week 7 - the verdict

So I obviously didn’t die, but it was a long week and waiting for the appointment with the specialist seemed to take an eternity. It was no surprise to me when my specialist told me that I didn’t have celiac disease, but it was a shock to me how much detail and preparation went into starting and completing the elimination diet.

The main difference to having an allergy and having intolerance is that an allergy is your immune system reacting to something, and intolerance is just you wigging out. There are 5 main categories of symptoms for those with intolerances, and that I cover all 5. Woo! They are something like head, skin, bowel, emotional, and respiratory.

My specialist spent the next 45 minutes trying to prepare me for the “Elimination Diet”. Which sounds like you eat stuff and slowly start taking things out. But actually it’s the opposite – you take everything you possibly can without becoming nutrient deficient, and then add things back in one at a time. To keep it simple though, it’s no flavour and nothing interesting. If you like it, you probably can’t have it. Not even normal toothpaste. You have to use plain unflavoured toothpaste! This is what they call the baseline diet.

There are a series of challenges to help determine what you are intolerant to. It’s not a food per say. It’s more to do with the naturally occurring chemical groups in particular foods. Here is the list of challenges – but I’ll provide more detail at each challenge as I go through them. And I have to admit I'm not entirely sure how to figure out how much I can have based on what reactions I do and don't have - but I guess that's what the specialist is for.

They are wheat (but fortunately I don’t have to do that one again) milk, salicylates,
amines, glutamate/MSG, propionates, sorbates, benzoates, antioxidants, colours, nitrates, sulphites, and soy.

Each one takes somewhere between 3 days and 1 week. If you have a reaction – you have to clear the system out on the baseline again before you can start the next. So it takes somewhere between 2-6 months on average.

How on earth am I going to survive without chocolate for that long? Seriously? Giving up alcohol I can understand, and at least have done that for six months before. But chocolate? This was a big ask..