30 years ago it was thought that I was allergic to dairy, wheat, gluten, and citrus. The reason behind this was because I had terrible eczema, chronic ear infections, nasal allergies, and "colds" all the time. I "grew" out of all these allergies by the time I was 3-4 years old except the citrus. I continued to have the eczema and nasal allergies, but a new symptom popped up...chronic constipation. My family and I delt with it all through my childhood, but when I went to college it was not so easy. I tried to talk to my Dr about it, but she said to drink more water.
Finally I was referred to a gastroenterologist at my work (I'm a PICU RN). He tested me for celiac disease (which was negative) and did many other tests on me to try and figure this problem out. Eventually I ended up having intestinal biopsies done because they thought that my nerves and muscles were not sending the message to my brain that it was time to work (this is called hirschprung's disease and is a childhood disease usually caught when people are hours to days old, also called mega colon)...this was all negative also. No one could figure this problem out. Now I was taking lots of medication to help the issue, but still living in lots of pain. Plus I still have the eczema, nasal allergies, chronic ear pain, acne, and now seasonal reactive airway disease.
In doing some research on veganism and dairy free diets, I discovered that these are all symptoms of a dairy allergy. Ah Ha...a cause to all my issues!!! So I am going to try and go dairy free to see if these problems will go away...25 years of suffering and it was the milk and yogurt and cheese I was eating because my mom and Dr thought I "grew out of" the allergy....lets see if they were wrong....
No comments:
Post a Comment