Thinking about allergies
Yesterday, I had a horrible allergy day. I coughed enough that I checked my temperature every few hours. Nope, my temperature didn't rise, which meant I was dealing with an allergic reaction. Benedryl helped me through the night, but caused me to be dull and fatigued for hours afterwards.
Thankfully dialysis has helped me get my brain back. My brain problems gets worse when I am on prednisone and immunosuppressants. The doctors and nurses know about the brain fog, but they don't consider it a problem. I am starting to realize that brain fog is one of my first symptoms when I have an allergic reaction.
When I say I am having an allergic reaction, I mean that my nose starts running, my eyes water, and I feel a tickle in my throat. As the reaction gets worse, I start coughing up stuff from my lungs. A benedryl pill actually stops it immediately. But I also have a reaction to it
Anyway I do know that I have a problem with most flowering plants, particularly lilacs and oleanders. I stay away from these triggers.
Recently, I am beginning to think that I have food triggers as well. For instance milk causes a histamine reaction in my sinuses. I have been drinking a lot of protein drinks with whey. After a year, I am starting to have that reaction whenever I drink my protein drinks. I never had a problem with sour cream. Now I do.
It was yesterday that I realized that the nightshade vegetables (tomatoes and potatoes) were giving me stomach aches. Those are my favorites by the way. I have to give up so much that when I can eat these, I'm pretty happy. My body wasn't happy. So between the whey and the nightshade vegetables, I think I have been overloading my system. It can't deal with too many food stressors.
I limited my diet to meat, onions, and a little potato. This morning I lost that frog in the throat feeling.
I really would like to feel better without the fatigue. So it looks like I will be doing a lot of research on keto and restriction diets to get my body to a baseline. Then I'll add things again. This time though I will have to completely say goodbye to nightshade vegetables.
I can't add cruciferous vegetables either. They give me gas and stomach aches.
Since I am on a high protein diet for dialysis, I won't have a problem with my kidney doctor. He is more worried about my PH balance. I'll keep that going with onions and lettuce.
With the milk restriction, I will have to quit using my favorite dressings too. Hopefully it won't be too painful. I really enjoy ranch dressing.
I'm not giving up coffee.
An interesting idea I found online yesterday was that there is a large amount of mold in our food. There are some people of Northern European extraction, who have a reaction to food mold. In that same vein I am allergic to penicillin. Apparently a lot of our food and other staples like vegetables, beans, and grains do get some mold. Aged cheeses and aged beef grow mold.
I do know I have a reaction to black mold. It smells stale and causes me to sneeze. It's not a big jump to think I would have problems with other types of mold especially in food.
So I'll do more research and see how I feel with less vegetables and more meat.
My goal is to feel better and have a working brain.