soy 9 and casein 8). Despite my results I am about 98% sure I react to both gluten and soy. I have been strictly avoiding gluten for 3 months and soy for 2. I have also been dairy free for 2 months with a few "tests" here and there. I haven't noticed a clear reaction to dairy.

This week I have been feeling nauseated constantly. I have started breaking out in pimples on my face and back. I am normally not very pimply, just during certain times in my cycle. I have had a achy/burny feeling in my lower back which I used to have before I stopped eating gluten. I feel like I am reacting to something and I am not sure what. I eat mostly whole foods. The only processed things I have been eating are:

Adam's natural peanut butter, GV (gf) corn tortillas, fritos, corn chips (no soy oil), Swedish fish, Best Foods/Hellman's canola mayo (which I just learned may have soy hidden there as a "natural flavor" I called them about the soy before I started eating it but maybe I wasn't specific enough), Brianna's Poppyseed dressing (I emailed them to ask about the soy). And Wal-mart brand dried cherries and raisins.

I have checked all my supplements, they are all gf, sf, and cf

I was hoping my Dr. would order me some allergy tests but he didn't. Instead he referred me to another Doc in a city 45 min from me. My doc didn't really seem to know what he was doing, (which was why he decided to refer me). When I casually mentioned that I wasn't sure if it was something besides gluten or just because it takes time to see all the symptoms go away he made a comment about me "overthinking all of this". (Well yeah, I am thinking about it, I am nauseated all the time. I am trying to figure it out.)

Do you think it would be worthwhile to go talk to this allergy specialist or am I better off just sticking to my elimination trials? I was hoping my dr. would just order the tests so I could see how they turned out. I really don't know if I want to waste more time and money on another dr. who isn't going to be able to tell me anything that will help. I don't even know if those allergy tests will help me but at least it might give me a direction.

Do you think I could be reacting to a lotion or shampoo or something? I use a gf, sf lip balm and a gf lipstick. I have been using a regular lotion (Dove) which never seemed to bother me before. I have started using Pantene shampoo, but obviously, it isn't getting near my mouth.

Any advice would be helpful.

[mbeezie]

NMM,

I seriously doubt allergy testing will show anything. Have you tried eliminating eggs, sugar, corn, yeast, nightshades (potato, peppers and eggplant) etc? Could be a reaction to some other food. The elimination diet might be your best bet - by that I mean eat a few foods diet and get yourself under control and then add a new food every 2-3 days (takes 2-3 days for washout of new foods).

Mary Beth

[no-more-muffins]

I just got an email from the people at Brianna's salad dressing. Turns out their vitamin E is from soy. Do you soy intolerant people react to vitamin E derived from soy? (And WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LIST IT ON THE FREAKING label???? Oh, it makes me so crazy.)

Living this way is making me feel more and more alienated.

[Gloria]

NMM,

I hear your frustration. Figuring this out can be exasperating. Yes, I reacted to a vitamin E supplement that contained soy. If your issues began when you started eating the salad dressing, then you've probably found the culprit.

Gloria

[ant]

Dear NMM

Looking at your list I wonder if perhaps peanut butter should also be suspect?

he made a comment about me "overthinking all of this".

Yah, and he is "UNDERthinking"!

All best, ant

[mbeezie]

Ant,

UNDERthinking - that says it all! If only my doctors had the desire to be more curious . . . .

Mary Beth

[Gas Bag]

All I can say is thank goodness we have the internet and can seek out others to help us think this thing through.

Jeeezsus over-thinking, well when you feel like crap and are crapping all of the time it is hard not to be trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

Hang in there NMM.

Deb

[adelie]

I've found if there's an item I crave and have no self-control with it (after that first bite, the container will be gone no matter the size of the container), that's been the biggest offender.

Actually, I had been eliminating things from my diet long before my first colonoscopy and the doctors could tell something wasn't right, but couldn't quite get it. I was getting way too thin (still am). So, finally, I decided they were going to find it this time. I knew I could induce a good flare by eating a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry's the evening before the colonoscopy prep - yummm - probably didn't need that second pint. Hey, I was going to be miserable with the colonoscopy prep anyway . Got the dairy, eggs, high fat, high sugar and a few other items in there that give me problems. They got some good LC biopsies and a good dose of eosinophils too on that one.

Karen

[JLH]

Soy is supposed to be labled by law..........

I've been eating that canola mayo, too.

[Polly]

Hi NMM,

I agree about the peanut butter. All legumes (soy, peanuts, beans, etc.) contain lectins which are known to open those "gates" in the intestine and allow large/inappropriate food proteins to enter the body.

Until I discovered all of my intolerances and eliminated them, I couldn't eat corn. Now I can somewhat, so I guess it was an "irritant" for me. Could the egg in the mayo be a problem?

Have you considered the paleo diet? It contains no grains or processed food at all. A good book to read if you are interested is the "Paleo Diet" by Cordain. You could start with that and then add things in one at a time.

Hang in there. I know it's frustrating.

Love,

Polly

[no-more-muffins]

I called again on the mayo and they say it has no soy. I read some stuff online that said it did so I guess all that stuff was rumor.

I accidentally ate some spaghetti sauce with soy about 5 days ago and the salad dressing about 3 days ago. I am going to give it another week to see if things get better. I think I'll X the peanut butter for the time being too. I do eat a lot of other legumes too. I think I'll wait a week and see how I am feeling before I stop eating legumes. If I cut out all legumes I don't know what I'll eat.

I am wondering what I can eat for fat besides avocados (and olive oil). I have been eating a lot of PB for the fat and calories since I am hovering around 100 pounds and I am trying to get some weight back on.

[Gas Bag]

I called again on the mayo and they say it has no soy. I read some stuff online that said it did so I guess all that stuff was rumor.

I accidentally ate some spaghetti sauce with soy about 5 days ago and the salad dressing about 3 days ago. I am going to give it another week to see if things get better. I think I'll X the peanut butter for the time being too. I do eat a lot of other legumes too. I think I'll wait a week and see how I am feeling before I stop eating legumes. If I cut out all legumes I don't know what I'll eat.

I am wondering what I can eat for fat besides avocados (and olive oil). I have been eating a lot of PB for the fat and calories since I am hovering around 100 pounds and I am trying to get some weight back on.

Can you eat bananas ? they might help put a few pounds on.

Deb

[Gloria]

I eat sunflower butter in place of the peanut butter. It tastes the same to me, though like with most of our foods, it's more expensive. It's cheapest at Trader Joe's, $3.99 a jar.

Gloria

[Lucy]

If you like bacon, you could fry some of it in a pan, and use the grease left over to flavor your foods that day. Be sure to get the kind without nitrate/nitrites..preservatives, other than table salt. That should add alot of calories to your dishes, as well as give you a little more variety. Just takes a little longer to fry the bacon.

For Vit E, I know that nuts are supposed to be a good source of E, but I'm not sure which ones have the most. You might want to google for good sources of Vit E, just to find food sources of it. Of course, you will need to watch out for fiber in nuts. The outer layer of almonds has lots of good stuff in it, but the fiber might get to you before you heal. You could try that though, and chew them thoroughly before swallowing. I wonder if some of the almond butters would have very much Vit E in them? Some are a bit difficult to spread, unfortunately.

As with bacon, some of the fattier cuts of meat might help with the calories and still not cause you problems. If they do, try spreading smaller amts throughout the day. Substitute chicken thighs for breast meat, chuck roast for leaner roasts, use fattier "steaks" of pork than the popular loin roasts which are more lean. Of course, this all presumes you don't have elevated cholesterol levels or clogging arteries, etc. I wouldn't over do it. If you are like I was in the early days, all the fat went right through me, but then, I had major small bowel damage in addition to the colon damage of M.C. Once you start to regain your weight, you can always begin to cut back the amount of fat in the cuts of meat you select.

Also, try using cooking methods that aren't designed to drain fats, but rather, fry things or braise them so that the fat stays. Leave the skin on chicken, etc.

Don't be too unhealthy, but this is just to get you over the hump -- spread the fats out over your waking hours if you can.

Best wishes,
Luce

[tex]

Luce,

I agree with you that animal fat is the proper way to add calories to one's diet. I'm not convinced, however, that animal fat is a primary cause of elevated cholesterol levels. That misguided claim originated with faulty assumptions, and was perpetuated by faulty research projects, almost surely with the blessings of the vegetarian movement, (though I'm certainly not trying to blame this fiasco on the vegetarian movement - the blame for this boondoggle lies solely on the shoulders of the medical community). Consider this quote, from the research abstract, at the following link.

Multiple food allergies required a group of seven patients with elevated serum cholesterol levels to follow a diet in which most of the calories came from beef fat. Their diets contained no sucrose, milk, or grains. They were given nutritional supplements. This is the only group of people in recent times to follow such a diet. During the study, the patients' triglyceride levels decreased from an average of 113 mg/dl to an average of 74 mg/dl; at the same time, their serum cholesterol levels fell from an average of 263 mg/dl to an average of 189 mg/dl. At the beginning of the study, six of the patients had an average high-density lipoprotein percentage of 21%. At the end of the study, the average had risen to 32%. These findings raise an interesting question: are elevated serum cholesterol levels caused in part not by eating animal fat (an extremely "old food"), but by some factor in grains, sucrose, or milk ("new foods") that interferes with cholesterol metabolism?

The red emphasis is mine, of course. Do you think that this report ever made the popular press, or any of the prestigious medical journals? I'm guessing that it was quickly swept under the rug, since it flies in the face of mainstream medical opinion, and it proves the virtues of the paleo diet. Note that it points out that, "This is the only group of people in recent times to follow such a diet.". With such an impressive outcome, why do you think that this line of research was not pursued by the medical community? Because it disproves the basis of the medical community's policy on so many aspects of basic health claims - they couldn't afford to pursue it, because the outcome would make them look like fools.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... t=Abstract

Tex