Appointment three was had with the allergy specialist yesterday. Another day, another fistful of cash. I know people say you can't put a price on your health, but those people have lots of money, or at least more than I do. It's been a while since I updated about the progress of my diet. Mostly because I'm sick to tears of talking about it. Now, I love food. I love eating it, I love reading about it, I love cooking it and I really do love talking about it. But when all you're talking about is what you're not allowed to eat and the minutiae of all the myriad reactions you have to various foods, it gets pretty dull pretty quick. So here's a quick run down of how the rest of my re-introduction of various foods went.
Badly.
That's kind of all you need to know. I feel like I had some sort of reaction to most foods. The things I didn't react to, oddly, were sugar and tea. I reacted to all the grains on there and the eggs and dairy. Also, my mood was hugely affected on the days when I was eating grains and I was pretty much a nightmare to be around. Not a reaction I was expecting but no doubt unpleasant for those in my immediate company. So, slowly but surely, as the diet went on I started to feel more and more like my old unhealthy, tired, wheezy self. Hangovers without the pleasure of drinking anyone?
Understandably frustration and confusion crept in and last weekend I was pretty much ready to pack the whole thing in. So when I went back to the doctor yesterday I really was hoping for some answers, but as I'm learning, this is a long road and answers were few and far between. The upshot is, the elimination was fairly inconclusive and a new tack is to be tried.
And so we come to my new prescription diet - the candida diet. For those of you who've never heard of it, it's aim is to try and combat an overgrowth of candida bacteria in your gut. Nice. It can be caused by a whole host of things from bad diet to stress and boasts a long list of symptoms. The symptoms are so wide and varied it can be pretty hard to diagnose, but according to my doc, the fact that I had reactions to so many different foods could point to a problem in my gut rather than an actual intolerance or allergy. O how I love the vague nature of our little chats.
This diet is to take 30 days and is essentially a low sugar low carb diet, designed to starve the bad bacteria of the sugars they need to grow coupled with a targeted intake of good bacteria to replace them. Sounds sensible. It's slightly less restrictive than the last diet. Hurray. I can introduce things like beans and pulses. Also live yoghurt is encouraged as it is packed with good bacteria. I'm encouraged to try eggs and dairy even though I thought I reacted to them before - confusing. Eating out is now not impossible but still restrictive and I've even convinced him to agree to my having a small bit of alcohol and a square of really dark chocolate every now and then - so my social life has at least a small chance of recovering. Good news.
The diet may not be as hard as before but after a long month of self denial and self examination, I'm exhausted and confused and the last thing I can cope with is a whole new set of rules and restrictions. With an upcoming trip to the states next week, I can't go to New York and behave, I've decided it's time for a break and I will revisit this next stage when I return. Now, where to for lunch??