If you know me even a little bit, you know that I have pretty crazy food restrictions. To try and understand a little better, let’s go back to the beginning.
When I was 15, my brother, sister, and I went to Hawaii for a three week trip with our great aunt and uncle who lived on Maui (wow..I know). It truly was a fantastic trip and we are forever grateful for such a wonderful experience. Well, while we were there we took a long day drive on
The Road to Hana. It was beautiful and we had a really great time…except for my first ever food reaction. My great Uncle Jon and his wife, Elizabeth brought a gigantic bag of cherries to munch on. I was starving so I devoured a ton of them. Almost immediately my mouth and lips were on fire, swollen, and extremely red and itchy. At that point, food allergies were not as prevalent (or at least not so much in mainstream knowledge). We didn’t know what was happening, so I drank a lot of water and prayed the pain would go away. Once we came down off the mountain, I was substantially better and didn’t think too much more about it.
It wasn’t until I came home from Hawaii that I realized the cherry incident was only the beginning. One of my favorite fruits until I was 15 were pears. Until I went to Hawaii, I was able to eat them. When I got back, I had the same reaction to the pears. In addition to the reaction to pears, I also reacted to apples (of all kinds), plums, peaches, and strawberries. I tried peeling them – same reaction. I tried organic (thought it might be the pesticides) – same reaction. Finally I realized I could eat applesauce and drink apple juice. I started experimenting and realized that I can eat these fruits after they are cooked. (i.e. I can eat apple pie, just not fresh apples)
Over the next few years, my allergies would increase. It was extremely frustrating because I would never know what I would react to. I would react to random foods over the next few years with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I remember on Thanksgiving while at my Aunt’s house years ago grabbing a handful of almonds and immediately breaking out with itchy, swollen, burning lips, tongue, and mouth.
Fast forward to a few years ago when I thought I had it all figured out. I was able to avoid the foods I couldn’t eat and very rarely had a reaction to the fruits and nuts. I started having different kinds of symptoms related to food. I began to have horrible, delibitating stomach pain after eating anything. I was so confused and began to get very frustrated and really..downright afraid to eat anything at all. After a few months of this, I got back to fairly normal (eating lots of veggies, salads, greek yogurt, smoothies)…Nate and I were engaged and I was working out and eating super healthy. Then – I became lactose intolerant…I mean not even a little butter or my stomach would go haywire.
As you can imagine, my life was pretty crazy at this point. Let’s recap:
- No fruits (except melons, bananas, kiwis)
- No nuts (except pecans, cashews, and pistachios)
- Unknown cause of stomach pain after eating anything
- Now – no dairy whatsoever, still some pain even without dairy in my life
After Nate and I got married, my lactose intolerance went away (crazy…I know). But I was still having insane pain after eating any sort of meal. My sister is slightly gluten intolerant so she suggested I may be too, so I tried a gluten free diet. This seemed to help, but it didn’t take away a lot of the pain. Oh..and by pain, I mean bloating, sharp, shooting pains through my stomach for times spanning from hours to days. I began measuring my waist, just to see what the difference was. I think the worst it got was in the morning (no pain) my waist was 30″ and at night (horrible pain) my waist was 39″. Yeah – that’s 9″ of bloating – of course I was in pain!
I finally got to the point that I said to my husband, “Not everyone feels like this after eating – I just know it. I’m afraid to eat and I hurt so bad. There has to be something wrong with me.” I finally set up an appointment with a Gastroenterologist. They tested me for Celiac (which I knew I wasn’t) and then sent me home for 6 weeks on a super-probiotic…gee thanks. That was such a horrible visit because my doctor didn’t seem to think this was a big deal. But to me, and my husband, it was. Have you ever been so afraid to eat because of the pain you knew was inevitable? It’s not a good way to live.
That is when I dove into my own research. I quickly found out that
I am not alone in this. There were others out there like me…afraid to eat for the pain was so bad. I found a lot of good information on
this website and
this website and eventually diagnosed myself with IBS. In the past, all I knew of IBS was that you could have two kinds…with constipation or with diarrhea. Well..turns out, thats not exactly true.
My issue is based around
soluble and insoluble fiber. I began a very grueling elimination diet where I basically ate only boiled chicken, roasted butternut squash and carrots with no seasoning, oil, butter, etc for two weeks. No coffee or wine, only water and peppermint tea to drink. Once those weeks were over I very slowly introduced things back into my diet. I used
this guide to introduce foods back into my diet. I kept a strict journal logging everything i ate, how I felt, my reaction (or lack there of) and the times and days of each food and reaction. I very quickly learned that dairy and gluten are not an issue for me. …Though dairy is inherently an irritant therefore I still avoid it for my tummy’s sake. I learned that I am intolerant to insoluble fiber…you know that good for you stuff like kale, spinach, peppers, brussels sprouts, broccoli, yummy..delicious green veggies that I could live on? Yea – apparently those are the foods my body rejects. For example: in my elimination diet, I roasted some broccoli til it was nice and tender, ate about 1/4 cup and almost immediately my tummy started swelling and the pained ensued -
for three whole days.
My life was changed by this discovery for good and bad. This blog isn’t for me to complain about it. It isn’t for you to feel sorry for me. It is so that hopefully..one day someone will stumble upon it and know that they are not the only one with this. There are ways around this…there is hope for leading a healthy lifestyle without the standard greens.
This blog will be my food journal of pictures and recipes.
This blog will be my record keeper of the many foods I am still too scared to try.
This blog will be someone’s starting point of leading a pain free, healthy lifestyle.
I’m not perfect but through this blog I hope to share recipes that work for me, challenges that I face with my irritating insoluble fiber hating body, and hopefully find my way through this tunnel to the other side of living a nutrient filled, healthy, pain free life.
In my next blog, I go into more details about what the difference is between soluble and insoluble fiber and how to get around it.
