Allergies...are ya kidding me?

So, I do not have medical evidence (aka, the skin tests*), but I know my body well enough to know that I am now allergic to the following foods:

peanuts
tree nuts (almonds, at least)
soy

The top two make me sneeze or eyes itch. Soy makes me disoriented. And soy is in EVERYTHING.

I know it's wrong, but I subsist on tv dinners. Well, if you want no soy, you have to get everything with CHEESE. Which I'm not allergic to, but I try to stay away from dairy in the week before my period. Also, dairy is not the best if you're trying to avoid sinus infections. So. Week 1 of my period: monster cramps AND a sinus infection. Yeah.

So I'm compiling good allergy links, as I look into the fall and cooler weather to cook, recipes, dining out tips, etc. Here is some of what I've uncovered:

Allergy Eats. The site is new and a little buggy, but it does give ratings from folks that have eaten there on what the response was to allergy related requests, etc.

Allergic Living. Website to the magazine with the same name. Will look into a subscription. The website has recipes, blogs, food allergy info, asthma info, all sorts of good info.

Best Allergy Sites. A sort of catchall for a lot of sites on gluten-free and and hypo-allergenic living.

Mom's Food Allergy Diner. A blog written by a mom with allergy free recipes. I think my rate of home cooking will go way up once the weather cools down.

Tips for eating out. I especially liked this one from WebMD.

I'll keep you updated. I have not been blogging regularly anywhere, life has been CRAZY, but it is helpful to have a place to park this kind of information.

What makes me so mad (and sad) is that foods that I used to love are now off limits.

__________________________________
getting those after my sister's wedding in 6 days!
(unless I have to use an antihistamine after
Friday.)

Learning the hard way...about detox

So, I wasn't planning to do a detox. I just happen to own a box of detox tea and read "use two tea bags for more of a punch." (That wasn't the exact wording.) I took the bait. It was a weak moment. I'm trying to lose weight for my sister's wedding (and my own well-being) and it seemed like an okay idea.

That was then, this is now.

Ever experience a detox "die-off"? Me neither, until now.

What is a "die-off"? Well, apparently, your liver is overwhelmed by all the bad dead cells that the detox has killed. Some folks say it's a good thing, others say, well, you want to avoid it. After this, I'm in the second camp. Slow is better, I'm thinking. I do not ever want to feel this way because of something self-inflicted.

Wednesday I didn't notice that I felt crappy until I did my first story time. My mouth was dry and I felt like death warmed over. Not that I was going to vomit (I rarely do) but just that I really wanted to lie down for a really lie down. Okay, I left something out. My bowels were an indication.

So after my first story time, I negotiated the rest of the day off, if I did the second story time.

I drove home and crawled into bed. I slept for 3 hours and had lunch at 4 pm.

"Detox die off" became something I regularly Googled for the next couple of days. Yesterday was when I found some help. After my back started hurting Friday (a symptom of die-off is joint pain, and if you Google die off and back pain, you get a bunch of hits) I found some tips that helped.

Drink lots of water. I have not gone the distilled route because I'm not into distilled water.

Take lots of vitamin C. Okay, I'm up with that, but not to the point of diarrhea, which some sites recommend. Um, I feel bad, I don't want to feel worse.

Take baths with Epsom salt. I can do that.

Eat lots of vegetables and no red meat. Okay.

Add to that stuff that you do for a back ache: Thermacare wraps, Tylenol (I am allergic to NSAIDS, which means ibuprofen, aspirin, etc.), sleeping with a pillow between your knees (I'm a side sleeper.)

And lots of sleep.

Today, my back feels a little better (good enough to sit through Les Miserables, after lunch, after driving through city neighborhoods to pick up Lilly, after cleaning SNOW off my car.)

What am I grateful for? Right now?

That I do not live in any of the places that are flooding. As I've been sitting here, writing this, watching CBS Sunday Morning, the TV has beeped and run the emergency ticker tape at the bottom of the screen: FLOOD WARNING.

I'm also grateful that I have a little bit less of the chalk mouth, and that tomorrow I get to see my chiropractor, who will be a little less judgmental of a detox than my regular general practitioner.

Chalk this one up to: lesson learned.

Miss Susie called the Doctor...the doctor called the nurse...

This children's verse actually is a great outlet for my frustration with the medical profession in this country:

Miss Susie had a baby, she named him Tiny Tim.
She put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water, he ate all the soap, he tried to eat the bathtub but it wouldn't go down his throat.
Miss Susie called the doctor, the doctor called the nurse, the nurse called the lady with the alligator purse.
In walked the doctor, in walked the nurse, in walked the lady with the alligator purse.
Mumps! said the doctor, Measles! said the nurse, Nothing! said the lady with the alligator purse.
Out walked the doctor, Out walked the nurse, Out walked the lady with the alligator purse.

Last week I called my dermatologist, as I had a boil under my arm that was getting inflamed. I started myself on an antibiotic that had been previously prescribed for this type of thing. After a good conversation with the nurse, I asked some more questions, and the nurse said, we'll call back tomorrow with the answers. Well, she called back to say they were going to prescribe an antibiotic. Which one, I asked? She gave the name. Oh, no, that one makes me anxious. The nurse notes that and says, it says here you are allergic to penecillan and aspirin. Oh, and sulfa drugs, I said. Oh, we'll put that on our chart.

The next day I get a recording from Walgreens saying there is some insurance problem with my prescription. So I call Walgreens and talked to the pharmacy tech, who said, your doctor just called in an antibiotic and you had just refilled that recently so it's not going through. Which antibiotic? The same one I was already on!!! Which I had mentioned in my first call to the nurse.

Plus, lovely TMI detail, all these antibiotics give me breakthrough bleeding because I'm also on the Pill. So I really want to get off the antibiotics since I've been on them 10 days now. And so I left a message with the nurse's station answering machine. I think I'll have to make an appointment. Sometimes they can inject the boil with steroids. They might not be able to since I'm still recovering from the Shingles...

I got a book out of the library last night, Stop Being your Symptoms: a 6 week mind-body program to ease your chronic symptoms. I'll let you know how it goes. I will try ANYTHING at this point.

Over and out, I need to chill with my book.

"I do not think that word means what you think it means..."

(from Princess Bride)

Shingles is a pain in my side. Fortunately for me, it's more a mental anguish that my body doesn't have energy than a literal pain in my side or on my head. My co-workers have not been as lucky. My one co-worker has it on her scalp and she can't brush her hair and she says that by 3pm it feels like someone has been pulling her hair all day.

And all the literature says, "Immuno-suppressed." Well, I may be fighting boils left and right, and I know my co-worker and I are both under a lot of stress as things change at work, but I have heard enough stories from people that weren't dying from cancer and shingles was just a symptom, a flag that said, oh guess what, you are REALLY sick.

And it's not just old people. It seems that Shingles is as pervasive as Mono, just not as well understood. I've heard of 14 year olds getting it, college students getting it...

Oh, and here's something. When you get it, start taking B vitamins and Vitamin C at therapeutic levels *right away* and aggressively. Your doctor won't tell you because "it's not proven that those work" (from my friend who is married to a doctor and deals with too many doctors). Avocado is a good food to eat a lot of. Also beta carotene.

This is not a scientific blog, but a place for me to be frustrated with the status quo of how doctors and patients operate in this first world country. It's all about germs and not about your body's mechanisms to fight it.

at least I can say, it really is my hormones...

from Hormonology:

Week 2
Day 8 to Day 13
Today's hormone-cast: Stress is at an all-cycle high this week as rocketing estrogen amps up your anxiety level. As a result, you may feel plagued by headaches, tense shoulders and a sore back. Luckily, a little self-massage can work wonders to loosen up tight muscles and give you a mood boost. In fact, research shows that giving yourself a rubdown is just as relaxing as asking someone else to do it for you!

Today started out completely craptastically but by now, the Universe has figured out that it needed to compensate in the other direction. YAY!

You can almost, not quite, see all the crap that happened this morning roll back into a ball, as if the film were rolling backwards.

Happy Thanksgiving

This cracks me up...

Today's hormone-cast

Thanksgiving falls on a perfect day in your cycle: Progesterone is boosting your cravings for comfort food. And there's no doubt that the typical turkey-day meal is the epitome of food made for comfort. This sedating hormone is also giving you unparalleled patience with any annoying relatives and family friends, even after the wine is served! Enjoy!

So far, I was able to get my cousin's fiance to not bug me while I ate my breakfast...so it's good news that I might be able to have patience with my other cousin's fiance...

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. Psalm 92:1 (from Aintskeerd, on Twitter.)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!! (and happy Thursday if you are an international guest.)

Sarah Louise and the Allergic Reaction

This was in my in-box this morning:

Hormonology: Week 1 First day of period to Day 7

Today's hormone-cast: Have cramps? Don't reach for the Tylenol. Stock up on ibuprofen instead. Studies show it quashes the pain of menstrual cramps far more effectively. Want to give your ibuprofen a boost? Down it with chamomile tea. Scientists discovered it contains a compound that acts like a mild muscle relaxant, which makes menstrual cramps less intense.

So, really, what my hormone-cast is telling me I should go into shock--since I'm allergic to both ibuprofen AND chamomile.

Which is wonderful, since this week I already ate tilapia, which I'm allergic to. I finally took a Benadryl at midnight, after googling for quite a while, figuring out that I didn't have ER ready symptoms. (My throat was a little constricted, like I hadn't swallowed a pill correctly.) And Monday, I slept the ENTIRE afternoon. Yes, I will be getting an epi-pen when I go see my allergist in two weeks. And my therapist was like, um, why did you keep eating it when you knew you were allergic? I know. But I was cloudy from having spent the morning with one year old twins, waiting in line to see the Mr. Rogers Land of Makebelieve. So yes, I need to learn to say, "I'm not hungry" if I'm determined to be polite to the hostess.

Meanwhile, I am SICK of having this cold. We're on week 1 plus days now. AND, I lost my tablespoon.

Go do something really happy and healthy. I have to go sing to babies in five minutes.