In July of 2000, three months after the birth of my youngest son, I began to develop hives. They got so bad that at one point I had them from the top of my head all the way to the bottom of my feet. The doctors were unable to determine what caused them. Yes, I had allergy tests; but they proved that I was not allergic to anything they tested me for, except the latex tape that they used.
This went on for about a year. I put on over 40 pounds of additional weight (after pregnancy) and continued to suffer with the hives. Nothing made them go away. Then one day I went to lunch with someone who was inspecting one of our properties. She special ordered all of her food and then explained that she was allergic to preservatives. She told me her symptoms and I recognized all of mine. She suggested that I eat a bag of Doritos (one of my favorites), and I gladly did. Within minutes the hives were multiplying.
I learned to keep a food journal and to read the ingredients on everything I bought. Drinking a lot of water helped. (Soft drinks sent me into terrible pain with hives on the bottom of my feet.) Because I was working full time and we were tight for money with four children (our nephew lived with us), we had gotten into the habit of buying prepared meals, using the cheapest ingredients. Hamburger Helper and Campbell's were staples in our home. All of those had to go in order for the hives to go.
By eating healthy and cooking meals from scratch, I managed to get rid of the hives and lose almost fifty pounds. I learned to take allergy medicine if I was going to eat out, and to try to plan around vacations and all of the challenges that meals on the road could bring. I learned to eat healthy, and therefore feed my family healthy. Homemade soups became our favorites! We have now found a company that provides products that help us eat healthy meals that taste good and can be fixed quickly. That in itself is a blessing.
Throughout all of this I began to feel sorry for myself. I had to work extra hard to have good meals. I had to figure out how to get water at the airport (Dasani is NOT healthy). I had to cover up the hives when I chose to eat something that was not healthy. I could no longer have flavored chips or snack mixes. I could not even have microwave popcorn! I had to be DIFFERENT!!
Now I have been reading about all of the harm that preservatives, food coloring, "natural flavors" and GMO products can cause. I am allergic to all of these. They can cause symptoms of nervous disorders, headaches, pain, and irritable bowel syndrome. They can affect hormones and normal body processes. They can make people really sick!
I have also been through the scare of having abnormal tissues removed due to possible breast cancer and most recently a salivary gland tumor. I am so thankful that I have been eating healthy for almost thirteen years. I cut out all of those preservatives, food colors, "natural flavors" and GMO foods that can feed cancer. I don't even eat processed flour or sugar. I believe that this may have saved my life!
So this "thing" that I have that makes me different from others made me turn to a healthy diet, drink a lot of clean water (read the label people), make foods from scratch, and find organically grown food. What would have happened to those abnormal cells if I had not already been doing this for ten years? Where would my health be now if I were not aware of all of this? How many of these tumors would have turned to cancer if I had not been eating healthy?
This cursed food allergy has then become my blessing in disguise. Thank you, Lord, for forcing me to eat healthy long before all of these other things would become an issue. Thank you for teaching me to cook healthy. Thank you for teaching me to exercise and drink water to keep my weight down. Thank you for this blessing in disguise!
