challenge: amines

Amines come from protein breakdown or fermentation. Large amounts are present in cheese, chocolate, wines, beer, yeast extracts and fish products. In simple terms, it’s what makes the green banana turn into a brown banana.

So this was a pretty exciting test for me. Pork and tuna, paw paw and bananas, and dark chocolate. I was a little hesitant about the dark chocolate because of the caffeine, but since I wasn’t able to do this with milk chocolate, I certainly wasn’t going to give up on a challenge that included chocolate! It was also supposed to include some cheeses, but once again, thanks to the failed milk challenge, I would have no such luck. Thanks a lot milk.

Now I wouldn’t have expected these words to come out of my mouth, but as I got towards the end of the seven day challenge, it was becoming more and more difficult to continue eating roast pork and dark chocolate. I don’t particularly like dark chocolate, and this challenge just kept reinforcing that. I really had to force myself to eat the chocolate through the last two days.

On top of that I had reactions to the amines and boy did they get a little interesting. I started to lose my appetite, I got some blotches on my face, and I started to get the shakes and feel like I was drunk.

I think the shakes were from the caffeine in the dark chocolate. Caffeine usually gives me migraines, but it wouldn’t be too far a stretch to think that a build up of caffeine might give me the shakes. Especially since I don’t have it at all in my diet usually. Well that’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

So the result of this was that I sat at work or the pub for this whole week shaking. It was mostly my hands, but every now and then I would get random shakes in the body. This got more interesting when I went out with some friends for drinks. I have to be honest, I think the gin and tonics actually dulled my senses and made the shakes better, until I got really drunk, and then they got worse.

My specialist doesn’t think this is what she would consider as "no reaction", so she marked it as a reaction. No surprises there right? *sigh*