It's a Miracle

I know I had been frustrated with the whole elimination diet thing.  I wanted to give up more than a few times.

Well, I just have to say I'm glad I didn't.

I made it through today without sneezing more than a couple of times.  I made it through today only blowing my nose once or twice (not including my netti pot time, as my nasal passages feel so dry now that they are not running like a faucet).

In fact, after I started thinking about it, I've made it through the last few days without sneezing or a runny/stuffy nose.  After the effects of the miso soup faded (which took about 3 days), I've been pretty allergy symptom free for an entire weekend.

I know that sounds like a weird thing to be excited about, but considering the last 10 years of my life have been filled with nasal misery (at times going through 2-3 boxes of tissues a week and sneezing so uncontrollably that I would have to pull my car off the road), 3 days of minimal sneezing (maybe 3-5 times in a day) and a scant handful of nose blows (maybe 2-3) is a miracle.

I am going to wait a couple of weeks to see how long this lasts (or if it was just a fluke) before I attempt to start adding foods back into my diet.  There are somethings I find I don't really miss as much as I thought I would (nightshades) and others I can't wait to add back (eggs and nuts).

It will be a SLOW process trying to add things back in.  I plan to try a food and wait 72 hours to evaluate how I feel.  If all seems to be good, I will try that food item in small quantities for a week to see if that changes any sort of reaction.  If no reaction is present, I will wait an additional week to add the next food.

Let's use an egg as our example.

I try a single yolk (the least allergenic part of the egg) on 2/25.  I will observe how my body reacts until 2/27.  If all seems good, I will then eat a yolk a day until 3/6.  If that seems to be working for me, I will wait until 3/13 to add a new food while continuing to keep to 1 yolk a day.

It really seems like more work than I really want to do, but I have to say that not sneezing and not having a constantly runny/stuffy nose feels AWESOME!

I still have the feeling of some sinus pressure though and I would love to have my sinuses adjusted sometime in the near future.  I've taken some time away from the adjustment process to know if my diet is really helping my allergies or if the adjustments were a part of  the reduction as well.