Another Year, No New Allergy

Amazing! I can't say I've had any new allergies pop up. I've figured out another one, but nothing new has happened.

AND, I've gotten rid of one by eating far more carefully. The latex allergy is real. But by not eating foods that are sort of co-allergens to latex, I don't have the constant rash in the summer time.

In the summer, I wear jog bras when I work. It's just easier than regular bras. Straps don't fall, cups to move out of place and then STICK to whatever spot they happen to land. Jog bras stay in place and soak up some sweat besides. But, with all of the latex in them, I had a constant rash from them. And my underwear. Talk about maddening!

But, but cutting out the main food - peanut butter - and significantly reducing others such as every fruit except blueberries (practically), melon, some grains and some veggies, I've eliminated the rash! It's been 8 years at least since I've not had the summer rash. It's such a small thing, but truly has made life far less stressful. Constant itching is an amazing distractor.

The new discovery

Wheat is another enemy. I knew oats were - they make my heart race - but only in the morning. Not in the evening. I don't get it, but that's fine. I'll quit eating oatmeal for breakfast. Which I did. I started making pancakes for b-fast. Oat flour was bad, so I cut with wheat flour. Even cut with corn meal, it wasn't good. Started using rye flour. That works.

When I run out of pancakes (I make a big batch that'll last me 3 days), I'll have toast or a bagel. Well, the days I ate the toast or bagels, my asthma would flare. I finally noticed the pattern. It only took 4 months or so.

Which is when I knew I had to just start eating pancakes, period. Rye flour gets old after awhile. So I've branched out. I just tried a new grain called quinoa - keenwah. I think it has proteins in relation to wheat because my asthma really flared up by the end of the 3-day batch. Brown rice flour - nice! I have yet to try the Spelt. I didn't realize it was related to modern wheat and my asthma is still up a bit. I want it back to baseline before I move on to a new flour. I'll continue to try different flours, just so I know what works and what doesn't. If it can help someone else, that's worth the trial and error.

If you do a search on "Athma from Wheat", you'll get a good number of sources. Some call it "Bakers Asthma", but it isn't. If you're not inhaling the flour dust, it isn't bakers. But it is a well known antagonist for asthma.

More evidence against wheat

My sister, who has worse asthma than I, decided to try a "green" kitty litter for her two apartment cats. It is wheat based. Wheat hulls I think. No matter. She went into the worst asthma attack she had in over a decade, and took months to get over. And that was with the litter in the house for not a full day. And only because I just decided to search asthma and wheat, did we connect her severe attack and the litter.

It just shows how carefully you have to watch your environment when you have sensitivities.

I doubt our nation would have these issues if we didn't rely so heavily on so few food stuffs. Corn, wheat, soy, peanuts. Allergies to these things are exploding. Why? They're in everything. Everything!

Latex Allergy Shows Up Late

Well, I'm having a fine and dandy spring. I won't go into details right now because I just keep shaking my head about it.

BUT - have, by process of elimination, found I am becoming more and more allergic to latex.

Wanna know HOW I figured this out- that's the long part of the story, but unprotected elastic has been making me break out BIG time. Just figured that out. I have 2 socks wrapped around my waist under my undies right now. Sub undies. Crap - only me.

Here's what I just found out about co-allergies to latex:

Guess what are co-allergies to latex/rubber?

"avocados, bananas, kiwifruit, papaya or peaches" - all have same or similar proteins to latex.

Now, I've noticed bananas lately - really making my mouth sore, and obviously if I eat too many peaches, and definitely kiwi.

http://dmd.nihs.go.jp/latex/cross-e.html

food allergies ranging from itching and pruritus around the oral cavity (oral allergy syndrome: OAS) to generalized urticaria and even anaphylaxis.

List of the Suspected Vegetables
"banana, avocado, potato (sort of. I just don't cook them for myself, but eat them if someone else makes them), tomato, kiwi, chestnut, walnut, passion fruit, pear, grapefruit, mushroom, bell pepper, mango, pineapple, celery, cantaloupe, apple, papaya, almond, buckwheat, fig, lettuce, peach, orange, peanut (have needed to elimate, just haven't), strawberry, pepper, mustard, watermelon, bamboo shoot, carrot, coconut, apricot, loquat, peppermint, soybean, cherry, nectarine...

OK - the highlighted ones are mine - the ones I have stopped eating just because they do something non-allergically adverse to me - or so I thought. That's just a little too freaky for me.

So - as of today, I'll eliminate most of these starting today to see if things settle down.

I am no happy. Are most of these nightshade plants?

Crap. Am on methyl pred right now and it's helping. You have no idea how distracting ITCHING is until it happens to you and you can't get away from it.

AND - read the section on food allergies - they're starting to classify them better so it isn't just anaphylaxis.

1040PM
It seems like every year something new happens with my health. And it's rarely, if ever, good.
I've always been confident about living until 100. My childhood wasn't very healthful, tonsils were the culprit. So I figured I was certain to have a great adulthood.

So now I have the vertigo. I don't think anyone, doctors, patients, researchers, etc., have a clue to how much stress this constant imbalance, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction, vertigo attacks and everything else that goes with it puts on a body. I feel like I'm aging 2 years for every 1.

And every year, a new allergy. I keep trying to minimize them, but every once in awhile, I just can't. I see life in a more realistic perspective. I'm not going to live until I'm 100. I'll be lucky to make it to 70. How am I supposed to live life to the fullest, knowing how few years I have left if it's life itself making it so I can't?

Having grown up in the true American spirit of fairy tales and living happily ever after, I know that at age 41, disabled, increasing medical problems and virtually no way to socialize, I'm NOT going to find someone to call a life partner/husband/significant other. Considering the last one dumped me because of my allergies and then the vertigo, how in hell can I expect someone to accept me this way? I've seen it too many times that the woman is dumped when she gets sick. But by God she better stick around if the guy has something happen.

If, when I die, I find out there's no heaven, no 'reason' for this life other than to pass oxygen and carbon around, I will find a way to haunt every clergy person of every faith on the planet until they go insane for lying through their teeth at us sheep, saying there's a reason we are alive.

Ya think I'm tired?
Niters