One Week Hive Free - Elimination Diet Helping?

I took the last plunge with a full elimination diet recommended by a naturopath that I saw a few weeks ago. They did this weird testing with some electronic device that supposedly told me about all my food intolerances -- which apparently there were many!! I don't know if I really believe in this device, but I'm willing to take a leap of faith to give it a try.

The list of stuff that I am apparently intolerant to includes:

• Fish - all kinds! (say, what?!)
• Shellfish
• Nuts (which I knew, I have a moderate allergy)
• Melons (which I also knew, moderate allergy)
• Gluten
• Rice -- seriously! this one killed me. I eat rice a lot, and especially rice flour in the gluten-free breads, crackers, cookies, etc.
• Nightshade vegetables -- this is another one that killed me. These include white potatoes (and potato flour counts), tomatoes, peppers of all kinds, chiles of all kinds, paprika, and eggplant. For crying out loud!
• Soy
• Coffee (no big deal here for me, I gave it up 5 years ago)

There are some medical studies underway in this area of Elimination Diets for Chronic Urticaria, but which are so far showing mixed-bag results (see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19137651).

So I did 10 days completely eliminating all of those things, no cheats either!! It wasn't easy, I gotta say. I was basically eating a paleo diet with dairy.

The result, aside from food boredom?! No hives for the last week, and I have been off of the antihistamine (allegra) for five days now. However, my keratosis pilaris has shown zero improvement.

On day 10, which was two days ago, I decided to introduce one ingredient back. That is the recommended way to do an "Elimination diet" -- bring only one thing back for a few days, and closely monitor how your body reacts. For example, you don't bring back "pizza" which contains a lot of ingredients.

I chose rice, white rice specifically. I had a full cup with dinner on Tuesday, and monitored for any reaction for the next 24 hours. Nothing adverse. Not only no hives, but no GI upset or other issues like headache. So I ate rice again last night with dinner, but this time, within hours I had bad gas and all through the night, I was waking up with sharp, stabbing stomach pains from gas. Hmmmm.....

No hives yet today either, though it looks like one possibly may be forming on my arm. Too soon to tell just yet. I also had that red blotchy thing happen with my skin pretty bad today during my shower, which was as always lukewarm and brief.

I plan to eat rice again this evening with dinner, and see if I get the same issues as I did last night. If so, then rice will be off of the menu for at least a few months, then I'll try it again. After the rice experiment, my plan is that this weekend, I'll move on to the next ingredient, which I think I will pick white potatoes.

I have an appointment next week with a Dietitian to see if she has any thoughts on the elimination diet as a way to pinpoint a possible allergic issue that might be causing the hives, blotchy skin, and keratosis pilaris.

In the meantime, I am currently reading a book called "Full Catastrophe Living" on my Kindle, about using mindfulness to weather the difficulties we all face in life. I am only 20% through it so far, but highly recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Wisdom-Illness/dp/0385303122

My Visit with the Endocrinologist

Late last week, I finally had an appointment with the Endocrinologist. I left feeling like the whole visit was a total bust. I was in tears as I explained to her my list of woes: Endometriosis; Infertility; Heavy/Irregular Menstrual Bleeding (until I got on the pill); Anxiety; Keratosis Pilaris skin condition; and now, Chronic Hives.

She did confirm that I have Hashimoto's autoimmune disease, but said that my bloodwork results continue to look good and I have not presenting other key "clinical" symptoms to indicate that my thyroid is dysfunctioning yet. (Those symptoms include hair loss, particularly on the outer eyebrows, weight gain, extremely dry skin, low energy, etc.) She said she would be concerned that with medication, it could make me hyper-thyroid and cause new/more issues. She also said that there is no proven link that chronic hives in the presence of Hashimoto's are treated/resolved through the use of thyroid hormone medications.

My response to her? "I have read the exact opposite." (example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11270265)

I left her office with her saying that while she would not agree to thyroid medication treatment yet, she promised that she would take the next week to research it further. Oh, and they did take blood to run additional thyroid function tests. (I felt like she was throwing me a bone, so that I wouldn't feel it was a totally wasted trip.)

I resolved at that point that it is time to stop my quest for answers, and to just accept and live with these hives. Or at least, work on acceptance.

The next day, she called and got my voice mail while I was in a meeting at work -- she said that she did some reading the night before, and found both outcomes from various medical studies, and that given what she read, she was willing to start me on a low dose to see if that would help. VICTORY!!!

I needed to wait for their nurse to call me early this week, so over the weekend, I just continued on -- maintaining my GF diet, elimination of nightshades, soy, and my known allergen items (nuts and some fruits). And still taking the antihistamine each morning.

I have been hives-free since that appointment, so for one whole week. Even more, my bloodwork results came back as excellent; all of my numbers were not only in normal ranges, but they were numbers at which one wants to be!

When I finally connected with the nurse today, I told her that given the lack of hives for the past week and my bloodwork results, plus I generally feel pretty good, that I would like to postpone starting up the thyroid medication -- instead take a wait-and-see approach. She agreed, and said that if the hives return, or other symptoms, to give them a call right away.

Wouldn't you know it -- a single hive appears on my hand this evening. I forgot to take my antihistamine today! I was going to run out for some on my lunch break, but decided to see if I would be hives free without it. NOPE. It was like a little rap on my door saying, "we're still here!" 

I''m still going to give things a few more weeks and see what happens. But I guess it's back to the daily antihistamine tomorrow, for now.

Diet Changes Continue, Hives Reduce

Been awhile since my last post. I have remained gluten free, but for the past week, and I have decided to become even more restrictive. I have cut out Nightshade Vegetables (tomatoes, white potatoes, peppers, chilis, and eggplant). I have also nearly eliminated soy. And fish and shellfish. And I have significantly cut back on grains. (I long ago gave up coffee - 4 years ago.)

It has not been easy, but I'm going to stick with it for a few more weeks.

My hives have been nearly non-existent. Every couple of days, I will get one or two small ones on my usual places (hips, waistline, or hands). But they are fading more quickly lately too.

I unfortunately continue to notice the "red blotches" that temporarily appear after even just a lukewarm-temperature shower; they appear on my face and lower legs, but fade within 30 minutes.

My Keratosis Pilaris (a red goosebump-link skin affliction) has gotten a bit worse too though.

I drank a little bit of red wine tonight, I wonder if that was a trigger?? I also had a little bit of chocolate ice cream, maybe the cocoa?

I am still taking the Allegra every day too. Hmmm....

This is so frustrating!