26 reds and a bottle of wine

[the_siobhan]

Thanks to everybody for the recipes, links and advice, btw. I'm still a bit overwhelmed, but it is useful and I will look at everything that gets sent to me.

Good thing number one! This is day five of no grains whatsoever and I have had zero problems with my stomach since day two. Even after polishing off a full bottle of red wine last night. My diet has otherwise been pretty crappy this week, so if I had any doubts about the source of my problem they are pretty much settled now.

Good thing number two! I happened to be in a bulk/health food store this morning and I discovered that they carry pasta made out of soybean, rice and quinoa flour. Score.

Good thing number three! I spoke to my chiro today and she thinks she can fix the dizziness problem. She tilted my head around in different directions and told me I have something called Benign Positional Vertigo. She could have done it right there but she wants me to have somebody to spot me when I leave as apparently the immediate after-affects of having one's orientation adjusted can be a bit rough. I'm crossing my fingers this will do the trick.

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I really hope the dizziness can be fixed. And yay for understanding more about what foods are compatible with you.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I haven't been able to ride my bike or run or anything like that for weeks. I'm getting distinctly punchy!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I'd be going nuts. I've got a clear "exercise every 48 hours when under stress" pattern, and weekly seems to be a bare minimum.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you are finding more good things!

BTW...got the t-shirt, thanks to you and liz_lowlife!

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Any time. :-)

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

My doctor told me I had some benign positional vertigo. My sister the biomedical engineer got extremely excited about that and had me do experiments with my head to figure out that the canals in certain dimensions were sludged and the other ones were okay, because it was only certain axes of motion that made me want to hurl or fall over. Only for my sister would I do these things ...

Anyway, my doctor said there was basically no treatment, some people only ever got one bout of it and some got it periodically (which turns out to be me, but it's mild). I think it was from my doctor that I got the trick of repeating small bits of the problem motion making the problem fade temporarily.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Oh, but the good thing about my sister's experiments is that I learned to get out of bed not by sitting up from on my back, but from rolling to my side and crawling out - that uses different rotations and didn't upset my head.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

According to my chiro (and it seems to be supported by the article I liked to) the problem is usually caused by flecks of calcium floating around in one of the canals and bumping into things. Her treatment is to manipulate the position of my head to get the particles to roll out to where it won't cause the problem. The catch is that I can't bend over and I have to sleep sitting up for a couple of days to keep the particle from just rolling back in.

I'm going to go in on Wednesday to have her try it out. I'll let you know how it works.

[redbird]

Are there grains other than rice and quinoa you can eat, or is this still experimental? (I love rice, but it doesn't fit my concept of "no grains.")

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

This week is no grains. I figure a week is long enough to get any previously ingested food out of my system and establish a base level.

Next week I introduce rice. I haven't decided what I'll be trying out week 3. Maybe corn since it's harvest time in Ontario and cheap delicious corn is all over the place, tempting me with it's buttery goodness.

I figure once I've made sure all the possible alternative grains aren't a problem I'll start testing out some of the closer relatives to wheat and see how I react to those.

[redbird]

Ah. Thanks for clarifying (especially as I suspect you explained this all while I was away and only skimming LJ).

Also, have you thought about cellophane noodles? I think those are made entirely from beans.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I probably haven't explained it all the clearly since the situation has been rumbling along for so long.

I'm not familiar with cellophane noodles. Where do you get them?

[redbird]

They're also known as bean threads. Try a Chinese grocery.

Grains

[theevilchemist.livejournal.com]

If it is a gluten allergy, there are a number of grains that aren't "true grains" that is, they are really seeds and have little or no gluten. Among them are:

Amaranth
Kasha (Buckwheat)
Teff
Millet
Wild Rice (not rice at all)

Kamut is a true grain and does have gluten, but it is an acient unhybridized grain and some of the literature I have read seem to indicate it is better tolerated by folks with gluten allergies, but it is definitely not for celiac patients.

If I can grab it back from my Sifu, I have a very nice book entitled "Grains for Better Health" that covers the various types of grains, their history, use, nutrition and health related issues. It covers gluten allergies as well. Best of all, each grain mentioned has a wonderful recipe section. It's a really good book.

jv

Re: Grains

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I did get blood tested for gluten antibodies (four different tests) and the numbers came back way way negative. Like not even borderline.

I'm inclined to buy that because everything I've read about celiac, and the reports of friends who suffer from it indicate somewhat different symptoms than what I'm experiencing. I know everybody is different, but just as an example I seem to have zero lower gut distress.

One of things I've found interesting is that I've been eating dairy products like crazy this week (I did mention that my diet's been crap) and my tolerance is way higher than normal. I'm wondering if that's because I'm not combining two things my system doesn't like.

So anyway, I am definitely trying all those suggestions - I have samples of all those flours. I have some gluten that I'm going to play with adding as well to see if I react differently.

I'll definitely check out that book. This process is going to take months. Easting out should be an experiment. (On the plus side, as of Monday I'll be eating rice.)

Re: Grains

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Wild rice isn't really rice? I had no idea. So it doesn't count as a carb then?

Re: Grains

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

They're all carbs.

Re: Grains

[theevilchemist.livejournal.com]

Well, wild rice is still about 80% carbs by calorie vs 90% for rice, and has 2x the protein of brown rice and has a good amount of zinc, copper, magnesium, manganese, iron, phosphorous, and niacin. It also has a more even Ω3/Ω6 ratio. It's really a seed of a wild grass found in North America. It has to be hand picked, which is why it's so damn expensive.

jv

[artistatlarge.livejournal.com]

You've had quite enough depressing health news lately, and so I'm *really* pleased for you with these good things!

[ash-pixie.livejournal.com]

Funny, I had to take Sean into the hospital on Friday night due to BPV. He's going to get someone to fix his head with the tilties very soon. He's had vertigo so bad the last few times he's gone from prone to sitting up that he's been puking.

[disastrid.livejournal.com]

QUINOA PASTA!! colour me jealous!