Week 4 1/2 Summary

Having followed the allergy elimination diet faithfully for 4 weeks with absolutely no change in how I felt (except for no longer being oversensitive to the smell of dill), I called my doctor to ask what to do. She said that we can probably rule out allergies as the cause of my symptoms (which is what I pretty much expected from the beginning) and that I can skip the formal testing stage, but that I should only add one food back to my diet a day to make sure that I don't have any adverse reactions and that we have a chance to find any food allergies I might have.

So far, I've added back garlic, onion, butter, sugar, and wheat (I'm focusing on the foods that are often in seasonings and sauces because that's what I've missed the most.) I did notice that when I went to the produce market after adding back the first four that I was again oversensitive to the smell of dill. I can live with that, particularly since that's been a stable symptom ever since I was in third or fourth grade. Other than that, I've had no reactions. A few more foods and I should be able to start cautiously eating out again.

I'm still debating whether or not to add coffee back into my diet. I love the flavor of coffee and the ritual of having a cup, but I hate when I get addicted to it and can't function without it (or get a headache if I don't have it.) And personally, I don't think it's worth drinking decaf. Even the quality decaf coffees don't taste as good to me, I'd rather go without.

Benefits Already!

One of my migraine triggers is the smell of dill.  I'm also supersensitive to the scent.  I spend a lot of time holding my breath in the produce section during the summer when they have fresh dill for making pickles.  It can be pretty miserable - luckily I can handle a wiff or two.  At any rate, I was at the produce market today and they had the usual bucket of dill.  Not only could I barely smell it, being around it didn't bother me at all!  I knew that scent supersensitivity can be an allergy symptom , but I didn't think that removing other allergans from my diet could remove the hypersensitivity to scents of foods I'm already avoiding.  Years ago a gas company tech told me that people with onion allergies are hypersensitive to the nasty smelling additive they use to make natural gas smell bad, which is derived from onions.  Years ago I tested as allergic to garlic (a relative of onions),  but the only things that avoiding garlic (or garlic and onions, as was suggested to me) ever did for me was leave me with a blander diet and remove the irritating hypersensitivity to the smell of natural gas (it wasn't a worth while trade off in my mind!)

Of course, the benefit I'd really like to see is feeling more completely well and healthy, not extra tired and that hasn't happened (yet?)

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natural gas scent, garlic, food allergies, scent hypersensitivity, onion allergies, rotten eggs, pickling season, diet benefits

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