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Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Do I lack toes?
Since the age of 22 I've avoided dairy.
When I was 18 I started having bad stomach aches, really bad. I went to the doctor and he did various tests and said I had IBS, prescribing peppermint tablets. They were rubbish and were of no help whatsoever: I still had crippling stomach aches all the time. I went to a different doctor and he did more tests and still the diagnosis was IBS: try peppermint tea and deep breathing. Useless. I went to see different experts but got no satisfaction. I think they liked the way IBS sounded as it left their mealy mouths.
So I took matters into my own hands. I did some research and some experiments and found out that when I avoided dairy I didn't have stomach aches. So I avoided dairy and felt much better. It was a drag not being able to eat chocolate, cakes, cheese and so on, and to have to be careful in restaurants, but it was much better than having stomach aches.
A few years later I started getting similar pains again. I wasn't eating any dairy, none at all, not even salt & vinegar crisps as they contain lactose in the flavouring (it's bloody everywhere, you'd be amazed), yet the old pain had come back.
So I did my own tests again and found that it was gluten this time. I cut it out and felt much better, so I avoided it from then on.
This has been going on for a long time now. I'm not actually allergic to dairy and gluten. I'm not even intollerant. I thought I was for a while but had proper tests at the hospital and they all came back negative, emphatically so (I even had the camera down the throat thing which is nasty). But that didn't matter: by avoiding these foods I felt better, and since feeling better was the whole point, that was good enough for me.
I've started eating gluten again, having bread every now and then. If I don't overdo it I'm fine, and that's great.
I recently had a spoonful of milk. I figured it's been so long my body could surely accept it by now. I was ok. Last night Corrie admitted that she'd put butter in some food she'd made the other night, to do a proper test on me without me being aware. I was fine.
So it's looking hopeful. I'm going to do some more gentle experiments over the next few weeks, trying little bits of milk every now and then, gradually building up to a king size Snickers. If it doesn't make me ill, you just watch me pile on the pounds!
.....posted at 10:07 am permalink
babyatom's
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