Food Allergies

A month before I turned 17—the morning after Winter Formal—I woke with a giant, bloated tummy. It was very painful, and I suspected I might have developed a food allergy to gluten. My cousin had the exact same symptoms as I did, and she was diagnosed with celiac disease as a young teen. I thought maybe I had also developed this disease, since it ran in our family. It was my junior year—what some people call their hardest year in high school—and I did not want to have to deal with this. I had always thought before that it would be interesting to have something wrong with you so that you would stick out and be different.  That was some pretty self-centered and twisted thinking I had as a kid. In all honesty, it can just become a burden. Months went by of stomach problems before I was able to get tested and receive the results—mostly because the doctor we went to was closed over Christmas Break and then scheduling to get in took a while. I took a simple food allergy blood test. Weeks later, went back into the doctor and received my results. I had expected my allergy to be to gluten, but I was very surprised to find that dairy, eggs, wheat, rice, almonds, walnuts, peanuts, coconut, pineapple, cranberry, soy, mushrooms and other random things were foods I was allergic to. Physically, I was in a lot of pain in my stomach area, and so I promptly had to start a diet that excluded all of these foods. The doctor said it would be a month until everything was cleared out and then I would start feeling better. She said my gut needed to heal and clear up, and then maybe I could reintroduce some food and I wouldn’t be allergic to it or it wouldn’t have that big of an effect on me.       

Well, what do you eat when you cannot have gluten, dairy, and eggs—and a lot of other things? It was very difficult. Diet change physically affects your body and mental capacity. Eating lots of meats, fruits and vegetables seemed the way to go. I had a ton of chicken salads. No treats, no nothing. I think I subconsciously became afraid of food and didn’t want to eat it. It is pretty sad to force yourself to eat every day because you know you need to. It was frustrating because when people asked if I was feeling better, the answer was no. I felt even worse. Adjusting to this diet took a lot of energy and was very tiring. I wasn’t getting enough protein, nutrients, and energy from what I ate, even though ironically it was meats and vegetables. My mind did not feel as clear as it had before, and I became so frustrated that my body wouldn’t work and feel as good as it did before this food allergy problem started. Halfway done with junior year in high school, I struggled to keep my grades up. I have always been a straight A student, and so when grades started slipping to borderline B’s, and my math grade did go down to a B, I tried so hard to study and do better. I went in for math tutoring multiple times, got very frustrated with inability to understand, and had many breakdowns. I will be honest and admit that my inability to understand the math I was taking was not completely due to my diet change. Calculus itself is a worthy opponent without adding physical or mental problems to it. I realize now that I was very depressed the rest of the school year. Many physical changes happened the following six months after this diet-change. I kept losing weight, and my hair thinned out. It was really scary when huge chunks of hair would shed in the shower. I was worried I was going bald for a while. It was a sign of unhealthiness. I was accidentally starving my body by not getting enough nutrients I needed and not eating enough. Some days it would be so hard to keep my breakfast down. My stomach would often feel queasy, but I refused to throw up and develop an eating disorder. It became easier when I started figuring out yummy things I could eat. When you can’t all of the sudden have brownies, cookies, ice-cream, donuts, etc., you relish what you can have. So I would eat potato chips or other unhealthy snacks.

I realized after almost a year that I needed to be eating healthier to feel better! I was already not eating lots of sugary foods, but I needed to eat more vegetables and find meals that spice things up and makes healthy food taste good. I got really sick of chicken after a while, but I would have meat loaf, bell peppers stuffed with vegetables and sausage, salads, beans, baked potatoes, etc. Once I realized how much things I still could eat, and that it was good, I began to eat more. I gained back about ten pounds (which I needed) and felt better and more confident. I felt like I could finally deal with my problem. Now, almost a year and a half later, I still don’t feel completely perfect, but I am healthier and can now talk about my food allergies without crying in front of people! I am not ashamed, resentful, or angry anymore. I will be honest and say it can still be frustrating, but I am learning to have a better attitude about things and it is making a huge difference. There are few restaurants I can eat out at, and I still have to eat before parties or social events, but now it is not that hard to be surrounded by people eating donuts or pizza in front of you when you know you cannot eat it. I’ve learned a lot about nutrition from this trial I’ve had. I am so grateful for my supportive family and friends—for the people I’ve crossed paths with that have similar allergies and give me advice on what to make and eat. That has been so helpful. If anyone suddenly becomes allergic to basically everything, my advice would be to connect with others that have been dealing with it for a while, because they will provide the support and information you need to avoid having mental breakdowns and panic attacks. This really has been a blessing—at least I have seen blessings come from this—because of the people I have been able to talk to and relate with. I am now interested in pursuing a career that helps people with nutrition and eating disorders or dieting because this experience has made it very personal to me.

I was very worried about going off to college in a different state and leaving behind my family because I was afraid I would starve. Because of my food allergies, my diet is very expensive, especially compared to what other college students buy and eat. I was also worried about not having the time or energy to cook for myself. I’d planned to make meal plans to rotate through each week, which would tell me what to buy and make for the week to keep myself on track. However, without a car, grocery shopping is a pain. More than once, I’ve had to ride a bike three miles to a grocery store that had bread and other foods I was able to eat, and then only buy what I could carry on a three mile bike ride back to my dorm. However, now that I’ve been attending college for almost 6 months, I am proud to say that I am still alive and well! Canned beans and vegetables have literally been a life-saver.

I have definitely been blessed in so many ways; I cannot even count them all. It has really helped that I was able to do a project in one of my religion classes on eating healthy and exercising (obeying the Word of Wisdom), which I will have to share another time! I hope you guys are better at planning and making meals than I am! If not, you can always make it your New Year’s resolution! Stay healthy and strong!

Example of a weekly meal plan I made: