Over the past year, I have been battling severe allergies. I have had allergies since I was about 6 years old and was on allergy shots for a total of 19 years of my life. So, allergies are nothing new to me. I am pretty much allergic to anything that lives, many pollens (grass, some trees, ragweed and others), cats, dogs, wool, feathers, molds, bees, horses and dust are what the allergy doctors over the years have diagnosed as definite allergens.
My usual allergic reactions tend to be runny nose and sneezing with watery eyes that tends to try to settle into my bronchial tubes to create bronchitis. Luckily, over the years, I have learned to know the symptoms and how it progresses, so I can usually get control of the reactions before I go into bronchitis. Last year however, I started breaking out in large hives. I am talking big, dinner plate size. These are by far the worse reaction I have ever had because it makes you want to scratch your skin off and they are painful. You get to where you cannot function because they are so distracting.
I went to the allergy doctor and they put me on Allegra and Zyrtec which help greatly. The doctor did not even want to go through the whole allergy testing thing again because I have been through it so many times and I have been tested for nearly everything that they have a test for, so it had to be something that does not have a clinical test. Oh great, right.
Well, I did research online and it indicated that I may have a food allergy or intolerance. I have been following elimination diets off and on now since the summer and have discovered that I have both a dairy intolerance (discovered that in August) and also a wheat intolerance. Oh joy.
In fact the symptoms are worse for wheat then they are for dairy even. Now I am on a quest to find wheat free products that I actually like (brown rice pasta is gross). And am hoping that I do not have any more food intolerances that I have not discovered yet.
Do you have any food allergies or intolerances? How did you deal with it? Any advice would be helpful.
Bummer. But at least you are finding out and can adapt. I did a nutritionist supervised very strict elimination diet years ago and never learned anything. We did a gluten-free trial for my husband recently for 2 weeks that didn't help his issues. But the good news is that there are so many lactose free and gluten free products now.
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