Allergies are something I've dealt with as long as I can remember. My nose runs a ton from September to December and cats make me itchy. Totally normal. However, in mid-October, I started having a horrible allergic reaction to something. Hives, swelling, the whole shabang. I went to the doctor and was given medicine and told to avoid some things. The reaction continued for three weeks before I finally went to an allergist. Fast forward through an awful round of scratch testing, shots of epinephrin and Benadryl because I was reacting so badly, and I was diagnosed with new allergies. Food allergies.
I am now allergic to all types of potatoes, scallops, and wheat.
My first reaction was to laugh. I was on some serious medication for my reactions while they were talking to me. And I swear the doctor said something about elephants. Big news such as this should not be told to patients who are by themselves and have just received multiple shots of things. I nodded my head as he talked, but inside all I could think of were the elephants he was talking about. Luckily, I did ask him to write everything down, and he did.
When the shots wore off and I was reading through my packet of information, I started to realize exactly what was said. No potatoes. No wheat. I need to be strict about the wheat for 3 weeks and the potatoes for 6. But basically, potatoes will always cause me problems. Wheat they aren't sure. I wanted to cry right there in the waiting room. What the heck was I going to eat?! I also wanted to cry because all of these little kids were staring at me and asking their mom why I looked so weird. (Keep in mind, the reaction was very clearly visible all over my face. I probably was really scary looking for a while there!)
I had plans to make baked sweet potatoes for dinner. Well crap, that wasn't going to work. So I thought I'd just pick up dinner, the usual sandwiches or pizza. Crap again, those wouldn't work either. So I decided to make salad and cauliflower for dinner because those were the veggies in my fridge at the time. And I proceeded to have a pity party for myself the rest of the night. Especially when we went to the pharmacy to pick up my shiny new epi-pens that must now stay on me 24-7. Did any of you who carry epi-pens have way to much fun practicing? I probably laughed the entire time.
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| This is how I felt that first night as I ate my cauliflower. "Oh crap, I'm doomed to rabbit food." |
It took a few days, but I've now realized that maybe these new allergies aren't so bad. Don't get me wrong, they really suck. I still find myself thinking about what I can't eat and I'm really stressed about eating on the holidays coming up. Eating out isn't back to the leisurely fun it once was. But really, there are tons of foods I can eat. I can have mexican food, ice cream, soups, bacon, popcorn, bacon popcorn, chocolate, coffee, and cheese. Thank goodness for cheese.
A few days after cutting those things out of my diet and I felt so much better. I haven't had any reaction, my nose isn't running, I have energy throughout the day. Which is great. But I was not-so-secretly bummed about it. I had this little hope that it wouldn't make a difference and that I could go back to my old ways. But really, now that I am feeling so much better, I think wheat will be at a permanent minimum (at least for a while) and potatoes are gone for good. And I'm okay with that.
You may be thinking the same exact thing I thought, "Who the heck has a potato allergy? I've never even heard of that." Don't worry, neither has Google. No one seems to have potato allergies and add that to the wheat allergy and it seems like my food options were really cut down. Which is why I'm back to blogging. I know there have to be other people out there who can't eat potatoes or wheat as well. And I am determined to eat just as well as I did before the diagnosis, and I am planning on documenting that eating here to share with you all.
Thanks for reading. If you made it all the way down to this part, you deserve a prize. I can't give you anything, but you should pat yourself on the back. Twice.
