You don't soy

I think I may have pinpointed one of my allergens tonight.  I went to dinner tonight and tried a bowl of Miso Soup.

By the time the meal was over my nose was running, my sinuses swelling and I had started sneezing.

The only other thing I had was a sashimi plate and if I'm allergic to raw fish, I'm screwed.

At first I thought it was the obnoxious VS fragrance of a patron at the table next to us.  Earlier in the day, the drunk girls on the train started spraying that garbage and the nose running and sneezing started but went away within an hour of getting away from the stink.

It's been more than 5 hours now and my symptoms have NOT gone away at all.  My poor nose is raw from tissues (and yes, mom, I have the ones with "potion").

I had to take a box of tissues upstairs with me when I was working on my homework.  I haven't had to take a box of tissues up to the common area since prior to the start of my AIP diet.  For me, more than a month of not having to have tissues available in every room of the house (or in my car, in my purse, in my messenger bag, etc.) is a miracle.

With the obvious triggers, like that VS garbage (how does anyone think that stuff smells good and why do people feel it necessary to carry fragrances and reapply throughout the day?  If you shower on a regular basis, you should be good to go.), I have found that smelling something else can ease the reaction.  So far the "other smell" that is working for me is peppermint essential oil.  It seems to "reset" my sense of smell so I can no longer smell/taste the offending odor, but it doesn't linger and cause me to smell peppermint for a period afterward.

The peppermint oil does NOT alleviate the symptoms I am currently experiencing.  I am miserable.  I sound like crap. I feel like crap.  My nose is running so badly that it's actually dripping.  The right side of my sinuses are totally swollen (I can still move some air through the left side of my nose).

The good thing is though, I can live without soy.  That is one of the many things that I have eliminated that I can care less about consuming again.  It DOES eliminate any number of "convenience foods" that I may have consumed before because almost anything that has an ingredient list has soy or some soy derivative in it.  But, if that's the case, so be it.  I've grown accustomed to making almost all of my own meals.  It's not that hard to do (although if you ask the people in my CA Art in Cultural Context Class, people have no choice but to eat convenience foods because, like, cooking is haaaaaaaaaaaaard.)

What I can't wait to reintroduce are nuts and eggs.  I tried an egg yolk a couple of days ago (apparently the whites have proteins that can be more allergenic than the yolk as a defense mechanism).  My sinuses felt slightly swollen, but I can't tell if that was coincidence or a reaction to the egg.  After my sinuses calm back down from this incident, I will try another yolk to see what happens.

This whole process has been annoying and time consuming but not needing to carry tissues with me everywhere I go or having intense sneezing fits has been pretty awesome.  I can say I still feel as though NST adjustments may help with any alignment issues of my sinus cavities but until I get the food sorted out, I'm not going to get my sinuses adjusted.