Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else have loads of allergies? I've got loads, and intollerances too, although to be honest I'm not sure theres always that much of a difference. I'm allergic to penecillin, flagyl, NSAIDS, aspirin, opiates, latex amoung the most serious, with latex the allergy is so bad if I have to have an operation I have to have a theatre specially cleaned for me. Even being touched for 30 seconds with a glove brings me up in red bumps. I seem to be allergic to PEGs which are in everything from laundry products to make-up, I spend a fortune on cleaning products because I can't use ordinary ones, likewise body care products, I wish I could go to Lidl and buy thier own brand toothpaste for 79p like everybody else, instead of a fiver on one that has none of the stuff that I'm allergic too. I can't go swimming and can't swim because I'm allergic to chlorine, other people perfumes are a nightmare. I dont' go out to eat or get takeaways because of allergies and intollerances. The allergies probably effect my life more than all the other health conditions combined, certainly the quality of life. I'm told that this is something common amoung women with autism, but it rarely comes up in anything I read about autism, I originally found the information about allergies and autism in information I was reading from a study in Australia, they seem much more clued up than we are. Another thing I can't take are anit-histamines, they either don't work at all or make me lactate which is a 1 in 10,000 side effect, if I really needed them because I was bitten by a snake or something then I would have them, but I can't use them on an everyday basis.
Doctors, dentists and hospitals all totally freak out when they realise how many thing I'm allergic too and I'm sure many think I'm making it up, Ive had several rows with people becase of it, I've been delisted by dentists and there have been some doctors who've given me penecillin even though they know I'm allergic, I always double check with the dispensing pharmacist when I get something from a new doctor. At my GP's surgery I'm known as The Woman Who's Allergic To Everything, but at least they take me seriously and do what they can to help me with meds.
Is anyone else so allergy prone and what do you do about it? Do you get much help and support for it?
I have allergies and food sensitivities. I usually get hives, but the allergies came and went away at various points in my life. Cutting out the common food irritants, like gluten, dairy, and sugar, has helped remove negative physical and mental health symptoms I had, although I wish I could just eat cheap foods without my body reacting negatively to them. I'm such a frugal person, but my body demands such expensive things of me.
I've also heard that babies who didn't breastfeed, are more prone to allergies, food sensitivities, and have weaker immune systems, which can compromise them in adulthood. Also, parents who did not expose their children to a variety of different foods, people, or environments, thinking that bland foods and "living in a bubble" would be better for their child's health, than challenging their immune systems, may have also compromised their child for later in life.
I was breast fed and I was always given a wide range of foods as a child, my Dad was a sort of proto foodie long before it became fashionable. Whilst I'm dairy intolerant I'm OK with sugar and wheat and gluten, I do make all my own bread though and have for years, although I have a bread machine now, it does make the gluten form properly and become digestable which most shop bought breads don't. I get where you'e coming from about being frugal with a demanding body. There are so many things I can't eat, meat and fish give me terrible colic and indigestion, I can't seem to digest them at all. Bananas and pineapples don't like me, nor do chips, anything sweet and sour will bring on instant projectile vomiting, monosdium glutimate gives me banging headaches, heart palpitations, raging thirst and finally exhaustion. I can have coconut milk but not fat as it has similar effects to meat and animal fats. Tea gives me acid indigestion and jasmine rice I can't be in the same room as along with anything else that has jasmine in including the plant, I get sick headaches. I can't stand th smell of BBQ's they make me feel sick, as does frying bacon. Menopause robbed me of drinking alcohol, and I loved a glass of red wine and once had a collection of single malt whisky's, I quite liked a G&T in summer too.
By the time you add all that up and the things I don't like, like celeriac, turnips and raddishes, I'm a bit stuffed in terms of going out. I can't remember the last time I went out for a meal or had a takeaway, luckily I'm a good cook, but I do get fed up of eating my own food. It seriously effects any socialising I might want or need to do too.
That's interesting that you have a bread machine that can make gluten digestible. I'm sure I ate bread like that somewhere before a long time ago without issue, but yeah that's definitely something of a rarity, and 99% of the time it's just gluten that's not been properly processed.
The stress that comes from trying to avoid foods you can't eat or go near, and the planning that goes into buying, preparing, and making food, can be more draining than actually consuming the food itself. And the cross-contamination that can happen with basic ingredients, means that you buy a bag of something, and you can't use it now, and it feels like such a waste. It's such a nightmare to live with restrictions around food, considering how many times we consume food each day. Even the air around food can trigger hives, coughing and sneezing, ugh, the body is just so weird sometimes. But it's such a joy to to find food that the body is okay with.
Any bread machine will make gluten more digestable as long as you don't put it on the "fast" program, gluten needs the long periods of resting, kneeding and stretching that you only really get from making it by hand or giving it a good long time in a machine. if you have one a stand food mixer with a dough hook attached will do just as well, you just have to give it a good 10 minutes kneeding time.