The need for cheese

I have to admit I succumbed to the power of the cheese.

Last night, feeling especially meh and whiney I gave in to the need for cheese.

We ordered a gluten free pizza from Goat Hill Pizza.

I wish I could say the pizza was all I had hoped for and totally worth it, but sadly it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, the cheese divine.  It was the best part of the pizza.  I don't know if you've had a gluten free pizza (though I make a pretty mean almond flour crust pizza), but the cheese is the best part of a gluten free pizza.  No gluten and no dairy = no more pizza. EVER.

The aftermath of said pizza was a bit of extra nose running, a sinus headache this evening and considerably slower neti pot flow this evening.  Even at the height of my cold over the last 2 weeks (which got me using my neti pot daily), I did not have this much flow reduction.

Which leads me to conclude the no dairy experiment may be permanent.  That thought made the trip down the cheese aisle at Costco this evening terribly sad.  So many cheeses I may never get to know.

I'm not sure what touched my pizza (or if it's my monthly visitor) that caused my intense pain and burning in my left arm today.  It was so bad I WISHED I had ordered a sourdough crust and lived with the pain of eating gluten.

An observation I had made casually over the last few months was that the pain and burning in my left arm seems to increase in the days before my monthly visitor.  I'm going to start keeping notes on pain levels to see if there is any actual connection to the two, but I've noticed that even when I don't eat anything I am not supposed to, I still have an increase in pain symptoms around that time of the month.

Speaking of pain, last week I did not drink enough water after taking my turmeric supplement.  I've been taking turmeric as an anti-inflammatory for most of the year 2012 and it seems to help some and doesn't have the same side effects as Naprosen (which I have been on and off of for almost 15 years now).

Big mistake.  I was heading out the door to take the Pi for a walk and belched.  Unfortunately, the turmeric came back up.  Not just into my mouth, but in my sinuses and out my nose.  Holy crap. So bad.  I ran back in the house and nearly barfed.  After the gagging subsided, I was lucky to have enough time to rinse a large amount of the turmeric out of my sinuses.

Tip of the day: Make sure you take your supplements with at least a full glass of water, if not two.

I'm off to bed to mourn the further loss of cheese.

Still at it

Okay, I'm still at the no dairy thing.  I'm adjusting to it.  I don't have raging cravings for cheese like I thought I would, though there have been a few days that I REALLY wanted a gluten free pizza, but take the cheese away and it's just not worth it.

It has been 23 days since my last sinus adjustment, which was seemingly easier than ever before (I had been dairy free for about 3 weeks prior to that adjustment).  I don't think I'll be able to make it up for another adjustment for at least 2 more weeks though (going to Gunny's 90th (yes, I typed 90th) birthday party.

I hadn't really been using my netti pot with much regularity since I started getting my sinus adjustments (for the sake of science) just to make sure that the effects I was feeling were truly related to the adjustment.  I've used it here and there in the last 6 months (typically after working on a particularly dusty project) and noticed that the drainage was still slow even when I wasn't cruddy.

Well, I accidentally killed my Kombucha Mother (it caught the mold - first time ever in almost 10 years of brewing) so I was without my Kombucha for more than a week and caught whatever nastiness is going around the elementary schools right now.  I've been sickly for a little over a week (super congested, headache, cough, etc), which blew the plans for Thanksgiving crabbing.

Due to the amount of crud building up in my face, I decided to bust out the old netti pot.  Prior to sinus adjustments and dietary changes, it could take 10 minutes just to get the water moving through my sinuses (I know, it's gross) and even then, it was barely a trickle.  And no, that was NOT when I had a cold.  That was just daily, run of the mill netti usage.  Even after I started adjustments, it was still a bit slow going, like everything was swollen.

I have to tell you, even with all the crud built up, the water is flowing freely.  It's moving the crud quickly and easily, which has never been the case before.

As much as I had to admit it, I think my nasal swelling was largely related to dairy.  I still have a bit more "science" to do though.  Raw dairy has different effects on people than pasteurized, homogenized dairy from what I have read.  My next step will be to test to see if there is a difference between the two that I notice.

Cheesy Bacon Goodness

Well, I tested the dairy theory last night.  My mom made some most excellent grilled cheese sandwiches using Tillamook Habanero Jack cheese.

I couldn't pass up spicy cheesy goodness with BACON!  Granted  blowing my nose repeatedly and having it run like a faucet while being so inflamed I can barely move air through my sinus passages sucks, it's not enough to pass something that delicious up.  

Testing the dairy theory is much less awful than testing the gluten theory.  I learned the hard way last week not to eat anything that has been touched by gluten containing products.  We had a Halloween party at work, I was ravenous and decided to try to eat a mummy dog sans mummy wrap (pigs in a blanket with a cute name).  I peeled off that outer layer and ate half a hot dog that had been touched by crescent roll.  Well, with the amount of pain I was in for the next 4 days, I should have just eaten the damn crescent roll too!

I had an appointment with my chiropractor at Gold Country Chiropractic this morning for a sinus adjustment (the first one in 3 weeks!) and it was so much easier and less uncomfortable than any of my treatments before (even when i was going weekly and not letting much time go by between adjustments).  While I can't be entirely certain as yet, I think  that dairy was contributing the swelling of my nasal passages, which made the adjustments very resistant and very painful!  I did eat some dairy last night, so the swelling may have returned slightly, but it did not seem to be nearly as inflamed as usual. 

While my ooey gooey grilled cheese was delicious, I am going to go back to no dairy for another month and see how my next adjustment goes.  I managed to last 3 weeks this time between adjustments, so I'm aiming for 4 weeks for the next one.  

Considering I am often lamenting the lack of readily available treats for me, I tried something new today.  I bought a loaf of Glutino White Sandwich Bread so I could have some grilled cheese (so far the best of the gluten free breads I have tried).  Tonight I wanted something treat like, so I decided upon cinnamon toast.  In place of butter, I used Nutiva Organic Coconut Oil Extra-Virgin 29 oz. 218566 (Google Affiliate Ad), which gave it a slightly coconut-y flavor.  In all, it was a quick and easy treat.  I don't normally have any bread on hand (I mostly gave it up since going gluten free), but it hit the spot tonight.

I plan to test at least one pumpkin custard this week.  I'll share the results.  

No! Not the cheese!

I know it's been a LONG while since I've updated the blog...

In the 2 months since I last posted, I moved, started a new job and started attending school full time.

Well, considering I've moved to an area with entirely different allergens than I had been living in (plus some nice sea air as well) I'd like to be able to say my allergies are better times 1,000.  I can't.  At all.

I already suspected my allergies were not entirely environmental (still can't deal with fragrances) after a trip to North Carolina in 2011 and I've been back and forth between the Sierra Foothills and the Bay Area for about 5 years all with similar allergy symptoms.

I had gone about a month here in the Bay without getting my sinuses adjusted (can't really find a chiro here that 1. does the adjustment and 2. would be willing to work with my latex allergy) and I was MISERABLE (I'm pretty sure poor Justin was just as miserable if not more so considering I was waking up through the night sneezing and blowing my nose).

I've started making the trip back home every other week or so to go to Gold Country Chiropractic for sinus adjustments and while it's sort of a hassle with school and all (I've not taken a full time class load in forever and AAU's full time class load is intense) it is totally worth it.  But even with the sinus adjustments, I still am having allergy issues.

Then I got the brilliant idea to do the GAPS diet.  The GAPS diet is a super restrictive elimination diet that people usually use to heal the gut, but there are a lot of resources out there for it, so it seemed like a logical starting point for my elimination diet.

Well, I got lazy.  And overwhelmed.  I share a kitchen with 4 other people, so the amount of prep that would make this diet easiest wasn't really going to happen without a lot of freezer space and fridge space.  And the food seemed pretty boring (I really like food, especially good food).

I decided "hey, maybe it would be easier to just eliminate one type of food" instead of eliminating everything except boiled meats, bone broth and winter veggies (also boiled).

I decided upon dairy as my first food group to eliminate.

That doesn't sound like much until you realize how much I love cheese.  Especially since giving up gluten.  Cheese has always been a go to snack for me.  I'll grab a couple of slices of cheese, a handful of nuts and an apple and I'm good to go.  The fruit and cheese plate at Starbucks is my go to snack when I am out and about because the crackers are packaged separately and aren't touching the other foods.  There is nothing more wonderful than a delicious cup of Gold Coast Coffee Company coffee with heavy cream.  I will eat whipped cream by itself.  You get the picture, I LOVE dairy.

I'd gone about 2 weeks of no dairy (no yogurt, no cheese, no cream) and Justin and I went to dinner the other night at Triptych, where they have one of the few gluten free deserts I would call DELICIOUS (White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake).  So I ordered it without even thinking about the dairy.  While it was super tasty and I savored every bite of it, I was a little apprehensive about what the next morning would be like.

Well, it sucked.  A lot.  I woke up sneezing, nose running and so congested I was back to mouth breathing.  I wanted to cry.  The only thing I had done differently was that damn piece of cheesecake.

It got me thinking though, is it all dairy?  Is it just pasteurized dairy?  Perhaps I can handle raw dairy?  Fingers currently crossed that it's just pasteurized dairy.