Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label allergies

Onions: A Pain in the Neck?

Sometimes it takes a lousy day to make you figure out what's wrong. And today was a lousy day. First, it took an half an hour to get through the line at the understaffed Kroger. When I came home, the house still smelled like onions from canning chili the day before, and my headache and sore neck started getting worse. I ate some leftover chili and roused myself to go shop for a new washer, since mine is leaking from the bottom, as the plumber I called for a clogged drain discovered. An appliance repairman on YouTube said washers are badly built nowadays; I bought a brand unlikely to break down for a good seven years or so. It set me back three times what I paid in the 90s for a Kenmore that lasted at least 20 years. There was no use shopping for a used one here in Indianapolis: people here use appliances until they're worn out. By mid-afternoon, I was back home and took some Mucinex for my sinus pain...and realized I'd felt OK while I was out shopping. It was like Christmas

It Must Be Allergy Season

That's what I gather from my sniffling, sneezing coworkers. Accuweather.com says dust and dander levels are high now. Huh. I suffered so long and so badly with allergies that it's strange to feel fine while others are going around with sinuses packed tighter than a 200-pound woman in size eight pants. Since I started a wheat-free diet, I've been mostly free of allergies. (My hay fever last year might have been brought on by drinking almond milk laced with carrageenan, a thickener and inflammatory. If your sinuses are inflamed, it won't take much mucus to fill them up.) I also don't use any dairy besides butter; it can cause congestion. To paraphrase an old saying, nothing tastes as good as a clear head feels.

Results of my Carrageenan-Free Diet

Certain things should be left in the aquarium. Readers may recall my ordeal last Saturday with a migraine headache and a trip by ambulance back to my parents' house. Thanks to one of the paramedics jogging my memory, I researched the almond milk I'd started drinking around the time I quit dairy. One of the ingredients was carrageenan, a substance used to induce inflammation, sensitivity to pain and other problems in laboratory animals. Supposedly, the "undegraded" form is safe for human consumption, but undegraded carrageenan has been found to be contaminated with degraded carrageenan, and there are ways that the digestive system could degrade carrageenan itself. For the past few months, I've felt a little bloated, and was starting to have some mild pain in my lower stomach. I thought it might have been the effects of the antibiotics, oral steroids or decongestant (which gave me an allergic reaction) from back in February. I didn't connect it to the sev

My Milk-Free Diet Results: Less Acne, BO and Aging

A few months ago, after suddenly gaining a pound a day, and by sheer coincidence, reading The Paleo Answer by Loren Cordain describing the insulin-spiking effects of dairy, I changed my diet. I gave away my custard and low-carb ice cream and cut way back on the half and half. I've kept eating cheese--it doesn't have much insulin-spiking effect, according to Cordain. I stopped gaining weight and dropped three pounds, but I'm still up five pounds from my weight before my sinus infection. Nevertheless, all my clothes still fit (albeit a little tighter). (I had just taken a gigantic dose of vitamin D. I like to imagine my weight gain being mostly bone mass.) Other effects ensued. Since I'm not sure how to put this delicately, I'll just say it: I smell better. Before, when I went for a leisurely walk in warm weather, my Right Guard took a left turn. I had to soak a lot of my shirts in Biz to make them smell fresh. But last weekend, for example,when I was putting i

Hay Fever Season is Here

As our friends on the East Coast dry off and dig out from under a foot of snow, it's a beautiful 80-degree evening here in Denver, Colorado. Truth to tell, though, I wish it were snowing here too: it would stop my hay fever in its tracks. If you have pain in your upper teeth, in your face, and behind your eyes, a runny nose, and itchy eyes, you may have allergies, too. Some say that this has been one of the worst years for allergy sufferers. I've had allergies most of my life and I've tried a number of different things for relief. Here's what has and has not worked for me: Allergy shots. They worked--but they're inconvenient and expensive. Antihistamines. They work, but they make you drowsy. Avoiding dairy. This doesn't necessarily prevent allergies, but it may keep you from getting even more congested. (Milk, whey and certain brands of cream bother me.) For alternatives, try coconut milk or almond milk, or even another brand of cream. Avoiding wheat. H

School Lunch: Passing Inspection

I've been reading about kids' lunches having to pass inspection here in the U.S. Not lunches that the schools serve, but lunches that kids bring from home. Others have stated the stupidity of both the policy and the standards and have criticized the erosion of our freedoms better than I could put it. But I haven't seen anyone address the question of what to do if your kid can't drink milk or eat grains--commonly intolerated foods that the standards require. You could put the foods in the lunch with instructions not to eat them. If your child has serious reactions to these foods, this could be a bad idea since kids don't always do as they're told. You could go to a doctor and get a waiver for your child, but I hate this idea. A grown man or woman shouldn't need a permission slip to pack a lunch without food that will make their child sick. A trip to the doctor costs money and for many parents, time off from work. And what if your kid doesn't have a dia

Almond Meal Chocolate Cookies

Edited to add: I made a mistake in counting the carbs in these cookies: they actually have 2.5 net grams of carb, not one, and five grams of protein. I apologize for the error. By popular demand, my recipe for low carb almond meal chocolate cookies. (Recipe adapted from this one at The Naked Kitchen.) Each of these cookies has a scant 2.5g net carbohydrate and 5g of protein. Why almond flour instead of wheat flour? Cardiologist William Davis wrote a whole book called Wheat Belly on wheat's being one of the worst foods you can put into your mouth. (Wheat elimination is part of his program for reversing heart disease.) Wheat is an appetite stimulant; it can send your blood sugar over the moon, leading to insulin resistance and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) that, well, age you; it can cause autoimmune disorders. Even in you've had a negative test for celiac, you might be wheat sensitive. I can attest to the last part. I'm not celiac, but once I eliminated wh

Benzonatate Side Effects

Readers may know I'm trying to get over a persistent cough. The PA I saw on Saturday prescribed benzonatate, which I've been taking since then. Last night, I started thinking, "I don't remember breathing being this difficult." Nor did I recall a shower feeling like a mild beating. It was like my 38th birthday --the one where I was recovering from a car wreck. I see that these are some of the side effects of benzonatate: SIDE EFFECTS that may occur while taking this medicine include constipation; dizziness; drowsiness; headache; nasal congestion; nausea; or upset stomach...Symptoms of an allergic reaction include rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; or swelling of the face, lips or tongue.  I'd take something for the pain that's in every joint in my upper body, but my stomach is too upset. At least I didn't take a full dose of this stuff. Note to self: take Mucinex or Umcka instead. No side effects for me, and it&#

Dying to Eat Junk Food

This just in from Fox 31 News of mysouthwestga.com : ALBANY, GA -- Parents are growing more concerned with foods that contain artificial food coloring--and their affect [ sic ] on children. Parents believe dyes like red dye #5 or blue dye #3 could make their kids more hyperactive. Most foods we eat every day--including cereal and granola bars--contain food dyes. Yes--foods like cereal (which is basically cake without the eggs), granola bars (read: candy bars with oatmeal), and if the photo in the article is accurate, Pop Tarts (cake without the eggs or the taste), licorice, and other foods I can't identify. And it couldn't be the sugar that's making the kids hyperactive, could it? These foods are sugary, grainy, manufactured, low-nutrient junk--and parents ( and the CSPI ) are worried about the dye? What next--parents insisting their kids' pot be organic? Granted, some people are allergic to dyes. My uncle Loren was allergic to a yellow dye and had to get his insurance

The Cavity-healing Diet

Note: I'm reposting this with some edits. When I first wrote this article, I was under the impression that my dog had a tiny hole in her tooth that had healed (see photo). What looked like a pinhole may have been some crud on her tooth. I've also made another change in my diet. -Ed. A week ago, I went on a cavity-healing diet and put my dog, Molly, on the same diet a few days later when I noticed she had a cavity in her lower-right canine. As described in the highly researched book Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel, the experiments of Weston A. Price showed children's cavities healed when they were fed one highly nutritious meal a day of tomato or orange juice with cod liver oil or high-vitamin butter, meat/bone marrow/vegetable stew, cooked fruit, milk, and rolls made from freshly ground wheat. (Note that this experiment and others like it were done in the 1920s and 1930s when meat and milk were from grass-fed, pasture-raised animals, wheat was very different in its genet

The Results of my Fat Fest Are In

If I listened long enough to you, I'd find a way to believe it's all true. From "Reason to Believe" At the end of January, I saw my doctor for pain in my shoulder. He examined me and assured me it wasn't injured. Since he rarely sees me, he ordered a blood workup while he had me there. This was about the time I cut out wheat; a month later, I started a low-carb diet. I've read a lot about a low-carb diet not ruining your cholesterol or your waistline, so a few weeks ago, I asked my doctor to order another workup. Here are the before and after results. BEFORE January 28, 2010 Typical daily menu: banana protein shake cup of caramel corn one-half baked sweet potato and cottage cheese turkey sandwich small salad one-half apple and low-fat cheese sticks meatloaf and mashed potatoes several chocolate candies Exercise: Daily workout of either 20-minute high-intensity aerobics or 50-minute weightlifting session (Body for Life) Weight: 140 Triglycerides: 46 HDL: 42 Tot

Seeking Hidden Allergies

When I was nine years old, I had a allergy test that involved a nurse putting about 100 scratches on my back and applying a potential allergen to each scratch. If I remember right, I was allergic to about 90 things. I took weekly allergy shots for years after that, completely desensitizing me to needles. But the allergies never really left. It's the wrong time of year for allergies, but I've had them over the past few weeks. I used to just take a Sudafed and ibuprofin and suffer until the pain went away. Lately, though, I've noticed that allergy attacks happen when I eat something different: non-dairy creamer, a particular brand of sausage (which probably has something that's not on the label), and a cookie (which contained wheat). A test a few years ago showed that I don't have celiac, a condition where gluten (a protein in wheat) damages the intestines. But you don't have to have a permission slip from your doctor to eliminate things from your diet. A few mon