What to Eat?

Happy New Year, and hopefully, Happy New Health, everyone!

I really do wish this to all, from the bottom of my heart! In Romania, we always say that the most important thing to wish someone is health. Not money, not successes, nothing else. If you have health, we say, you have everything else, or the stamina and foundation to build everything else with/on it.

You might remember that I have been flirting with this pain in my stomach for the past year or so. It’s around my upper liver, or the gallbladder area. Since the beginning, I have felt that it’s coming from something I am eating or drinking or taking (meds included) that no longer agrees with me. My doctor, of whom I don’t think too highly, but up here, where I live, I have little choices, has been convinced that it’s my gallbladder. But he has failed to show me one blood test or one test to clearly demonstrate that it is the gallbladder. He tells me we have to take it out (the gallbladder) and I will see that I feel better. I fail to understand why I should play God with my body, just to “try things out”, without proof that something is indeed broken.

So, after a year of pain, and multiple other symptoms that have just piled up on me (more than usual painful gas, diarrhea, and more recently, huge, painful and itchy welts and rashes), as well as blood tests that show some kind of allergy, he finally accepted that I might be allergic to “something”. So, he finally gave me a referral to an allergist.

I will save you the trouble of reading about the drama of this allergist’s screw ups – the office visit was anything if not mind troubling and a chain of non-professional, half-a$$ events – but I will tell you that he did do a food allergy test (I had a general allergy test before, and I already know I am allergic to pets and dust). He did perform an allergy test that showed I am allergic to chicken, pork, cod and clams. I am not allergic to milk (but they only test for lactose, not the other proteins in milk), and to grains, neither (but he did recommend I would go to the hospital for a gluten blood test which is more accurate than the skin test for grains). He also told me to stay away from all dairy for a week and see if that helps with the discomfort in my stomach and the welts.

I am still not 100% convinced that it’s the dairy, but since I have stayed away from it, my welts are almost non-existent. The pain in my stomach and the extra bloated-ness (past what Lipitor and zetia give me) is better when I stay away from milk and meats. If I simply just eat vegan, I feel great! I have virtually no symptoms at all. No pain. No welts. No rash.

And in the light of the news I got for Christmas Eve I am shooting to eat fat free and vegan, all at the same time, as anything with fat and cholesterol pretty much disgusts me.

It has not been easy, though. Going out to eat is a major challenge. Even when you pay the extra buck and go to “fancy” places to eat, they fail to accommodate “special dietary needs”: I asked them to not put milk in the egg white scramble at one place, and they told me they would not, but they did put milk (or cream, or butter) in it anyway. They also put oil on my toast, although I specifically said I wanted it “dry, with no oil nor butter”. Finding milk free and fat free foods is a huge challenge, and I have not found one cheese alternative like that, for instance. Since I am not allergic to lactose (which is more common), but to milk protein, the market caters very little to people who are allergic to the whole product. I am never easy, am I?!

It’s a learning experience, for sure. And like I said, I am not even 100% sure it is milk. Although staying away from it all does show some improvement now.

The last thing I want to experiment with is my meds. Maybe they are the culprit, but they are the only thing that keeps my numbers down and hopefully the damage to my heart slower to progress, for now, so I am making the call to keep taking them for now. As a last resort, I will drop the meds, if all else fails, to see if they are causing all this.

I figured, trying to stay away from dairy helps two targets: less fat intake, and hopefully, less allergens for me.

It will be tricky to stay away from chicken, as that is the number one meat I eat and cook with. But so far, it’s been OK. I am testing out in the next month or so various vegan meat alternatives, and I hope to have some reviews here on them. I travel a bit for work, and that will be my biggest challenge. But that’s when I stock up on granola bars and feed off them for a week, I guess, when all food options in the airports fail. We’ll see.