Food Allergies and other pre-cursors to autoimmune

General
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Recently, after some research, I realized throughout my life, I exhibited symptoms of pending auto immune. One sign is allergy to eggs, this is a tell tale sign that the body is having problems with protein. Another sign is allergy to whole cow's milk and constant bouts of nausea once a month from birth, where I would vomit every month with or without food. Last sign is pain in the sun, visiting relatives in the hot south of Macon, GA, I would blister, burn to three times my skin color and become very groggy, I could not tolerate the sun. My grandmother, a former charge nurse, would insist for me to come inside when the heat index hit 80 degrees and play indoors so I would not become ill. Sometimes, it seems she knew something was wrong, she might have observed my behaviors and thought autoimmune. This is why I love my grandmother and miss her terribly, she knew things intuitively, either through medical training or a complete medical history of our family, which was not shared, there was not enough time, before she passed. My grandmother might have had Lupus too, she was always in the hospital with congested lungs and upon release would go back in within 3 months. My mother did not like the hospital, but, I enjoyed visiting my grandmother, no matter where she was as a child. In the hospital, my grandmother was on a breathing machine sometimes and other times she was fine. This is why I think it was Lupus, undiagnosed. As a developing child, visiting doctors all my life four times a year, nutritionists and other specialists about the constant vomiting, forced to eat a bland diet since age 5, which of course, I ignored as a teenager, but for the most part, I had to stick to due to intense pain and illness if I didn't. In my teenage years, there were no signs of autoimmune, other than an increased allergy to eggs, as a mother now, I look for these same symptoms in my daughter, but, don't want to prescribe illness to her only to warn others if these symptoms appear in a loved one please take them to be tested early for treatment.

Only if my parents were aware enough to take me for testing maybe I could have managed this differently.

Attached is a photo of my sunday dinner. Random photo post, why not... It was a lot more appetizing than the photo is portraying. I added salad dressing later.

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Hello Lily!

Hope you don't mind me calling you that, the flower is so beautiful, and I used to buy those bulbs of that exact flower for my grandmother, who surely had autoimmune arthritis, she had psoriasis, she was hunched, hump-backed and gnarled, was in a car accident that no one should have ever lived through, and went through a nasty bout of Gillian Barre syndrome, another autoimmune disease. Her bones were just full of hairline cracks. And come to find out all the other mothers and grandmothers before her were this way, one could not put her head above her waist. So the family is long suffering.

I am also very much a part of the Fibro site, and the Psoriatic arthritis site here on Ben's friends. Food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances are discussed at length very often. Digestion problems also seem to be prevalent. After they finally took a dead gall bladder out of me, I thought I was home free, but found I still could not really digest my food. My DC told me that as we get older, we loose a great deal of our digestive juices that break down our food, then loosing the GB just added to the problem, he said the worst thing we do is take an antacid. He said why in the world would we want to get rid or the little acid we had that breaks down the food?

So he recommended Spectrazyme, a plant based tablet that breaks down protein, dairy, plant. I have checked for a better one many times, and besides OX bile, this is 'the stuff', many times I use them both.

I am not suggesting that you don't have a food allergy, as it genuinely sounds as though you do.

Of the underlying problems of these three sites, food allergies, digestion problems, thyroid/endocrine gland, lyme disease, exhaustion, fatigue, trauma, surgery... (surely I have forgotten a few) all seem to be underlying, possible undetected, or fully diagnosed or treated. Sun sensitivity is also talked about frequently, and sensory problems to light, noise, stress.

That Zyto theory I posted explains stress and stressors in a very interesting way, shows how our bodies may fall prey to such diseases. It almost seems like autoimmune is like Cancer cells, always present, not necessarily fully active until the body is pushed past it's tolerance.

Of course you realize that I am not a Doctor, but went through 7 years before being diagnosed, and unfortuantely am most likely not fully there. So I have worn out 2 other computers doing research, and do it constantly every day, as surely most of you do. What an education we get!!!

I am so sorry that you have suffered so, and find it so difficult to enjoy food, it is one of our greatest joys!

I wish you WELL,

Susan

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Thanks Susan,

I don't mind the name change.. Well now I am learning how to substitute food using vegan methods of cooking, I just brought rice milk and bread crumbs to substitute in making my favorite mac and cheese. I am ecstatic, there is a substitute for eggs and milk. So, things are on the incline for me.

I suffered many times over and over as a young child, but the beauty is, I did not know I was suffering as a child. So, my childhood experiences are just different and not tragic when it surrounds food. Now as an adult, I know better so I actively do better.

Thanks for the post reply.

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Dear Lily,

Sounds like you are on the right path, with the right positive attitude! Rock on!

Hugs,

SK

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Hi Lily,

One thing I do try to watch are nightshades. They really seem to exacerbate problems.

http://www.noarthritis.com/research.htm