Food Intolerance Recovery - 1 Month

It's been 4 weeks since I got The Report. Nearly a month. In that time I think I've done a pretty good job of handling the monumental task of changing my life to accommodate my myriad problems.

To make a long and probably terribly boring story* about what a pain in the rear that has been, let me tell you that it's working. Two weeks into this it was clear that it was working. Now, four weeks into it, I feel fantastic. I mean really, truly fantastic. I haven't felt this good in months. Maybe even years.

And to think there are those in the mainstream western medical community who say this Alcat test has no validity. Ha. It has made a night and day difference to me.

It's amazing how many people want to take this test now as a result of seeing what it's done for me, too. I hope you do have it done, Crister. I think they have some European centers. A woman at work who is having a number of problems with swollen joints and various other distresses ordered the kit and is having her blood drawn for it tomorrow. She's anxious for the results but hopes it's not a severe as mine, of course. Another co-worker has a young son with some behavioral issues that they know are directly related to food or additives. They've spent years on the trial-and-error method of trying to figure out what all he reacts to. Now they are going to have the test done to remove the guesswork and hopefully make some real progress with him.

But back to me. After nearly a month of diminished exposure to reactive things, I'm finding that I react less to stuff. I can eat a lunch out, for instance, and have a sauce that probably has some onion powder in it, and just get a bit itchy for a few hours. Before that would nearly wipe me out, make me struggle to stay awake all afternoon, and then send me straight to bed when I got home. I hope, over time, I will be able to handle the smaller-reaction items with no trouble at all.

I'm also still losing weight. I'm getting a sufficient number of calories in. The super-fast weight loss of the first two weeks has stopped but I'm still losing 1-2 pounds a week. My clothes are falling off of me . I've already retired 4 pairs of pants because I can pull them off without unbuttoning them. Woot.

The other topic of note here -- Basta and Brazil -- is still on track and going well. He had a sore Achilles' tendon after his last long bike ride that he didn't tell me about until after he'd done a 9 mile run on it and made it hurt much worse. We rested it and focused on swimming for a bit and now he's ok again. He's started tapering, he's healthy, he's really tired. All is as it should be right now.

We are unable to get the Yellow Fever vaccines done. It's such an unusual vaccine for around here that most doctors don't carry it. You have to go to a travel vaccination clinic, and the one here hasn't had it in stock for over two months. They don't know when they are going to receive another batch. So we take our chances with the mosquitoes and the viruses they transmit. Along with Yellow Fever we have Dengue and Malaria to worry about, too, so I think we'll be wearing the long-sleeved shirts and pants when heading out into the jungle.

It's been raining a fair amount there, so I hope the Amazon has some depth to it! How funny to go to the largest river in the world and have it be too dry to float a boat. There is a fair chance that Basta will be doing his Ironman in the rain. A cool rain at that. He says he's mentally prepared for that if it happens. Good.

I'm not planning to take a laptop with me. Don't know what the internet situation will be like at the various places we will be in Brazil. In most of my travels I can find internet access periodically from either the hotel or an internet café, but who knows what Brazil will offer. I may be computer-free for three whole weeks. What a change that will be. I'll have to take notes and tell you all about it after the fact. I imagine the Ironman website will have their live athlete tracker going. Basta doesn't have his race number yet so you'll have to look him up by his name. His first name is spelled "Adriaan", in the Dutch manner. Yes with 3 a's. For those of you who don't know or just think that's a misspelling when you see it.

In 13 days we jump on the plane and start the long journey down south.

*If you're truly interested in what all I'm doing to try to avoid the things I react to, read on. The rest of you can go now. Thanks. Bye.

Within all of the things I'm reacting to, there are severe, moderate, and minor reactions. I only severely react to two things: Candida and wine-grape mold. So no wine -- easy enough. I've occasionally had to skip a sauce I knew had wine in it but otherwise I just don't drink wine. The candida, though, has been problematic.

Candida. Candidiasis. The theory that my guts are overgrown with candida yeast, even though I have no external indications thereof. I have plenty of the symptoms of an internal overgrowth, though, and the Alcat test says emphatically that I do. So I must go on faith on this. That means consuming nothing that yeast feeds upon, which is blood sugar. I must avoid everything that raises the blood sugar. Like sugar itself in all of its many forms, flour, rice, potatoes, fruit, etc. Also all grains because they may contain mold, all mushrooms because they are a fungus themselves, and all fermented sauces like soy sauce and vinegar because they contain yeast. I did that quite strictly for about 3 weeks. I made my own salad dressing using lemon juice instead of vinegar (lemon juice doesn't raise blood sugar). I made my own mayonnaise, too. It's really tasty.

I read a lot about candidiasis. Like everything on the internet, strong opinions from all aspects of the topic are vented and debated. Some think the condition is medical nonsense. Some say you must adhere strictly to the diet 100% of the time or you will relapse instantly. Opinions vary on what foods are 'allowed', what foods actually help, and what modern medicine can do for you. Having read through a ton of that, sorted through what appears to me to be fact from fiction, and knowing myself as I do, I think I have a pretty good handle on this. In a nutshell: Sugar -- bad. Fructose really bad. White flour -- really bad. The rest? Neh. Probably not that big a deal. I can eat a mushroom without trouble. I can eat a bit of rice now and then. The key is small amounts. A few bites of rice at lunch once a week I can handle. A whole bowl of rice makes my stomach blow up like a balloon as the yeast feasts on the resultant blood sugar spike and gives off gas. That's my sign -- bloated stomach -- too much blood sugar. The next couple of days I have nothing bad and stomach goes flat again.

Interestingly enough, it turns out raw honey can work its healing wonders on candidiasis, too. Instead of feeding the yeast as one would expect, some say it kills yeast and helps heal the gut. Well, I got some raw honey this weekend and have had a tablespoon of it every day since. It hasn't caused the bloated stomach that a sugar intake of that size would. I think it's helping. Plus it tastes really good. I'm putting it on an Ezekiel brand sprouted grain tortilla (yeast-free) along with almond butter. Dang useful for when the food cravings get to be intolerable.

My next biggest problem is fluoride. I got a two-stage fluoride + everything-else filter and installed it at home. I drink from that and try to remember to use it to brush my teeth, too. It's helping. My mouth feels a lot less irritated. At work they offer bottled water. I looked up their water analysis report, available on the internet, and this particular brand says it contains no fluoride. Good. My exposure to fluoride is limited to restaurants who serve tap water, and the shower. I'm not sure if fluoride contacting the skin is bothersome to me or if it's just what gets ingested. I can't change the shower situation, but I have stopped taking baths. No need to soak myself in it. But I have learned that Borax -- the 20-Mule-Team stuff, neutralizes fluoride. I got some of that and have been adding it to the laundry to make sure my clothes aren't fluoride-infested. I am going to try adding some to bath water one of these days to see if that really will make my water fluoride-neutral. Wouldn't that be nice to have such an easy solution to that problem.

After that I focus on the 6 big food items that bother me. Of those, Brewer's Yeast and Onions are the biggest problems. No leaven bread, no alcohol, no vinegar, no fermented sauces, no onions. Just try eating out without consuming one or more of those things. It's not possible, and after every meal out I am itchy. So long as I do "best I can" the reactions are minor. Maybe as I avoid other things that are causing me to react my whole system will settle down and I can eat without itch again. Even now, like I said, it seems my reactions are lessening a bit.

Finally, there's the minor reactions. Lots of those. Just avoid whenever possible. If unavoidable, don't have them very often. Less than once a week is best.

The rotation diet is a big part of this. Not eating the same food more than once every 4 days. I'm trying to do that, as much as possible. Basta has been very good about that with the dinners he cooks.

I'm trying to eat as many veggies as possible.

I'm definitely eating everything fresh and natural. No processed, preserved, or colored foods for me.

I'm eating one small serving of fruit a day. Different fruit each day, if possible. The NO SUGAR IN ANY FORM EVER Candida people will be shrieking in horror at that, but the same people who recommend the raw honey also say that natural fruit's natural sugar is more healing to the system than it is yeast-feeding. When I eat fruit -- no bloated stomach -- so it's all good.

The ramifications of that are that I can do endurance sports again. I can ingest quickly-digested carbs for energy in the form of honey or fruit. That is very promising to me.