I am Sensitive to what?

In September of 2016 I had a blood test done to assess if my gut health was as good as I thought it was and to assess if I might have some food issues. At the very worst I was thinking that maybe I might have an egg issue/allergy. And if I did, I was now ready to face that reality. Otherwise, if I was not ready to face what the tests said and change my diet, Why do it? 


What spurred me on to check the health of my gut was going to see Dr. Terry Wahls in Cedar Rapids, IA at her seminar in August of 2016. There I realized that my health and my desire to leave the drug therapy(Copaxone) I am on, has everything to do with what I eat and how I live. I knew that going into the seminar, but I came out of the seminar with my eyes wide open. As an MS person I am very blessed and fortunate. MS can be mean and ruthless. I am lucky because my attacks have been limited and because MS has changed me for the better. 


Back to the topic. FOOD SENSITIVITIES!
The sensitivities came back pretty big and admittedly I was OVERWHELMED. It pointed to a leaky gut and this meant that my food was about to change once again. I wanted to heal my gut and keep my health moving in the right direction. 
Here are the foods I am sensitive too. Stars indicate the foods that I generally was eating weekly. 


Food that are of high concern are 
Egg yoke *
Coconut (all forms) * I eat a lot of coconut milk and use coconut oil for cooking
Lobster


Not as high but still a concern are
Egg whites *
blueberry *
Pineapple *
peppe, chili *
bacon *
cashew * 
tea, black *
dill seed
sunflower seed


And slight but still need to be eliminated for 6 weeks are the following 
Cola nut
peanut
agave
spirulina *
candida
shrimp *
artichoke
cauliflower *
spinach *
coffee *
kidney bean
navy bean
peppermint
turmeric
cow’s milk
avocado *
peach 
raspberry *


Here are some notes I wrote to two of my Wahls friends from the seminar, after all the numbers came in. 

Also because I was high in Oxalic Acid (From not rotating greens - and eating too much spinach - likely), I was put on a low oxalate diet.  So this means I am working to overlap the Wahls Protocol, my allergy sensitivities and a low oxalate diet. That low oxalate takes out the sweet potatoes that I love too along with almonds. And I am gluten free.

This changes my diet COMPLETELY and it was a little hard to wrap my head around it. This means foods I love and thought were good for me are causing inflammation in my body and contributing to being an MS person. How do you like that!? So my biggest concern is FATS - coconut milk - full fat is no longer an option. I am also eliminating dairy in all forms. What the hell, I might as well… 
I am working to order some beef tallow today so that i have a healthy fat to use. I am ordering bone broth too from our brainy belly friend. I am breaking down and going to order some liver pate too. 
I came home from my appt. Tuesday 9/27 overwhelmed and then by Wed AM or maybe Thursday woke up ANGRY - How could I be doing it all wrong!? Then I calmed down… by Sunday AM I had not slept good for two nights (don’t know why) and then finally just cried my eyes out about food on Sunday AM 10/2. We do a family breakfast every Sunday AM. My husband cooks - it is the ONLY TIME he cooks. Eggs were out, bacon was out, spinach was out and then maybe the gluten free pancakes were okay - NOPE potato starch was listed on the bag! I usually put nut butter on my pancakes - nut butters were out too.  That’s when I lost it. I had to go shopping just to get something I could eat. I had some kale in the house and that was it! 
Today is June 10, 2017 and I am thrilled that this blog post I wrote months ago is finally being published. As of now it has been 10 months and I have added some foods back into my diet after eliminating them and personally assessed, Did I feel okay in my body after eating them? I now have avocados and I do drink coffee again. Coffee is my on again off again relationship. I rationalize that I am drinking fair trade organic with almond milk. And I do not drink it all day long like I once did.  Coffee - likely a topic for another day. 

Do I feel better and am I healthier now. I lost 10 pounds by changing my diet. I think while the Wahls Protocol and Paleo diets do embrace healthy fats, I may have embraced them too much. Because of careful food work I also was able to bring back to my diet the foods that the low oxalate diet excluded. I am very careful to rotate my greens as much as possible, since I am still not eating spinach (I miss spinach).  
Next week I go back in for a blood test to assess the health of my gut.  And I am not scared of what the results might say, because I know I have done the work and while their might be a surprise or two in the results - I got this! It is only food. 

I learned something very valuable from this whole experience and that is FOOD IS REALLY AN EMOTIONAL TOPIC!  I was upset that my morning smoothie with blue berries, spinach and coconut milk needed to change. Frankly I was angry - WHY!? They are healthy. And then those words crept in, Why me!?  What I realized as I said this, was that someone else, somewhere else was being diagnosed with something, maybe as a diabetic. And this person was saying the same thing about a brownie, apple pie, or ice cream as I was about blueberries. Why me?! It really does not matter WHAT THE FOOD YOU CANNOT EAT IS, it is the emotional attachment that you have to the food that really is the issue, the challenge, or the hurdle. This whole experience made me more sensitive it is that emotional attachment that has to change. It is the mind set of saying to yourself (and believing it) that the choice NOT to eat something has a bigger payoff. Leaving blueberries behind, was hard work, but from where I sit right now, I feel like it was worth it. We will see next week if indeed it was. 
To your health, 
​Amy