The time has come to reintroduce foods back into Harry's diet. The initial plan was to introduce one new food every other day, having a rest day between. But, we're also looking to see what's to be seen by next Saturday, when Harry goes to his high school's Junior Prom and eats all the foods we eliminated and then some. So, we were on a hurry-up schedule this weekend.
Saturday was egg day because Harry was in the mood for fried eggs. He had a track meet and ate his usual elimination diet breakfast beforehand because I didn't want to risk ruining his races with any untoward reactions. Upon his return, I set down two fried eggs in front of him, which he inhaled. Then he asked for more. So I made another. Sat back, watched and waited...and nothing. He felt fine and he looked fine for the rest of the day.
Sunday should have been a day for his system to rest after being challenged by eggs, but I could tell he didn't want to be back on the elimination diet so soon. It also seemed like a good day for a challenge because he'd be around for me to see the results firsthand. After waking early to go to our food coop to work our member hours and then helping to haul stone for three hours for a landscaping project we're doing, I decided he deserved to eat what he most loves: sugar! And since I hadn't had him avoid sugar for sugar's sake (although that would be an interesting experiment, too), I added back all the foods he was avoiding due to a suspected candida overgrowth including yeast and foods with vinegar. Again, he ate no challenge foods at breakfast, but for lunch he had a turkey breast sandwich on gluten-free bread with so much mustard on it that I really I should say he had a mustard sandwich with turkey as a condiment. He loved the sandwich and happily followed it with the sweets his sister had brought back from Italy for him. I realized afterward that we made a mistake as the sweets contained wheat and probably some dairy as well. It's very difficult to manage all of this perfectly! A few hours later, Harry looked at me and said, "I don't feel so well - I have a headache." Hmm.
We'd been avoiding Chinese food to support Harry (or at least to not drive him totally crazy). So, Sunday night was our window of opportunity. Harry ordered an avocado roll, eggplant in garlic sauce (without the soy sauce since that contains wheat), and white rice (another food not on the candida diet). He followed it with a lollipop.
An hour or so after dinner, Harry told me he "felt dead." Not only did he feel badly, he looked a mess: he was twitching and doing all sorts of repetitive motions: he was tired but couldn't be still. He was repeating himself when talking (he can do this anyway but it was much, much worse).
This morning, the first thing Harry said to me was, "I can't eat sugar." He told me he'd slept terribly because he felt sick all night. His chest hurt and he felt poorly all over. He didn't mind one bit when I handed him his elimination diet smoothie and gluten-free breakfast cereal this morning.
So, we have a clue. Is it candida, a sugar allergy, wheat, or gluten-intolerance? It's hard to know exactly since he did have some wheat yesterday and I didn't isolate sugar from the other candida-forming foods. But, I think I'm safe to say we've made the first step to figuring out what's bothering his system. I'm still guessing a candida overgrowth, which would account for the sugar sensitivity. And I'm predicting either a wheat or gluten sensitivity as well.
The other observation that Harry made this weekend is that food has been tasting better to him since being on the elimination diet for a while. First he noticed how sweet apples are. Then he noticed that food tasted better to him in general. I've heard this observation made by others: we seem to be deadening our taste buds by eating so much processed sugar and processed foods in general. My sugar-addicted son said that it might be worth staying on this diet long-term just because he's enjoying this side-effect. I never thought I'd live to see the day!
Tomorrow, we'll challenge either dairy or wheat.
BTW, I haven't forgotten about the promised chick pea patty recipes, but if you're still with me, I suspect you're ready to move on to something else by now and so will post that another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment