The long-term affects of having an aberrant immune system.

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I randomly cannot feel my fingers.

After 40+ odd years of an immune system that thinks everything is the enemy, the fight is starting to take it's toll.

My adrenal system is weakening. My healing has slowed. "Free radicals" aka toxins released due to allergic reactions have finally found their way to my nervous system.

There's a ringing in my ears right now. It's just the start. The bell that tolls before my entire nervous system decides it's had enough. The sound of warning before sounds become train whistles to my psyche, before the drop of a pin starts to sound like carpet bombing, before the sound of my heartbeat causes pain so excruciating that my eyes water uncontrollably.

I went to the bathroom and my legs fell asleep before I could rise again. My left arm is currently numb making typing difficult.

There is a war inside my body, and it is endless.

I wish I could live in a bubble.

And for that I could use your help.

My bubble project

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling! (experiencing "Impending Doom")

It's funny to me the ways that words on a page express themselves in real life. Nothing is more funny in this way than allergic reactions. It's one thing to read that allergic reactions can include things like headaches, nausea, runny nose, congestion, edema, and so on.. and it's quite another to experience them. Sometimes in experiencing them, the words you'd use to describe the feeling are not any of those above.

However, one of the most hilarious ones to me has always been this ominous sounding and vague phrase: "A sense of impending doom"

What?  Do allergic reactions suddenly place you in a horror movie? Is there a sound track to go along with it? Or is it placing you in a Sci-Fi show, and you're the only one with the red shirt? What in the world does "a sense of impending doom" mean anyway? 

When I first read this symptom of food allergies, I thought it was referring to your throat closing and feeling like you were going to die at any moment. I suppose it could mean that, but it wasn't until a few years later that I got my formal education on "impending doom."

The thing that shocked me most about it is that I thought that this one symptom, if I ever experienced it, I'd come up with something a little more descriptive or useful of way to tell what it was. Unfortunately, this is one symptom that quite literally is explained as well as it can be.

It's hard to put into words this symptom even after experiencing it first hand (and just this morning recently). First, for you pet owners or possibly parents of small children, has your pet (child) ever gotten insanely fearful as if the world were suddenly coming to an end? Panicked. A pure freakout where they're scared and really there's nothing wrong and nothing to be done about it? (They may be scared of the storm, or some tv show, or monsters in the closet.)

If so, then you have a clue of what "sense of impending doom" is. A clue anyway.

In the mindset of "impending doom" is a little different and can be difficult to recognize for oneself.  Other's observing you usually catch on quicker as you're bound to say something "defeatist" or at the very minimum "mildly crazy" which is out of the ordinary for you. The only other way to describe this is "Chicken Little".

Inside the mind of "impending doom", an apple has fallen on your head and the sky is actually falling. Your mind will find tons of evidence for these scenarios, and will play on any actual real life fears you have.

Having trouble paying your bills? "Impending doom" will soon turn that into you'll soon be homeless, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Are you afraid that your spouse/lover/friend is drifting away from you? Have no fear,  "Impending doom" will assure you they've already left you. So go ahead and cry, they're not coming back.

Feeling a little insecure about your weight? "Impending doom" will convince you that you're too fat/skinny to be loved. You might as well not even try. You're hopeless. Go ahead and eat that entire fudge cake you saw at the store the other day. It's really not going to matter anyway.

Remember that time last week when Jenny was 20 minutes late to meet you for drinks? Yeah? Well that's because she thinks everything else is more important than you are. Why does she even still talk to you? Pity. She feels sorry for what a pitiful soul you've turned out to be. You should probably just stop being friends with her before she completely gets sick of you.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was - despite my own personal poverty - on top of the world. I had a meeting for possible new side job, and a second interview for a primary job today. Yay me! Then I ate something I knew I shouldn't have. It didn't affect me too much right away, but last night I had absolutely no drive to do anything.

I woke this morning to a phone call about the second interview and how it was being moved to tomorrow. They also again mentioned that there were others that were called back in for a second interview. Essentially, it was merely a date change of the interview as I'd already known about the other candidates.

However, "Impending doom" had other ideas. As soon as the call ended, I spiraled into this abyss of self-pity. I was somehow certain I wasn't getting the job. I even had doubts about why the interview was moved. It was likely to give someone else the job, and then I'd just get a call tomorrow saying not to come in because someone else took the job. The point to which I "woke up" and realized this was "Impending Doom's" handiwork was when I started to suspect that one of the other candidates had called me to tell me it was moved to tomorrow, so that I wouldn't show up today. That way I'd look like I stood them up for the interview and that candidate would be hired.  This thought despite the fact that caller ID verified the call came from the actual company.  Things spiraled downward from there to myself being hopeless and destitute.. and should I just go in tomorrow and beg for the position? Maybe I should just crawl back in bed and never leave.

Maybe a better way to describe "impending doom" is to call it "Crazy paranoia", but in really it is impending doom.  And it changes to fit everyone differently. There's no prevention. You just have to be strong enough to ride it out, and recognize it for what it is… a story your mind tells you.  A story not entirely unlike "Chicken Little".

A good day with food allergies

For those of you with lots of food allergies that are hard to handle, hopefully you'll understand this.

I woke this morning with the actual "want to do something" feeling. Since I rarely wake with any energy to even get out of bed, let alone any desire to do anything, this morning is a rare one.

My plans should I have energy for today were:
Clean house.
Finish unpacking/sorting/throwing away stuff.
Clean the kitchen.
Do laundry.
Bake something to portion out and freeze for later.
Do some writing.
Get some work done on my projects
Send out some resumes.

Unfortunately this wasn't an "energy to do what I need to do" but just a "want to do something fun" and my energy/desires wanted nothing to do with my to-do list… For once.. I actually had energy to do something else..

If someone invited me to go mountain climbing.. I probably would have said yes. Dive out of an airplane? Sure. Backpack across Europe? Lets go.

I'd have settled for a long walk but then it's 97 degrees out and sunny. Relatively certain I'd get 2 blocks and just walk right back.

Nevertheless anything I would not normally do sounds really fun today. (I wonder if this is what people call the "Zest for Life".)

I attempted to talk myself into cleaning and unpacking with the idea that I would then invite friends over for board games and booze.

And as I was debating on where to start first and being overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I'd need to do in order to actually make my place presentable… I realized that today is the best day I've had in months.

I'm still debating on whether to use my energy for cleaning or to just go out with the dog.

But I realized I hadn't written lately at all here, and realized I hadn't written anything about good days.  The one's where you can put two coherent sentences together, and run up and down the stairs without getting dizzy or feeling like your lungs are shutting down for repairs.

The ones were you feel.. normal.

(PS - I'm also looking for guest posts for this blog. Subjects - what it feels like to have food allergies or intimate stories to portray life with food allergies. Submit to simplyvmail at gmail)

Trying on clothes could kill you. Allergic reactions to stores and starches

Today I went and splurged. I can't really afford it, but I sooo needed it for my own mental health. I started a new job and keep gaining weight (read allergy swelling and allergy induced type 2 diabetic issues) which I need to get under-control but haven't been able to.

In the meantime, I've been wearing what I have left of the "fat clothes" from a few years ago when I was this size (prior to my food allergy discovery). These clothes, while they fit, are outdated and make me feel frumpy and ugly.

It's one thing to walk around with allergy-induced cankles, it's quite another to do it in clothes that just add to the feeling of ugly.

I just couldn't take it anymore, so I went shopping.

I was supposed to go out with a friend tonight so I also wanted to get something presentable and "sexy-ish" for going out.

What I'd forgotten was just how bad shopping could make me feel.

I entered the store and went to town on their clearance section looking for anything remotely fashionable and wouldn't go out of style too quickly.

I ended up with about 4 arm loads of clothes to try on, and I head to the dressing room.

It's a trying on clothes fiesta!  Clothes are flying on and off me as I look for something fantastic to buy.

About an hour or so into it, I start choking as if I swallowed wrong, and at first I think I must have just swallowed wrong.  But then I cough again, and my lungs this time feel dry and I cough a bit more, and still feel like I'm choking.

Crap.

I'd forgotten about the clothes being full of corn starch, and when clothes are flying around the room of course it gets in the air and down my windpipe.

I pull out my benadryl and take two.

I end up finding a few things: two fancy tshirts, a blouse, a pair of jeans, and a dress that looks awesome all for $75.

Unfortunately, by the time I got home I was so tired I didn't go out tonight. My skin feels so dry it might crack open. My cankles are back full force. I got "sick" in the bathroom, and I'm starving but absolutely no energy to do anything about it. I swear all my joints hurt.

My fancy new clothes are just sitting here waiting for me to wear them, and I really really want to... But I'd rather lay in bed and go to sleep.

I really love/hate shopping.

Digestive Belligerence: When your body refuses to digest allergenic foods.

Last night was an eye opener for me. I'd always (well since the food allergy discovery) known that eating my allergens caused my digestion to halt to a very slow crawl, causing me to experience such lovely things as reflux, gas, indigestion, and diarrhea.

However, since having AAT treatments during 2009, I have developed a new allergy symptom which I believe is merely a worsening of a previous symptom. Actually, thinking about it, I think I might have had these episodes twice prior two AAT, but very far apart.

The episodes start with feeling a starving fullness. Where your stomach feels full, but you're still hungry. Usually the hunger is for sweeter foods or sugar. Then starts the cramping, the reflux, and the feeling of having a massive burp coming, but never does.

That, is the beginning and in mild cases it tends to stop there if I ate something sugary, as it seemed to start digestion going and everything was hunky dory.

However, in extreme cases of "Digestive Belligerence" (my new term for what my digestive system has decided on its own to do), my body seems to completely refuse to digest certain foods. Onion right now seems to be the biggun. It just sits there. Festers. Ferments. Rots. In my stomach. (Feels a lot like I'm trying to digest razor blades)

Lovely right? Most meals (I looked it up) digest within 90 minutes, or at the very least most of the contents are gone in 90 minutes.

This did not happen last night.  Around 6pm, I ate a meal.  Around 8pm, I started craving sugar like no one's business. So I made myself some pancakes and ate several. At 10pm, my stomach was on fire. Twenty minutes later my entire body felt like it was on fire. The pain in my upper abdomen & chest was excrutiating, and I remember half-praying for death to come quickly.

I tried benadryl. The pain lessened from 10 to a 9, but didn't completely go away. I know from past experience not to waste my expensive compounded tylenol because it does absolutely no good.

After an hour of pain, I decided to give puking a try. I figured it couldn't hurt, and worst case there'd be nothing in there anyway.

At this point, I was just grasping at straws. I figured by this time all the food would be in my colon or intestines already and forcing myself to puke would do nothing.  But after an hour of that pain with bloating and so feverish that I would have welcomed walking out into the artic tundra, I was willing to give anything a shot.

I am not a puker. I can pretty much count the amount of times I've puked on my fingers and probably have a couple fingers left over. Even with years of reflux, I never let myself puke. I hate puking. So I had to force myself to puke.

Up came my entire dinner. The pancakes which I ate later were not to be found, but the entire contents of my 6pm dinner were there in clearly recognizable pieces, 4 hours or more after I'd eaten them. (There was a lot of food in there.)

Immediately after emptying the contents of my stomach, I felt fine. Fever gone. Pain nearly gone (dull roar).

Gastroparesis.

I looked it up. Every case it says there is damage to a certain nerve. I don't think that's my issue as I can normally eat without this issue 99% of the time.

I think my body just refuses to digest certain foods that it finds unsuitable. It's probably trying to protect me. Digestive Belligerence, I tell you.

After that, I was starving and yet not very keen on eating. I tried a smoothie and drank a little bit which was as much as I could mentally stomach. I also think it was too acidic.

14 hours later, I still couldn't fathom eating solid foods and drank water. 24 hours later, I'm suddenly finding food a little enticing. I think I might be hungry. But solid food? It's going to take me a while to warm up to that.

Day Two: The day after an allergic reaction

Well its a "Happy Day After Your Reaction" for me today.

First, I woke up after a solid 12 hours of dead sleep. I missed most of the morning due to that, and still feel like I was hit by a truck.

Since I'd missed several hours in which I could have been productive, I quickly got up and just as quickly crawled back in bed. It has been a while since I've had this severe of an allergic reaction and I forgot just how much "quick action" does not agree with my body during the reaction detox.

My quick get-up left me dizzy. So dizzy that I started seeing spots. I crawled back in bed to wait out the dizzy spell. It didn't take long, and so I again attempted getting out of bed, this time taking it slower. Success.

An hour later, after downing about 32 ounces of water and a high carb easily digestible snack (also known as my allergy-free fudge made entirely of cane sugar, gelatin, special margarine and dark baking chocolate), I got up the energy to make lunch.

Since I'd put off going to the grocery store for a week due to the whole Thanksgiving madness, lunch required going to the grocery store.

I go to put on my "suitable for public" clothes, and find things still aren't fitting right. I'm still a bit swollen from last night's reaction. So I find a few of my fat clothes that I keep around entirely for these days. As if missing most of my morning wasn't depressing enough, having to now put on my fat-clothes was not improving the outlook.

I throw a potato into the oven to bake while I grab my keys and run up the flight of stairs to my car. By run I mean climb at my normal pace, not that it mattered much. I arrived at the top of the flight of stairs, a section of stairs I do often without issue, breathing so heavily you'd think I'd just finished jogging a four minute mile. Again, I'd forgotten to take things extra slow today so I spent the next 20 minutes feeling like I was breathing through a straw with my head pounding.

I stop for a minute to toss a small bag of trash in the dumpster. I give it a good toss to get it over the edge of the dumpster. Once tossed, my arm tingles and I start cussing to myself.

"Is there anything that I can do today that won't make me feel like I'm attempting to climb Mount Everest?"

The arm tingling continues and parts of my hips and thighs join in for good measure. It's that numb-painful-tingling that you get when you're exercising too hard and your body wants you to stop it. (or its possible that's just me, I looked for articles about tingling with exercise and only found things about fibromyalgia which btw is often also relieved with allergy-free diets.)

So I do manage to get to the store, and most of the rest of the day goes better. I just forget that I have to take things slow on days like this.  It's helping though that as the day progresses the more stiff my muscles get which in itself inhibits quick movement. Standing up currently feels like torture, and don't even get me started on the pain of walking. I'm also coughing up stuff, and the mirror tells me I look like the walking dead.

I've been so spoiled the last few weeks and I realized that today. I managed to eat quite a few things the last few weeks and still go for walks and exercise without feeling like I'm risking a heart attack or other personal injury due to fainting or breathing issues. It's been good.

I can only hope that tomorrow will be better, and I'll be back to normal soon.

Reflux, Nausea, Edema - Just par for the course of food allergies

I'm having new versions of the same old adventures, and attempting to relearn my own body right now.

Nearly 2 years ago, I started getting AAT treatments to alieviate my food allergies. It didn't work, or at least it didn't seem to do much of anything as I spent the last part of last year and nearly all of this year with the same if not worse food allergy concerns.

Then about a month ago, I suddenly became able to eat some foods that would have been previously dangerous. Then more foods, and more foods. Once in a while a food adventure would cause a reaction, but never the foods I thought would cause a problem.

It was craziness trying to predict what would or would not cause me problems. Even typing this out, I feel like a crazy person.

Prior to AAT, I knew darn good and well to what I was and was not allergic. It was predictable, guaranteed reactions. After AAT, everything became a crapshoot for a while, then nothing was safe, and for a few days recently I wondered if I was allergic to anything anymore.

Confused yet? So was/am I.

I've figured out a few things.

I still can't eat carrots. Don't even ask me to. You know those scenes in comedy movies where the person accidentally ingests laxatives and just barely makes it to the toilet before exploding. Yeah, its kinda like that.

I still can't eat squash. I still can't keep it down. I can't even pretend to keep it down. As quick as I swallow is how quick it returns to the surface. Pretty, I know.

I haven't tried real hard, but pretty sure cruciferous veggies are still a no-go. I had a bite of broccoli about a week or so ago. Despite the fact that while chewing it it tasted reminiscent of dirt (yes I've tasted dirt. What tomboy from the midwest rural areas worth her salt hasn't tasted dirt?), it sat in my stomach like lead for hours.

But what's really getting me right now are onions. Thursday night I ate some Tomato Basil soup which had chunks of onion (unbelieable to me as it's a puree soup, so they had to have added the chunks after they pureed the soup defeating the whole purpose of puree). I ended being up for the next 5 hours with reflux, burping, and swelling/edema. Even though I'd eaten other things after the soup, still I burped only the taste of that soup. Yay, benadryl to the rescue.

Tonight, I tried some Indian food. It was pretty good, but I immediately started feeling bloated. You know that feeling you get after Thanksgiving dinner when you've eaten way too much, your jeans are too tight and you want to unbutton them, and you feel just a little nauseous.

By the time I got home, I was full-fledged swollen with cankles and swollen fingers to the point where movement was restricted. My joints hurt, actually it was more of a throbbing pain as if I could actually feel the blood pulsing through and around my joints.

Then the reflux and burping started. Flavor? Curried Onion. Lovely.

5 hours later? Still burping curried onion.

Hopefully this next dose of benadryl takes care of that so I can get some sleep.