to my surprise
I started digesting food again.
All of a sudden, within a day or so of taking the supplements I was getting nutrition from the things I ate. It wasnât a complete fix, and Iâd learn shortly thereafter that my true and worst allergy was milk, but it was a huge improvement. Soon thereafter I gave up milk, and my asthma, allergies, and digestive problems mostly went away.
Thatâs not to say that Iâm totally healthy and immunologically fabulous now. I still have to put a lot of work into staying healthy, and staving off my bodyâs natural imbalances. A cold can still be a lot more dangerous for me, and every now and then when I exercise I get that certain âoh, I canât breatheâ feeling. I can still be totaled by some milk powder put in bread at a fast food joint or an organic bakery. Iâm on a whole anti-inflammatory diet to overcome all of the damage I did to my body by eating allergens for years, and so I generally donât eat sugar, gluten, or yeast in addition to the legumes and dairy Iâve already given up. Itâs made it a lot harder to eat out, but I appreciate that it has forced me to eat local, fresh, healthy, and homemade foods. While itâs a lot of work, Iâm incredibly grateful for the knowledge and treatment options I have, and itâs all the better that it came from outside of the traditional medical and food industries.
Initially, the impetus for coming out as sickly came from the changes in my diet. Many of the people in my life couldnât imagine giving up milk, especially since Iâd already given up legumes. Between these two restrictions, I canât eat much of what is considered âfoodâ in America today. Itâs really an alienating experience to walk through a frozen food section or gas station and realize thereâs almost nothing I can eat. My friends knew that either something was really wrong, or I was just really fucking weird. As great as it is to be weird, I finally started telling people bits and pieces of the story, and eventually the whole story.I began telling people about how I had undiagnosed digestive problems for all of high school, how the doctors never helped anyway once I was diagnosed, the process by which sickness derailed my graduate education, and how the times when I wasnât returning calls it was often because I was too sick to get out of bed. And I experienced something I didnât expect. I thought it was just a horrible story like any other horrible story, and that theyâd hear it, move on, and forget about it. But peopleâs reactions were bigger than that, and it made me realize that chronic illness was bigger than I allowed it to be. It wasnât just a road trip from hell, or a hangover of legendary proportions, or a boring wedding. It really was different than most peopleâs experience of life. Chronic illness had been one of the defining features of my life for years, and somehow I just never told anyone.
This is not to say that talking about my illnesses is always easy or something I want to do all of the time. The single worst thing for me is dealing with other peopleâs lack of understanding of my health problems. Itâs not surprising that people donât know more about fairly common disorders, given that most of us get our medical knowledge from grade school biology (this is where babies come from + donât do drugs!), but it can get old to be an educator about your illnesses. While youâve heard your story a thousand times, and it may be painful, emotionally wrought, or boring to you, it will always be novel, shocking, or fascinating to others. They may ask painful questions about whether youâve tried everything you can, whether you have the right diagnosis, how soon youâll get âbetter,â when you think youâll be eating your allergenic foods again, and perhaps worst of all if you may have imagined it or be
I started digesting food again.
All of a sudden, within a day or so of taking the supplements I was getting nutrition from the things I ate. It wasnât a complete fix, and Iâd learn shortly thereafter that my true and worst allergy was milk, but it was a huge improvement. Soon thereafter I gave up milk, and my asthma, allergies, and digestive problems mostly went away.
Thatâs not to say that Iâm totally healthy and immunologically fabulous now. I still have to put a lot of work into staying healthy, and staving off my bodyâs natural imbalances. A cold can still be a lot more dangerous for me, and every now and then when I exercise I get that certain âoh, I canât breatheâ feeling. I can still be totaled by some milk powder put in bread at a fast food joint or an organic bakery. Iâm on a whole anti-inflammatory diet to overcome all of the damage I did to my body by eating allergens for years, and so I generally donât eat sugar, gluten, or yeast in addition to the legumes and dairy Iâve already given up. Itâs made it a lot harder to eat out, but I appreciate that it has forced me to eat local, fresh, healthy, and homemade foods. While itâs a lot of work, Iâm incredibly grateful for the knowledge and treatment options I have, and itâs all the better that it came from outside of the traditional medical and food industries.
Initially, the impetus for coming out as sickly came from the changes in my diet. Many of the people in my life couldnât imagine giving up milk, especially since Iâd already given up legumes. Between these two restrictions, I canât eat much of what is considered âfoodâ in America today. Itâs really an alienating experience to walk through a frozen food section or gas station and realize thereâs almost nothing I can eat. My friends knew that either something was really wrong, or I was just really fucking weird. As great as it is to be weird, I finally started telling people bits and pieces of the story, and eventually the whole story.I began telling people about how I had undiagnosed digestive problems for all of high school, how the doctors never helped anyway once I was diagnosed, the process by which sickness derailed my graduate education, and how the times when I wasnât returning calls it was often because I was too sick to get out of bed. And I experienced something I didnât expect. I thought it was just a horrible story like any other horrible story, and that theyâd hear it, move on, and forget about it. But peopleâs reactions were bigger than that, and it made me realize that chronic illness was bigger than I allowed it to be. It wasnât just a road trip from hell, or a hangover of legendary proportions, or a boring wedding. It really was different than most peopleâs experience of life. Chronic illness had been one of the defining features of my life for years, and somehow I just never told anyone.
This is not to say that talking about my illnesses is always easy or something I want to do all of the time. The single worst thing for me is dealing with other peopleâs lack of understanding of my health problems. Itâs not surprising that people donât know more about fairly common disorders, given that most of us get our medical knowledge from grade school biology (this is where babies come from + donât do drugs!), but it can get old to be an educator about your illnesses. While youâve heard your story a thousand times, and it may be painful, emotionally wrought, or boring to you, it will always be novel, shocking, or fascinating to others. They may ask painful questions about whether youâve tried everything you can, whether you have the right diagnosis, how soon youâll get âbetter,â when you think youâll be eating your allergenic foods again, and perhaps worst of all if you may have imagined it or be
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