Category Archives: My story

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DIETS Part I: gluten-free, allergy, autoimmune/anti-inflammatory, classic elimination, and low-histamine.

My mother told me recently that she only gave me soy milk for a long time as a child after my allergy testing showed I was allergic to half of the things on this planet. This is when I was 3. I’ve always known the story of the skin-prick tests done on my tiny 3-year old back. My mother was torn in pieces listening to her baby wail, so I’ve heard about it often. I knew the testing showed I was allergic to lettuce and rabbits and newspaper and so many other things it seemed like a joke. I thought we had always just ignored it to no consequence and that the first thing I ever stopped consuming was MSG sometime in the 90s. I kept swelling. One day, I awoke with my face blown up like a balloon: my eyes were slits, my lips made it difficult to speak, I could barely bend my fingers. This happened after eating frozen egg rolls in the wee hours, after a night at the pub, so I became really vigilant about avoiding MSG. Then, a few years later, I ate at a Thai restaurant with my sister. I never tempted fate with Asian food, but, god, I missed it! and the restaurant swore there was no MSG in their food. The next day, my face was swelled up, so I never tried that again. I still don’t know if the culprit is definitely MSG, but avoiding it, as well as all Asian food, stopped those acute episodes.

My next elimination was alcohol in 2002. It should have been difficult, but I thought it might be causing me to repeatedly go into anaphylactic shock, so I had no choice. When you’re worried about dying, you’ll give up anything.

I ate and drank anything I wanted for ten more years. And I ate a lot. Since I shed my college weight, I’ve always been around 7 stone (I haven’t switched to thinking of myself in pounds because I like the nice neatness of “7 stone”) and my husband would joke that I ate way more than he did (he’s 14 inches taller than I am). After thyroid ablation in 2009, I couldn’t eat as much as I used to – I didn’t diet, my body simply got full quicker and wasn’t hungry all the time anymore.

In 2012, while trying to cure what ails me, I stopped eating gluten. It never occurred to me that it would be permanent, but it seems it might be. It didn’t change how I felt one bit, but, after talking to numerous doctors and reading this book, it seems like it would behoove me to continue to avoid it – if not for ME, then for my (other) autoimmune conditions.

Soon after that, I had blood tests done that showed allergies to cod, tomato and egg. Giving up cod was no problem, tomatoes and eggs almost killed me. But, I thought, what if? So, I stuck with it and it’s now been a year and a half and, you guessed it, I felt no change.

When I started seeing the Good Doctor last year, she put me on a diet for autoimmune conditions which, she said, resembled most anti-inflammatory regimens. I stopped eating all grains but oats, all legumes, dairy and starchy veg. I cut down on sugar, I stopped eating processed foods, I stopped drinking sodas – even “healthy” stevia ones, even flavored fizzy water. I stopped chewing chewing gum, stopped eating lozenges with colourings. Although I missed all of these things, it was similar to anaphylaxis – I felt like I was (am) dying and would do anything to improve my situation, so the choice was easy. I stuck with this protocol for almost a year and… Felt no different.

This past August, my doctor switched me to a more “traditional” elimination diet. I was allowed to add back grains (except corn) and legumes (except peanuts) but stopped eating red meat, pork, processed meats, shellfish, soy, citrus, and most forms of sweetness: honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, and, obviously, sugar. This was only meant to last for three weeks before tackling challenges, but I took a turn for the worse with my symptoms and doing food challenges showed nothing definitive, so I’ve kept everything eliminated. Compounding this restriction was my low energy and my husband’s overwhelmedness with the changing shopping rules, so neither of us got out of the habits formed over the last year. I joyfully started eating rice again, but didn’t really explore other grains or legumes. Once you’ve been doing something for a long time, it seems a monumental effort to change.

When I saw the Good Doctor again at the beginning of this month, she wanted me to continue this elimination for three more weeks, while making a concerted effort to detoxify my liver because she is thinking of testing me for heavy metal toxicity and, if necessary, going through a chelation protocol. Specifically, what she told me to do was:

  • EAT FOODS TO IMPROVE LIVER DETOXIFICATION:
    • Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, watercress)
    • Kale
    • Swiss Chard
    • Collard greens
    • Garlic, onions
    • Grapes
    • Berries
    • Green and black teas
    • Herbs and spices such as rosemary, basil, turmeric, cumin, poppy seeds, black pepper, and lots of cilantro!
  • Metagenics Ultraclear formula: drink one shake each day (she already has me taking their probiotics and I get a patient discount).
  • Supplements [I am very happy to be taking vitamins again. I stopped all supplements and vitamins 3 months ago and never intended to stay off of them for so long. I’m eager to add more (CoQ10, Acetyl-l-carnitine etc.), but she is making me take things slow.]:
    • Vitamin D
    • Vitamin B6 & B2
    • Biotin
    • Glutamine
    • Zinc
  • Green detox soup[I said yuck to this soup because I thought it sounded like a warm green smoothie and I thought I didn’t like fennel, but it turns out it is SO DELICIOUS and I like to have some every day.]

This soup is a gift to your liver to help it with its critical role in cleansing and filtering the blood. Sulfur-containing foods, such as onions and garlic, will keep your glutathione levels and antioxidant power high. Cruciferous vegetables are great for all your detox pathways, especially estrogen. Enjoy this soup for breakfast, as a snack or any time of the day. You can make a big batch and freeze it in small containers.

Makes 4-6 servings

1 tbsp extra virgin coconut oil or olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 tsp minced ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 celery stalk, chopped
3 cups chopped broccoli, florets and stems
1/2 head fennel, chopped
1 tsp salt
3 cups water
1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper

Heat the oil in a medium pot on medium high heat. Add the onion and ginger and cook until onion is translucent. Add the garlic, celery, broccoli, and fennel and a generous pinch of salt and continue to cook another 2 minutes. Add the water, remaining salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes. Place the soup in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Adjust salt.

Now the fun part: I haven’t been eating the chard, onions, grapes and berries she instructed me to because I am experimenting with a low-histamine diet. I am always trying to link seemingly unrelated conditions from my past to what is happening to me now. Just like I thought (think) dysautonomia explained not only my symptoms now, but issues I had pre-ME like Raynaud’s and fainting, I started to seriously look into histamine intolerance (HI) and mast cell activation disorders (MCAD). The swelling, the idiopathic anaphylaxis (which happened more often than not during my period), the alcohol intolerance, the dysmenorrhea, the hypotension and syncope (which happened more often than not during my period)… All of this makes sense in the context of a histamine problem. I used to wrack my brain and research incessantly to try to figure out why I was going into anaphylaxis but they could find nothing to which I was allergic. Was it the alcohol? Was it my period? Was it garlic? Was it ibuprofen?

When the allergist explained autoimmune urticaria and angioedema to me, he said the rashes I got during anaphylaxis and the swelling I’ve always experienced were the same mechanism in the body, just in different dermal layers. He said they are caused by tissue permeability and leakage and any vasodilator, such as alcohol, will potentiate the problem.. To demonstrate the autoimmune process, he injected me with my own plasma and I had a reaction on my forearm similar to the histamine control. He said these episodes could be brought on by emotional turmoil or stress and there is nothing to be done but take antihistamines. I counted myself lucky because some people have horrible chronic urticaria (I really recommend the film, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead).

The more I researched histamine issues, however, the more I realized that my allergist, like all doctors, is limited by what he doesn’t know and what science hasn’t discovered. I asked my GP, the Good Doctor and my new environmental doctor about testing for MCAD and every one of them said they don’t know how. It turns out there really aren’t good tests, but they didn’t know this ~ they didn’t know anything about it!

I am going to continue the info about my low-histamine diet experience in Part 2 of this diet post (as well as all the other crazy elimination diets I’ve been researching: ketogenic, alkaline, low-salicylate, migraine) because there is a lot of information. But I’m giving you homework, if you’re interested in this topic at all: Listen to Yasmina Ykelenstam’s (The Low Histamine Chef) interview with Dr. Janice Joneja. There are 2 parts, but the first part is the most important. Get comfy because it is 49 minutes long and have a paper and pen ready. I’m telling you, it’s worth it. Dr. Joneja is so clear and knowledgeable.

Until next time…

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Throwback Thursday: Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

I have had an itch under my jaw, deep in the tissue of my neck for years. In 2009, I decided to mention it to a doctor one day and, although she didn’t feel anything abnormal in the area of the itch, she did casually say, “You do have a lump on your thyroid, though.” I had a thyroid nuclear test done and a radioactive iodine uptake test which showed two toxic multinodular goiters.”Toxic”, meaning thyroid hormone was being produced at an increased rate, which is why my thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) tested so low. “Multinodular” because it was a late-stage goiter, meaning it had been around for a while and had a chance to grow and become lumpy. In my case, I had been hyperthyroid for at least 7 years ~ my first abnormal TSH result was in 2002, but my doctors never pursued it and I didn’t know enough to insist.

This was my first experience with specialists. I had only ever dealt with general practitioners and emergency room doctors. The research doctors that diagnosed me were bizarre. They came into the room and peered at me like I was a specimen, their faces frozen into pensive seriousness. I started cracking jokes to break the tension, but they didn’t respond in kind. They asked me questions with long quiet pauses in between, during which they would look at each other and mumble and nod: Do you have flushing? Are you intolerant to heat? Do you shake? Stick out your tongue. Hold out your hand. Have you experienced any anxiety symptoms?  I finally stopped them and asked what they had found ~ they had told me nothing! Do I have cancer? No. Do I need surgery? No. Okay, now you can ask me more questions.

I had to do both nuclear medicine tests twice because too much time elapsed from my first round of testing to go forward with treatment ~ radioiodine ablation. After you have radiation treatment, you must stay away from people and animals for a few weeks, use different cutlery, use a different toilet and/or flush twice. It seemed like a big decision, but the doctors told me it was a terminal problem. I’ll never forget that. They said there wasn’t a very long life expectancy for people with untreated hyperthyroidism. Huh? Seriously? I didn’t seem to have a choice. So, I did it. I killed the whole thyroid and started taking hormones every day for the rest of my life. I never missed a day of work through this experience. During the segregation weeks, I holed up in the restaurant office, alone. I remember encountering a pregnant lady on my way to the rarely-used toilet in the basement and leaping back out of her space as if I’d been electrocuted… high-tailing back into the office so she wouldn’t be exposed to radiation. What must she have thought? 😉

Interestingly, I never felt like the symptoms abated. The flushing and hot flashes (my most visible symptoms, which I chalked up to oddly increasing self-consciousness) and the anxiety (which I blamed on my job) ebbed a little, but not much. And, of course, this was undoubtedly part of the priming of my body for ME. Hyperthyroidism and my anaphylactic episodes started about the same time. It was the beginning of the end.

Below are the photos and email that I sent to friends and family back then, hoping that it might open someone’s eyes to thyroid problems or make them listen a little bit more to their bodies. The fact that I thought I was having “devastating” and “debilitating” symptoms then strikes me as funny now… and sad. What was happening to my body because of my thyroid problems was NOTHING compared to what is happening to my body with M.E. They’re not even on the same planet … in the same universe. Can’t I go back to my old serious  health problems?

I have attached 3 pictures that I took before I got radiation treatment (ablation). The first is looking at my neck as I stand relaxed, the next is with my head back and the third was taken as I swallowed. I can’t believe I never noticed the lump on my thyroid. I can’t believe nobody else did. I can’t believe, with 7+ years of abnormal TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels, neither a doctor nor I, myself, looked any closer at my neck or my symptoms.  [The radioiodine must have swelled my thyroid, however there was definitely a visible lump before treatment that I never noticed until it was pointed out -and it is unforgivable that no doctor ever took the time to look further into my bloodwork or palpate my throat.]

straight on

Head straight on.

So, I guess I’m hoping this email influences everyone to pay closer attention to their bodies. Look closer: know every line and lump so you’ll recognise changes. Listen closer: if your body is constantly telling you it’s way too hot or way too cold or way too tired or way too hungry, don’t ignore it. Don’t wait for a doctor to find out what’s wrong with you ~ question everything that feels wrong.

It turns out I wasn’t overheated & flushing because I’d become suddenly self-conscious. It turns out I didn’t just “get lucky” with an amazing metabolism. I wasn’t having floods of anxiety that caused my heart to race & skip beats because my job was stressful. I wasn’t debilitatingly exhausted because I worked too much & didn’t sleep enough. Well, at least not entirely.

head back

Head tilted back.

It’s still going to be a long road ~ my doctors say we could be tweaking my medication for years. I still vacillate between feeling ok and feeling dizzy and wasted… I eat about half what I used to… I’ll have to take hormones forever…. But, it’s not out of the question to go to a movie after a day’s work and I don’t spend my weekends crumpled in a ball, sobbing, asking what’s wrong with me while my husband wonders what to say….

I’m angry that I spent so long feeling that way and just explaining it away. I hope this inspires everyone to take a minute to think about your body and your quality of life. It’s all too short! Take care of yourselves!

swallow

Swallowing.

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Caregiver, caregiver, give me some care, take me somewhere, help wash my hair!*

*Sing to the tune of Matchmaker. Yes, this is how I pass the time. I have multiple verses. 😉

This is day 8 of my husband’s cold. You might remember how paranoid I am of catching a cold or, god forbid, the flu. It has been exactly 2 years and 4 months since I had a cold and bronchitis (colds never stayed in my head ~ they always went to my chest) and I find myself grateful and, also, sad, knowing that a few months after that last cold my immune system turned on permanently. I read about other people with ME/CFS suffering with viruses and I knock on wood, cross my fingers, spit over my shoulder, pull on my earlobes and say toba toba to protect myself (yes, really. That’s not excessive, is it?)… But I also feel a stab of jealousy because that probably means their immune systems are healthier than mine ~ that they have calmed down enough to allow a virus to infiltrate the fortress.

That’s not to say I want to get sick. I don’t even want to test it. When my husband gets too close, I shoo him away. When I have to walk past him, I pull my shirt up over my nose. It’s comical, as if he horribly reeks. And I am an utter nag:

“Can you PLEASE cover your mouth when you cough?”
“Have you washed your hands?”
“Please don’t breathe near me. Just stop breathing.”

At least I say please.

He hasn’t taken a day off of work and, even on the weekend, he was in the garden, raking leaves and doing winter clean-up. I find myself fretting about him – not wanting him to push himself when he’s sick. This has probably been the most stressful year of his life because of my illness, plus he has had more landscaping work than many recent years and his job is all physical labour, out in the elements. I know I can’t implore him to spend a day on the couch, sipping Lemsip and chicken soup. It’s not in his nature. I’ve never seen him have a day like that. On Sunday, as he was in and out of the house doing chores, I said, “I really wish you’d rest.” He said, “This is resting.”

My husband could never get ME, though. That’s not in his nature, either. He sleeps well, never takes even a painkiller, he can eat and drink anything, can handle extreme weather… I’ve always had the sensitive system ~ I would love to have skiied in the winter, but hated the thought of cold and snow. I would have loved to lie on a beach all day in the summer, but have always wilted in the sun or become faint and headachy.

I’m convinced the main difference between us, though, is that he doesn’t care – in a good way. He isn’t a perfectionist, he doesn’t worry, he doesn’t feel guilty. I’ve always been an over-achiever. I want to do everything and I want to be the best at all of it. I’m turned into knots because there are tumbleweeds of dog hair all over the house and I haven’t sent thank you cards for the birthday gifts I received 6 months ago. I am guilty about my dog’s anxiety and sad that I don’t feel attractive anymore. I beat myself up about the sugar I can’t seem to kick and the money wasted on supplements that I couldn’t tolerate. I worry that I’m a bad friend and I’ll be forgotten and I haven’t made my mark on the world yet. My husband is happy to never socialise and doesn’t think twice about what people think of him and seems to always be perfectly content (not counting the last few years).

Yesterday, after he had worked, gone grocery shopping, gone to the pet store, picked up my prescriptions and cleaned the kitchen, I tentatively reminded him that the dogs need baths and my bedding needs to be washed and I’d really love help making my granola and detox soup (more on that later) and… if it is at all possible… we really need to hoover sometime…. I whispered this last one as I slunk out of the room and around the corner, out of eyesight (notice I still say “we” because I can’t bring myself to say, “You need to clean the house.”)

All this on top of his cold. Caregiving sucks. But I am lucky and very thankful to have one of the best caregivers and husbands out there.

Caretaker, caretaker, take care of me, stay by my side, help fight M.E.!

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The Truth.

You know those people that really LOVE clean living and eating paleo and JUICING? I’m not one of them. You know those people who are perfectly happy doing things in moderation, keeping a set routine, keeping a steady demeanor? I’m not one of them, either.

Let me be completely honest: I want to be starting the night off with a margarita, I want to eat real mac and cheese and king crab legs dipped in butter and fresh, soft garlic bread and a huge filet with a glass or three of dry red wine. I want a double espresso and decadent carrot cake.

I want to run around city streets (wearing make-me-tall boots) with great friends, socializing until the sun comes up. I want loud music, eye contact, and discussions that turn into heated, passionate debates. I want to yell and exclaim and laugh until my stomach hurts and be dumbfounded by how clever my company is. I want whiskey and baileys and cigarettes and to never get a booze or smoke hangover.

I want to make an impression on people, I want to make a difference in the world, I want to lend a helping hand. I want to experience every culture, every custom. I want to listen to the ocean waves while I sit around a crackling bonfire, gulp fresh mountain air while hiking trails, and feel the heavy hush of a forest cloak me in peace. I want to be moved by a performance and silenced by art. I want to cry because I watched a beautiful film or because I miss someone terribly, not because I’m in pain or paralyzed with fear. I want to wake up cozy, comfy and content and love watching the morning light coming through the window… Not be so exhausted I’m pinned to the mattress and the room is so black and cold, it could be a tomb.

If my body was not an issue, I might be fat, drunk and broke, but I’d be fearless and full of joy… and rarely be alone.

Oh, and I would have fabulous shoes.

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Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This.

One night last week I had the worst sleep in recent memory. I was in bed at 930pm and turned the light off about an hour later. I was trying to wear my CPAP, but it has this habit of revving its pressure up incessantly which pumps air into my belly and lifts the mask off my face. Even if I can drift off with the belly bloat, the mask lifting and the increased pressure always wake me. It finally dawned on me that the machine thinks I’ve stopped breathing, so it is increasing its pressure to open my airways. This occurred to me after doing a breathing meditation where the woman said, after this certain period of time, most people have taken 12 to 14 breaths. I had taken 6. So, now, thinking my respiration is uncommonly slow, I try to speed it up and that seems to stop the CPAP revving… But I feel like I’m hyperventilating and it’s anything but relaxing.

This is what was going through my head that night. I did fall asleep for about 15 minutes, but then awoke with my sinuses swollen shut. Not the safest thing when you have tape over your mouth. So, I took the mask off and tried to sleep. And tried to sleep. And tried to sleep. The air in my guts was painful. My neck was hurting. It was too cold in my room. Something was clicking out in the hallway. I turned my heater on, I put Tiger Balm on my neck, I went to the loo, I sat in the hallway for what felt like an hour waiting to hear the click and find the culprit, but it never happened. Back in bed, I tossed and turned for hours. It felt like someone had attached jumper cables to my toes. My whole body was amped up and electrified. There was some sort of generator hum in my room, coming through the floor boards, vibrating the bed. It felt like a spaceship was idling in the garden outside my window. It felt like I was sleeping directly above the engine room in an ocean liner. It felt like the world’s biggest TENS unit had its electrodes attached to the bed frame. I tried to convince myself it was soothing, like falling asleep while being driven in the car as a child. But it wasn’t working; I was growing more and more desperate and agitated with every hour. Midnight, one, two, three, four… I finally went downstairs to where my husband was sleeping and woke him up in a panic. In all of the lonely, sickly, desperate nights of the last two years, I have NEVER woken my husband because there would be nothing he could do. But this night I was about to unplug every appliance in the house and then I was going to bang on the neighbors’ doors and ask them to unplug everything. I was wild. He threw the breaker on the hot tub while I turned off the wifi and all computer things. He told me the clicking was the thermostat (why had I never heard it before?), so I turned the heat way down.

I finally fell into a fitful sleep from 530 to 830am after taking a quarter of a Unisom, but the vibration/hum was still there. The next day, we surmised it was the outdoor garden lights. My husband pulled the plug and it seemed to remedy that particular problem. It turned out something different was going to happen every night.

Another night I awoke drenched in sweat, my body so hot I could have happily jumped into a mountain of snow. I got up and took my temperature… 97.7 degrees. How is that possible? I took it again. 97.2. Maybe it’s my blood sugar, that’s what Dr. Myhill thinks. So, I clattered around the living room until I found my tester kit. 89- totally normal. My room was 68 degrees… I know the sweats have nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with ME/CFS, but I still try to search for a better answer. I was able to get back to sleep after putting on a t-shirt, oddly. It seemed to trick my body into regulating itself.

Another night I fell asleep at 11pm and woke up at midnight with terrible pain in the center of my chest. I sat up and immediately vomited – actually, more like regurgitated – into my mouth. In the bathroom, more came up, but I didn’t have an upset stomach at all. Is this acid reflux? Every time I lay back, the pressure in my chest came back. It felt like all my nighttime magnesium pills had ruptured in my esophagus. Which is maybe what happened. I wound up sitting up until 1am when it felt like whatever had passed on down. My potential 7ish hours of sleep became 5.

Another night I woke from a nightmare where my dog, Bowie, was injured and it was up to me to save him while the bad guys were trying to find me and kill me. And I was too sick and weak to run or carry my dog. I was in a mild sweat- face and chest. This is a recurring dream of mine. I went to the bathroom to clear it from my mind and, on the way back, I tripped over the step the dogs use to get up on my bed. It HURT. My stumble and hard-hitting recovery with both palms on the floor woke my husband below and he texted my phone to ask if I was all right. I didn’t answer because I knew his healthy, peaceful brain would go right back to sleep. However, my sleep was at an end. My throbbing shin and the resulting adrenalin rush insured that.

This is what I recounted on my calendar about another night:

“woke multiple times, flexing muscles painfully, clamping jaw. Wore nasal pillow for while, scared of not breathing, switched to nasal mask, woke up with weird throat closure and odd sound being made by me, switched to full face mask for part of night, finally took 1/4 unisom, got to sleep at 345am. Woke up feeling very tired, very groggy, horrific headache, feel like I have water in my right ear. There is pressure and it’s clogged. DRIVING ME NUTS!”

That’s a glimpse into a week of my sleep. I appreciate that you are willing to read about the deranged mundanity that is my life! I will fight for better sleep and continue to try different tactics and different drugs and, one day, I will sleep, I will heal, and I will live again! I have faith. 🙂

Gratitude: No allergic reaction so far to my new nasal steroid. Also, tomorrow I have an appointment with a new (expensive) doctor. He was recommended to me by someone in a similar health situation and calls himself an “environmental doctor”, but seems to have some success with chronic fatigue and will consider out-of-the-box tests and treatments. Fingers crossed!

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