Day 9: Waiting...

Woke up this morning feeling MUCH better than last night. Now I'm back to my baseline of allergies and milder chest tightness instead of gasping for breath. I'm feeling more confident in my ability to navigate food without any of the forbidden stuff, although I had to look up whether bacon has sulfites in it before brunch (not as far as I could tell). My chest is still tight and my nose is stuffy, but I do feel a little better. It's not a night and day difference, but it's there. I'm just waiting a few more days to see if there are any more changes. After that I suppose it's time to add things back one by one and see what happens.

Out of nowhere I got the urge to go swimming, so I went to the gym at school and swam laps for an hour for the first time in at least a couple of years. My breathing was noticeably good. I didn't have a hard time at all. I wonder if they rhythm and the forced concentration on breathing helped. I don't know what it was, but it was great to not be aware of it for an hour or so.

Washing/changing sheets is my absolute least favorite household task. I love clean sheets, but I hate that washing and changing them takes all damn day. I'm supposed to change my sheets every week so the dust mites don't attack me in my sleep. I did it last weekend, and I did it again today, but to be honest, the only reason it happened is because I forgot there was coffee in my travel mugh and it spilled and made a mess.

Day 8: I'm Allergic to School, but not to Mediterranean Pasta

On Thursday I was handed two take-home finals due this coming week, so I spent the afternoon at the library at school, like a good student. Due to budget cuts, they kicked everyone out of the library at 5:00, but there is a small bank of computers for students in my department down the hall, so I camped out there for awhile after getting the boot. It was great in that I got another three hours of work done, but I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to something in that room. Within about half an hour I could feel my chest starting to tighten and pretty soon I was having to do my big, dramatic yawn routine to get the air I wanted. By the time I left, I was a mess. More than four hours later, I still am. I hate taking an albuterol inhaler (I feel like it makes me crazy without helping my breathing much), but I've taken it twice tonight, for the first time in at least six months. I used a tincture that I got from the naturopath two or three times. I still can't breathe. It's driving me insane. I'm really hoping things will have calmed down by the time I wake up in the morning.

On the plus side, I made some good pasta for dinner...

Mediterranean Pasta:

1/2 package rice pasta (I used TJ's fusilli, or something similar)
1/2 small jar sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil
1 14.5 ounce can garbanzo beans
1 package frozen broccoli florets
approximately 20 kalamata olives
1 small can anchovies (if you're into that kind of thing)
salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste

Bring a quart or two of salted water to a boil
Add the pasta and cook until just tender
Drain and set aside
Place the broccoli in a microwave-safe bowl with 2-3 tbsp. water and microwave on high for 3 minutes or until hot, but not mushy
Drain and set aside
Place a large skillet over medium-high heat
Add the sun-dried tomatoes in their oil
Open, drain and rinse the garbanzo beans
Add them to the pan with the tomatoes
Slice the kalamata olives in half and add them to the pan with the tomatoes and garbanzos
Add the pasta and the broccoli to the pan and stir until heated through
Season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and/or anchovies to taste
Makes 2-3 servings

I still can't breathe, but I enjoyed the hell out of dinner!

Day 7: Cooking Time - Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Stir-fry

I felt pretty good today. Still some tightness, but mostly pretty clear. And I behaved myself. At least I think so...

I spent some time in the kitchen today making food I know I can eat. The main dish was a sweet potato and cauliflower stir-fry that goes something like this:

1 small head of cauliflower, chopped into florets/bite-size chunks
1/2 lb. sweet potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 tsp. turmeric
4 tbsp. olive oil (or peanut oil, if you're not trying to avoid the damn things)
2 Serrano peppers, seeded and diced
10 oz. frozen spinach
1 can light coconut milk
salt to taste

Boil the cauliflower and sweet potatoes until tender; drain and set aside
In a food processor, combine the cilantro, Serrano peppers, turmeric and 2 tbsp. olive oil and process into a chunky paste
Steam the spinach; drain and set aside
Heat a wok, dutch oven or large skillet to medium-high heat
Add the remaining 2 tbsp. of olive oil
Once the oil is hot, add the cilantro paste and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant
Add the sweet potatoes and cauliflower and stir until coated with the paste
Add the spinach and coconut milk and stir until well combine
Add salt to taste
Simmer until heated through
Serve on its own or over brown rice

Makes 4 reasonably generous servings

I made a pot of this yesterday and have eaten at least three of the four servings. I'll be sad to see it go...

Day 6: Suspicions and Theories and Whining

My breathing has been really tough today. My chest has been tight all day and I constantly feel like I have to yawn to get the breath I want, and then 20 seconds later I have to do it again. I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that either a) I'm not doing this right and not being quite stingent enough with watching what I'm doing, or b) food's not causing it. I tend to think it's a) since I often notice it getting harder to breathe right after I eat. But it's not like my throat swells up--it's that my chest tightens. The roof of my mouth has been itchy off and on, which seems consistent with allergies. As far as I know, I haven't had any gluten, dairy, sulfites, nuts or soy for almost a week, but my approach has been to not eat anything I knew had one of those in it instead of only eating things that I absolutely, positively was 100% sure had none of them in it. Maybe I haven't given it enough time. Maybe there's something I'm still eating that's causing it. Maybe it's something in the air and not in the food at all. A few weeks ago I avoided pretty much everything that could possibly be an allergen (dairy, wheat, soy, nuts, eggs, beans, rice, corn, citrus, along with alcohol and sugar) and within a few days I felt noticeably better. But I don't wanna eat like that again... Pity party, temper tantrum, time to just suck it up and do it better. That's the only way I'll know for sure. Meh.

The corn flake and hemp milk breakfast was great--I hadn't had cereal in forever. I'm more than halfway through the jar of sunflower seed butter since last night. I am not to be trusted.

Day 5: Sunflower Seed Butter Is..

...delicious!

I finally made it to Whole Foods tonight. I wasn't expecting much from the sunflower seed butter, but when I was checking out, the guy who was bagging my groceries stopped in his tracks to say how much he loved sunflower seed butter and that he thought it was better than peanut butter. And... he was right! It's really good!

While at the store I also got the stuff I needed to make some stuff. An the lentil soup is good, too. Recipe is here (thank you, Emily):
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/lentil-soup-recipe/index.html
I used red lentils and added some cayenne. It's really good and instead of a "taste" I ended up having about three cups.

Looking forward to corn flakes and hemp milk for breakfast...

Day 4: Thankful

I don't want to jinx anything, but I think I might be starting to feel better. There's still tightness when I go to take a full, deep breath, but overall I feel a notch or two better than the past few days.

Food was good today. I'm definitely not as freaked out by the whole proposition as I was at first. I am, however, looking forward to trying some new recipes instead of throwing random individual foods in my bag in the morning. Dinner was most of a can of garbanzo beans and five cuties eaten in the library. I'm pretty sure I can step that up a bit.

Talking to my sister tonight put everything in perspective. She's a nurse and told me about a patient who she is pretty sure lives in a car with his girlfriend. After the patient ate dinner, his girlfriend asked if she could have half of a sandwich. My sister realized that the girlfriend hadn't eaten all day, so she went to round up as much food as she could for her.

I realize how incredibly fortunate I am that while there are so many people who don't have homes or enough to eat, I have the luxury of eating (or not eating) just about anything I want. My life is good. Very, very good. And I need to remember that.

Day 3: I Think I Did...

This is the first day I think I did everything right. No eating out, no mystery ingredients, no nuts, no soy, no dairy, no gluten, and no sulfites. Lots (LOTS) of produce, brown rice and olive oil (and a little dark chocolate). The breathing is still tough--I've had a hard time catching my breath all day and I struggled for half an hour on the elliptical trainer tonight. It suddenly got pretty chilly here, and the cold, dry air could have something to do with it. I'm still trying to wait until this weekend before getting cranky if the breathing isn't easier.

In other news, thank you to everyone who has passed along tips and recipes, put me in touch with friends who've dealt with some of the same issues, made food adhering to my obnoxious list of requirements, and just generally been really supportive. I have a couple of recipes on deck that I'm looking forward to trying and am starting to feel like I just might be able to pull this off...

Day 2: Am I Taking This Seriously Enough?

As far as I know, today went fine. I had lunch with family and got a scramble with eggs, vegetables, black beans, chicken and potatoes. As far as I know, all of that is fine. But I don't know if that's all that was in there. I didn't get the cheese or the sour cream or the toast. I didn't put creamer in my coffee or ketchup on my potatoes. I avoided everything I know I should, but I didn't ask exactly how the potatoes or chicken or eggs were prepared and whether it involved any milk or butter or something that could carry sulfites. Since any allergies I have haven't caused a serious, acute reaction so far, I'm not as motivated to seek out every single ingredient in everything I eat as I would be if there was a serious possibility of my airway closing. This is good, but it also means I'm not treating this like my life depends on it, and it leads me wonder whether I'm doing enough.

My breathing has been kind of cruddy the past couple of days. Not the worst it's ever been, but I'd say a 6 or 7 if 10 was the worst. There was a time a few weeks ago when I strictly avoided everything that could cause me a problem for about five days. By the end of that, I was feeling pretty good (which is why I tend to think food has something to do with my breathing in the first place). But right now, while I'm trying to avoid the potential problems while waiting to feel better, I'm having a hard time believing I'm doing the right stuff and that I should give it more time to kick in. Last night I was in Barnes & Noble looking at allergy books, and one had an elimination diet that's different from the one I'm doing, and another, written by an MD, sided with the allergist I saw and said that asthma is not related to food allergies. I started getting overwhelmed and wondering whether what I was doing was right, and I finally had to just put them all back and walk away. I really don't know if what I'm doing is going to help, but it's only temporary, and it's almost certainly not going to hurt, so I'm going to give myself until next weekend before getting concerned if I'm not feeling a difference.

Day 1: Warming Up

After throwing what was basically a food-avoidance temper tantrum and eating like an idiot for the past two days, today was day one of trying to really avoid dairy, wheat and sulfites, in addition to the soy and nuts I've been staying away from for a couple of weeks. I feel completely like a fish out of water, but I'm learning a few things.

1. Not surprisingly, eating a big lunch before going to a birthday party is a good idea. I met up with my cousin and his family for his daughter's birthday party. Before I went I had a huge bowl of brown rice, eggs, steamed greens and a sweet potato. That made it a lot easier to pick the pineapple out of the fruit salad and not eat everything on the table and wash it down with a glass of wine and half a tray of brownies.

2. I'm probably not ready to eat out. I met up with friends for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. I figured as restaurants go, Asian would be pretty safe in terms of dairy and at least navigable for soy, wheat and nuts. What I didn't think about is that I am not familiar enough with Vietnamese food to know what goes into everything and whether it's going to be a problem. Without thinking, I drank the tea they had on the table before remembering it's on the sulfite no-no list. I ordered a vermicelli soup with duck and shredded cabbage, but when it came, I just ended up really suspicious of all of it. Was the cabbage pickled? Was there soy sauce or something sulfitey in the broth? Were they really rice noodles? I ate it, and felt sort of vaguely guilty about it, like I should have been more careful. I didn't know for sure any of it was out, but if I'm going to do this, it's probably better to take the "guilty until proven innocent" approach to eating. I'm sure the combination of mentally putting my dinner on trial and also not being able to breathe very well made me a fantastic dining companion.

3. There are sulfites in Sriracha. That's messed up.

The Good, the Bad, and the Challenge

Keeping the food log last week was helpful. Because I was keeping track of everything and knew someone else was going to look at it, I ate pretty well, avoided soy and nuts (well, except for some cashews on a salad...). In my first visit they said that wheat and dairy can promote inflammation and probably aren't helpful, so I largely avoided them, too. And then Wednesday night happened. Wednesday night I went to a wine tasting with friends. It was lovely. Eight wines with bread and four or five cheeses and a platter of chocolate to match. I had some of all of it, and then Thursday couldn't breathe very well. So of course on Thursday I had more wheat and dairy, and made matters worse. When I went in and reported all of this to my naturopathic friends on Friday, they suggested I do a challenge diet to figure out what's going on. As part of the challenge diet, they have asked me to completely eliminate certain foods for two weeks, watch my symptoms, and then introduce one category of food at a time, every few days, and to see how my body reacts. This sounded challenging, but reasonable enough, until I started to take stock of exactly what they asked me to eliminate: dairy, gluten, and sulfites.

The dairy I expected, and I can do. The hardest part of that is giving up the half and half in my Americanos. I can avoid cheese and drink black coffee for two weeks.
I was expecting them to ask me to avoid wheat. I can handle no bread, tortillas or crackers temporarily. But in researching it further, avoiding gluten also means no oats or barley (aka beer). That's a little harder, but alright. That brings me to sulfites... I had never heard of sulfite allergy until yesterday. I had never thought about sulfites and what they might or might not be in, but it sounds like they're in all kinds of stuff, and some of it I like. Like wine. I like wine. Unfortunately, I won't be drinking it for at least two weeks. Sulfites are also in dried fruit. And shrimp. And guacamole. That's kind of a low blow. Add to that the soy, peanuts and tree nuts that I'm already trying to avoid, and things are getting really tricky really fast.

So far, here's what I have...

The GOOD (foods I can have):
fruits and vegetables - especially dark leafy greens, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, and broccoli)
whole grains with no gluten - brown rice, quinoa, and some others I've never tried
beans
corn
fish, chicken, turkey and beef (assuming they don't have sulfites)
eggs
olive oil

The BAD (out for 2+ weeks):
Soy - tofu, edamame, miso, tempeh, and everything else that uses it
Nuts/Legumes/Seeds - peanuts, almonds, hazelnuts, other tree nuts, and sesame seeds
Dairy - milk, cheese, cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, butter, chocolate etc. etc.
Gluten - wheat, bread, pasta, oats, beer, gravies, custards, ketchup, soy sauce, malt vinegar, cereal, cookies, cakes, what am I missing...?
Sulfites - baked goods, soup mixes, jams, canned vegetables, pickled foods, gravies, dried fruit, alcohol, beer, wine, vegetable juices, bottled or canned juices, tea, condiments, shrimp, molasses

Where does that leave me? Sort of overwhelmed. And hungry. And open to suggestions. Any ideas for foods or recipes that don't use any of the eliminated foods are greatly appreciated. As are thoughts of things I can eat when I'm out and about, because I don't have the best track record of making all of my own food ahead of time.

Dear god, help me.

Trying Something New

I think I understand why the allergist says that he doesn't think food allergies have anything to do with my asthma, but there's a reason I disagree. It's true, I don't typically have anaphylactic-type reactions to foods. Soy milk (not edamame or tofu--just soy milk) makes my throat swell and my mouth itch, but other than that, I don't have acute reactions to things I eat. What I have noticed is that it is not uncommon for me to be breathing pretty well before a meal, and then to be gasping for air shortly after eating. To me that says there's something going on with the food.

Because I want to figure out what's going on that is making my body so mad, last week I went to a naturopath. Actually, I went to the teaching clinic affiliated with the major natural medicine university located outside of Seattle. I met with two advanced students, supervised by a naturopathic physician. The students were great. They spent an hour and a half with me, got a really complete medical history, asked about my symptoms, how long they had been occurring, what else was going on in my life at the time and what my home and family life were like. They explained what they call the bucket theory, that you can think of your body as a bucket with a spigot at the bottom. Stressors fill up the bucket, and your body eliminates them through the "spigot" of your lungs, skin and digestive tract. If you take on more than your body can eliminate, things get out of whack. That made sense to me and seemed like it could be consistent with what I'm experiencing. Even if I'm not "allergic" to certain things by the allergist's definition, maybe I'm sensitive to things and my body is overloaded and staging an immune response unnecessarily. The students and their supervising physician prescribed me a couple of things to help bring down inflammation and asked me to keep track of what I ate for a week and then to come back for a follow-up visit to figure out what's next.

Background

In spring of 2007 I started having trouble breathing out of nowhere. It wasn't a crisis, but I just couldn't get a good, deep breath. I was diagnosed with asthma, given an albuterol inhaler and referred to an allergist. Based on skin-prick tests I was told I was highly allergic to soy, peanuts, peas, lima beans and almonds, and a little less allergic to rice, lobster and navy beans. According to the skin tests, I was also allergic to cats, most trees, grasses, weeds and house dust.

I gave up all of the foods I was told I was allergic to, cleaned up my apartment and got an air filter, but the breathing didn't get any better. I was cranky from not being able to eat so many things I loved, so I chalked the breathing up to the bad air quality in Los Angeles, and that's where it left off.

Since then I've moved from LA to Seattle and my breathing has gone through phases of being being fine and phases of being difficult. Lately, it's been difficult. When I couldn't handle 10 easy minutes on the stationary bike because I couldn't get enough air, I decided it was time to finally handle this for real, so I went back to the doctor, where I got referrals for another round of allergy testing and a lung function test, and a prescription for an inhaled medication used for COPD patients. According to the recent skin test I'm still highly allergic to soybeans, peanuts and almonds, and he added hazelnuts and sesame to the list (and, of course, the dust, the trees and the cats). The allergist doesn't seem to think the food allergies have anything to do with the asthma (I don't necessarily agree). He prescribed a different inhaled medication for COPD patients, along with an EpiPen, in case any of my allergies go anaphylactic. According to the lung function test, my lung volume and function are good, but according to the tech there's something about the ratio of the two that is not right and points to an obstruction. I haven't had a follow-up appointment to know what the pulmonologist says.

So far I know the following:
1. Something (or things) makes my body mad
2. It's not in my head (thank you, respiratory tech)

I guess it's a start...