Food, laundry, and a recipe.

A week after foot surgery and I'm going nuts.  It's not just boredom, but I HATE depending on other people.  At one point in my life I did everything I could to not have to rely on people because I was paranoid they couldn't do it the way I wanted it or they couldn't do as good of a job as I did.  I eventually got over that, until now.  But now with all of my allergies I have become one persnickety bitch and there's not a lot I can do about it.  And most of my asshole behavior or responses are either outright or veiled and they're towards my mom most commonly.  Am I ashamed?  Pretty much.  I know better and my mom is technically my care worker - now I know why most of those people don't stay in those jobs very long.

There are very specific ways that I make a lot of my food.  It took me nearly 2 f'ing years to get my mom to fully understand how my rotation works.  For a while I thought she just wasn't listening since I went over the caveats near, at least, a gazillion times with her.  Once I put it on paper for her to reference my rotation days, I realized that I was correct in my original assumption - she wasn't listening to begin with, but I really can't blame her.  At this point I just consider that and so much else simply water under my vagina - my first Girls reference!!!  So as my careworker, I've relinquished control of cooking my meals to her.  For a long time I thought it would be awesome to have a personal chef who could make all of my meals because the preparation, cooking and cleaning up takes an exorbitant amount of time.  Be careful what you wish for, Andreana.  There's a lot of knowledge in my head that I rely on to cook the way I want my food to taste.  Considering I cook less from a recipe card and more from guesstimating and just throwing leftovers in it definitely is cause for problems when someone else takes over and they are giant fans of the recipe cards and cooking precision.

The other morning my mom came to help me prepare my breakfast - a smoothie and a bowl of popcorn for a snack.  I got the smoothie going and asked her to pop my popcorn while I was in the shower.  I got out of the shower and immediately knew something went wrong when I was hit with this overwhelming smell of an appliance burning.  I had apparently not been specific enough when I said to fill up the top cup with kernels and toss it in.  From this my mom heard fill the entire area where the corn pops.  I wasn't pissed, but I definitely was dissapointed not to have a snack for the morning.

It's not just the cooking that I have unspoken rules for.  Laundry is apparently another area of my life that has   become a test for what I'm allergic to.   I can now officially say that my skin can tell when I come into contact with seemingly innocuous chemicals.  For example, my mom washed a bunch of my clothes at her house because the washer and dryer in my house pretty much suck.  I ended up sleeping in a pair of pajamas she washed and found myself not only turning bright red everywhere the fabric touched but spent the majority of the night scratching ALL over even after I stripped off pajamas AND undies that she had washed.  I tried to laugh it off in the morning telling my mom I must have eaten something the night before, but she eventually proposed that it was possibly due to the fabric softener bar in her washing machine.  The last time I used store bought products like that was a long time ago and clearly my body is a fan of the less complicated, homemade products.

My routine for washing clothes is not terribly interesting, but it might be helpful to those of you who find store detergents and fabric softeners are irritating to the skin or even if you're looking for a cheaper alternative.
For whites, 1 cup Arm and Hammer washing soda and 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide dumped over the clothes - this is the equivalent to Oxyclean.  I also shake in some Borax for good measure.  For the softener I use vinegar and a few drops of pure lavender oil.  For the detergent, I use my own laundry soap:
4 cups of hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar (sold at Walmart)
1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
Grate bar of soap and add to a saucepan with the water.  Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.  Then fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water.  Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax.  Stir until the powder is dissolved.  Fill the buck to the top with more hot water.  Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.  It gets really thick and is almost gel like.  When adding to your own container, first stir the mixture then fill up your soap container halfway and then fill the rest with water.  Shake before each use.  You can also add a few drops of an essential oil per 2 gallons.  Add once soap has cooled.  This makes roughly 10 gallons of soap for under $10.

For colors I typically leave out the washing soda/hydrogen peroxide mix and just use everything else.  For the dryer I'm using a pair of cut up cotton pants that have essential lavender oil sprinkled all over them and throw them in as a dryer sheet.  It takes a little more work than just going to the store, but what I'm realizing is that my body is the expert that I need to be listening to and the extra work is worth it.  For now the extra work is being done by my mom and she is an absolute rockstar for willingly coming into my world.  She keeps me well.  

Well, hello there histamine intolerance!!

I'll start this one giving myself kudos.  I'm well into my 2nd month and I’ve been sticking to my diet pretty closely – if I slip it’s typically me eating rice flour on day 2 or eating some tortilla chips on day 4- and yet I’m still finding that when I look in the mirror there remains this puffy face looking back at me.  It’s frustrating because with my first go around with this diet I not only lost inches, but I woke up in the morning to a much thinner face and extremities that weren’t bloated and swollen looking.  Why can’t I beat this inflammation? 

The foods I’m eating shouldn’t be causing the swelling so the next culprit to check out would be my vitamins.  I already know that some of my vitamins contain allergens like gelatin.  In the past the gelatin hasn’t seemed to affect me this much, though.  So have I become more sensitive to the gelatin or is there something else that’s causing the inflammation?

This scenario took on another life and took me to another level of this allergy world.  In fact, if I see an ingredient that I don’t recognize on the vitamin labels – good example is "vegetable glaze" – I’ve started emailing the companies to find out exactly what generic terms like "vegetable" really means.  What is Country Life using to glaze these pills?  Luckily it turns out the glaze comes from the palm plant and I can rule out the glaze now.  Beeswax?  I’m allergic to honey and the pollen so am I also allergic to anything that bees produce?  According to the nutritionist at the company who did my rotation diet (Alletess) beeswax is OK for me to use or eat.  So it’s not the beeswax.  Damn.  There are no easy answers in this new world I'm inhabiting.

Next level down - While Googling the beeswax issue I came upon a really great blog (beeswax allergies)  about beeswax allergies and that led to a pret-ty big discovery - yes, that is an emphatic statement. Embedded in this particular article was a link to a whole new layer of elimination diets.  And, well, hello there histamine allergies!  

Indeed our bodies produce histamines when an allergen is introduced into our bodies, but histamine allergies refer to being sensitive to additional histamines that come from our diet.  Histamine intolerance can bring on BLOATING, diarrhea, stomach discomfort, hives, itching, etc…  Check, check and check!!!  All of the above!  Well, most of the above no longer applies, but for some reason this bloating is kicking my ass.  I’ve cut out a lot of those foods that contain high levels of histamines – alcohol (for the most part), yeast, fermented foods (well, anything fermented with yeast), cheese – but I’m still eating quite a few things that have histamines and the idea of cutting them out of my diet is daunting.  This daunting list includes fish, chicken, and some fruits and vegetables. 

Unlike the rotation diet that is intended to “cure” the body’s overreaction to the foods, the histamine elimination diet is a “for the rest of your life” diet.  The idea of limiting my diet that much more is painful and angering.  In order to feel better I have to restrict myself and that, to me, is an idea in total opposition to itself.  I guess that’s pretty telling about me and how I define feeling good.  Jesus, is this one of those epiphanies we have in our 30’s about life?  The level of freedom I had with my body in my younger years is no longer and probably due to some of those activities I freely took part in.  This is not how I wanted to be educated about my self, soul, internal compass. 

At this point I feel it’s important to repeat to myself that while these food restrictions are painful and expensive and complicated, my future me is going to appreciate and respect the amount of hoops I forced myself thru in order to get to a healthier body.  For some reason I get a little bit distracted at this point and can hear my sister right now, doubting the validity of my doctor’s diet theories, poo pooing that my allergies are real, and pretty much shitting on the idea that what I’m dedicating myself to for 2 years is a dumb idea.  I’m kind of the antithesis to her black and white world of medicine, and I feel like it infuriates her that I’m not adhering to her type of medicine.  Maybe it infuriates some of my friends that I’m doing something so extreme.  I kind of like this extreme though – I officially have license to complain ALL THE TIME!!  I’m hoping after the first 6 months this will all become old hat and the complaining will lessen.  I’m in deep enough that even my sister’s doubts or anyone else’s will be mitigated once they see the final results which will ultimately be a healthier, happier me.  At least that’s what I’m hoping for.

A few hours later and I may have a better grasp on the inflammation   In talking through the bloating with my therapist, it occurred to me that the facial bloating might be due to the cast and water retention.  When my face began to slim down I was swimming a lot and I was way more active than I am now.  I’m hoping that once this cast comes off and I can return to running around and the swelling will dissipate, too.  It’s all a waiting game for now. 

As for the histamine elimination idea, I'm still on the fence.  The more I read about histamines the more intimidating the whole thing becomes.  Well, intimidating or foolish.  After my initial panic I read somewhere that there are histamines in virtually EVERY food.  When does this madness end??????????  For now I'm gonna stay put, but be ever more vigilant about how foods make me feel - some days I know that I'm looking past a feeling of discomfort simply because I don't want to have to give up another food.  I'm at the mercy of my body for the next few years and I'm getting the feeling what it's telling me is way more reliable than what I'm reading on the internet.