Put Me Out Of My Misery...

[SunnyDyRain]

I am so confused... Today I had small amounts of dairy(2 cups of coffee about 2tbs ea), and small amounts of soy (smart balance non dairy margarine, and then soy milk with some strawberries) I also ate sugar and fresh fruit. I was prepared for feeling like crap and spending the day in the bathroom and on the couch. I was fine. I had some looser stools, but not D and no gas and little bloating.

I will try to go Gluten Free, Casein Free, and Soy Free next week, and If I don't see improvement, I will see my doc about Candidia and getting ELISA testing.

Thank you to everyone for putting up with me when I feel like crap and helping me find some course of action towards finding some sort of healthy me.

One last question... If I eat things I have intolerances to, such as casiens or soy. Do they do damage like gluten does, or do they just make me sick and miserable as they pass though?

[tarnalberry]

hrm.. so there is non-dairy margerine you say.. awesome. I often wondered if there was one.. but didnt feel like spending half an hour looking at tub after tub of the stuff getting increasingly frustrated and having a breakdown in the store.

Now that you mention onions.. i have an idea.

I use a rice cooker to cook my rice... if I preheat it, add some butter and onions to the bottonm and fry them up and once they are cooked... i can add the rice and broth....

I have garlic juice i tried once,, had very little flavor, but stunk the apartment up for days!

garlic juice? no no no.

fresh garlic, crushed. there's really no substitute for fresh, I'm afraid. I know it's a pain, but there it is.

I don't think the rice cooker will get hot enough to fry the onions, but you can just cook it in a regular pan, sautee the onions there (heck, caramelizing them could be tasty too, but I'm hardly ever brave enough to try it), then add the rest of the ingredients, heat back up to boiling, cover, turn down to low to simmer for 5 minutes and turn off. let it sit for ~30 minutes (for regular white rice), and you're good.

[tom]

I was prepared for feeling like crap and spending the day in the bathroom and on the couch. I was fine.

Sounds like an awful big clue to me! To me, in your situation, a big clue is great news.

There must be something u did different than a typical day.

This is where a food/symptom diary's value is undeniable.

If I had some rare-ish symptom combo that I last had while out somewhere 3 wks ago, I could read from both days and find commonalities as easy as gluten-free pie!

Much easier are the symptoms u have most often - quickly correlated to the foods.

I haven't been able to understand one thing related to this - ppl sometimes say the symptom can be due to food consumed up to 3 days before!

Thank you to everyone for putting up with me when I feel like crap and helping me find some course of action towards finding some sort of healthy me.

The celiac community IS a helpful bunch. We've pretty much all been thru some tough times and it feels good to help. A psychiatrist would prob reduce it to some sort of endorfin release upon lending successful aid or some other biz about WHY it feels good but we don't care. We have our OWN problems!

One last question... If I eat things I have intolerances to, such as casiens or soy. Do they do damage like gluten does, ...

Certainly not anywhere near the extent that gluten does, as far as the strict definition of an intolerance, imho.

And the answer may be that if there's permanent damage, it's just not a true intolerance - dunno.

[SunnyDyRain]

Sounds like an awful big clue to me! To me, in your situation, a big clue is great news.

There must be something u did different than a typical day.

This is where a food/symptom diary's value is undeniable.

If I had some rare-ish symptom combo that I last had while out somewhere 3 wks ago, I could read from both days and find commonalities as easy as gluten-free pie!

Much easier are the symptoms u have most often - quickly correlated to the foods.

I haven't been able to understand one thing related to this - ppl sometimes say the symptom can be due to food consumed up to 3 days before!

Ironically The thing I have done differently last night and today was I didn't avoid dairy. Last night I had a Vanilla Frosty because if I'm gonna feel like crap anyway.. I wanted to at least feel like crap while enjoying what I eat. I was worn down and depressed. Today I had much smaller amounts of dairy.. and even tried some soy milk.. still pretty good. I normally get sick at my parents - totally not a gluten-free enviroment, so I am concidering today an ok day. My mood is much improved too!

I also thought of something in common all 4 days I felt horrible.. work. That's it I'm allergic to work. Can I get a doctor's excuse for that?

I think I'll try to start a food diary, I have tried many many times with diets and my nutrtionist I saw a few years ago, I have to admit I wrote everything down from memory 10 minutes before the appointments! Lol... I will try again, this gluten-free diet is the only diet I've been able to stay on for an extended period of time without cheating (on gluten that is) and maybe this will be the first time I can actually keep a food dairy!

[dlp252]

I also thought of something in common all 4 days I felt horrible.. work. That's it I'm allergic to work. Can I get a doctor's excuse for that?

Came to that same conclusion myself a few months ago...didn't work...well, maybe it might now since I've been diagnosed with a few new things.

But seriously, a food diary is a really, really good way to see what's going on, and to notice trends over time. Be sure to right down your symptoms everyday too, that way you can see when you feel really good and when you feel really bad, and you can go back over the few days before each symptom came up to see what you may have eaten that could have affected it. I also write down new medications/supplements, or if I increase or decrease medications/supplements.

[dlp252]

I haven't been able to understand one thing related to this - ppl sometimes say the symptom can be due to food consumed up to 3 days before!

This certainly seems true in my case. I can have a reaction anywhere from a few hours after eating something to a couple of days after...it depends on what it is in the food that made me react I think. Anyway, I've had two allergists tell me that if I did a rotation diet, to eat a food no more often than every fourth day, so a three day window in between, because it can take as long as 3 days for a reaction to crop up. I don't know, I often WISH I would react right away so I could definitely tell what caused what! It would also keep me from eating stuff I know I shouldn't because the reaction would be swift.

[tom]

I also thought of something in common all 4 days I felt horrible.. work. That's it I'm allergic to work.

It's not that far-fetched that the office or wherever has an environmental irritant, either causing symptoms itself or just acting as some sort of catalyst, allowing the bad foods to have more effect.

Or somehow changing your gut's environment or the state of your immune system, leading to even just one of the foods' effects to be more drastic, which could in turn enable any other "bad" foods to kick in harder.

I'm partly talking out of my a$$ - just speculation - in all but the 1st sentence.

Anything in the office come to mind? New carpet would mess ME up. (It's the outgassing of the carpetpad underneath really)

For a while, I could get dizzy from distances of 50ft+ away from a new roll of carpetpad.

Is your workplace industrial at all?

[SunnyDyRain]

It's not that far-fetched that the office or wherever has an environmental irritant, either causing symptoms itself or just acting as some sort of catalyst, allowing the bad foods to have more effect.

Or somehow changing your gut's environment or the state of your immune system, leading to even just one of the foods' effects to be more drastic, which could in turn enable any other "bad" foods to kick in harder.

I'm partly talking out of my a$$ - just speculation - in all but the 1st sentence.

Anything in the office come to mind? New carpet would mess ME up. (It's the outgassing of the carpetpad underneath really)

For a while, I could get dizzy from distances of 50ft+ away from a new roll of carpetpad.

Is your workplace industrial at all?

Not industrial, but i work for a cleaning company, and we have lots of wet mops that sit around until they get washed, and I think the building is full of mold becasue the whole buildign stinks of dirty gym socks after it rains or on a muggy day. At night they put an Ozone machine on almost nightly to kill mold and mildew in the building.

[tarnalberry]

Not industrial, but i work for a cleaning company, and we have lots of wet mops that sit around until they get washed, and I think the building is full of mold becasue the whole buildign stinks of dirty gym socks after it rains or on a muggy day. At night they put an Ozone machine on almost nightly to kill mold and mildew in the building.

both the mold or the ozone could be making you feel worse. if you have asthma, the ozone generating machine is a NO-NO-NO-NO! but the mold can make anyone sick, and given the smell, there's a pretty decent chance. where to go with that? talk to your doctor, and if it's not a tiny company, talk to HR or safety. if it's a tiny company... you can consider calling OSHA, but you'll likely raise hell. a new job may be in your future.

sick building syndrome is more rare than some would suggest, but it's real. (and this doesn't actually even sound like sick "building")