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