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In 2003 i did this elimination diet and I had bad reactions to all grains,
milk, apples and citrus - i quit these and I felt emotionally MUCH better
but i was still very sick physically.

December 2004, after more than a YEAR of being sicka lot - I went truly
corn-free - like, no citric acid even - it's made from corn - corn-free
toothpaste from Tom's of Maine ...

and an astonishing thing happened.  I was suddenly very sick; sick in bed,
i couldn't sit up any length of time because of kidney pain ... it took me
a few weeks to figure out what was going on - but what had happened was
that i was ACTUALLY allergic to maybe 90% of the foods i ate habitually -
and *that* was why I was so sick after going gluten-free.  Going truly
corn-free unmasked all those other reactions.

it's a lesson - take small amounts seriously; if you know you have a
reaction to a food - it's worth eliminating it carefully and entirely.  I
used to see this as being overly fussy - but not going to the trouble of
being utterly corn-free cost me terribly, it cost me years of sickness.
There is a corn allergens web page at http://www.cornallergens.com/list.htm

After being sick for 3 days from *one gram* of fish oil, sick for 2 days
from one little vitamin E pill made from soy, very sick for days from 1/16
of a grain of corn - I know - even if it's not an IgE food allergy - small
amounts can matter!!!

What finally got me well is that I used a food allergy testing panel I'd
gotten from an allergist - which was a list of about 20 common food
allergens.  I eliminated these foods and any food in the same genus - as
described in http://www.lightlink.com/lark/elimination.html
Then, I was pretty much well - I have reactions to foods that were not on
the test panel, but not too many.

SO FAR, I am allergic to corn, buckwheat, strawberries, chocolate, carrot
family, bananas, fish, shellfish, onion family (garlic, etc.), nightshade family
(potatoes, tomatoes ...), stone fruits (cherries, peaches etc), egg white,
green t, poultry, flaxseed, pork, ALL legumes, cauliflower & broccoli etc..
This doesn't include foods I haven't tried yet but I'm probably allergic
to.  Anything on that list of 20 top food allergens that I've tried, I
have gotten sick from.  Anything that I really ate at ALL.  I'm subsisting
now on foods that I almost *never* ate before going gf.

I still, also, have reactions to the foods that I reacted to in 2003 and
haven't eaten for 2 years - all grains, apple, citrus and dairy.  I ate
an apple after two years of no apples, and I got quite sick.

To check whether these reactions are IgE allergies, I got IgE RAST testing
for 5 of them.  The corn was mildly positive, the others were not.  Even
fish and soy, which i reacted to tiny amounts of in pills, were not
positive for IgE.

SO - don't rely on allergy testing, especially for IgE - to find your
hidden food intolerances!

There's still things to eat, I can eat lamb and venison, so I've got
protein - and pears, grapes, watermelon ...

I figure all this is probably caused by gluten intolerance ultimately.  I
got a test that showed 10x normal levels of IgA anti-gliadin and TtG
antibodies.

But flax, I seem to have gotten sensitive to on a gluten-free diet.  I
don't remember having eating flax before going gluten-free.  That is
kind of ominous - but I guess that living with all these hidden food
intolerances, as well as an IgE yeast allergy (which causes rashes) - may
have been keeping my intestines kind of inflamed.  Please, no email about
the SCD!!!

As for health improvements - now for the cheerful news ...

I have an injured knee, that's been thru surgery.  For many years after
the surgery I couldn't run more than a very little, because my knee would
just hurt too much the following day.

recently, I'm going trail-jogging every morning, and it's fine with my
knee!  I'm enjoying the opportunity to really get kind of athletic, I'm
feeling more energetic than I used to - high-carb diet helps with that
too.  The hidden food intolerances were making my knee inflamed and
painful.

I used to have "hypoglycemic" like reactions to carbohydrates -
adrenalinish jitters, tension, fear after eating sweets.  They have *gone
away entirely* now.  Like, now I can eat maple syrup.  I don't have a
maple intolerance, but I used to always get very jittery after eating
maple syrup - this was because my hidden food intolerances were apparently
making my pancreas make too much insulin in response to carbs.

I'm just generally much less sick!  i've felt slightly bad i think from
inhalant allergies - but I'm MUCH more healthy than last summer!

i maybe notice psychological effects.  Quitting corn felt somewhat like
quitting an addiction.  It seemed like there was an artificially jolly,
kind of giddy high from corn and maybe these other food intolerances.  I
would go to the store while recovering from a food reaction, and once the
cashier thought I was hungover.  Out of it and laughing a lot.

I think maybe i understand allergic addiction better, some people whose lives
are really in a bad way - stay "jolly" because of their hidden food
intolerances.  Like other addictions, they make awful things bearable.
Corn, & maybe these other foods, seemed to make me jolly.

Also like maybe I'm more able to concentrate now, less distractable, less
pulled to pay attention to details that aren't very interesting.

best in recovery,
Laura

* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *