Hello All!
I just wanted to share a story. To some maybe this will be encouraging, and to others they likely will not care due to what a test like this will mean.
Basically things have been well here, my functional health care doc is amazing, all of my numbers are getting better, and right now he is attacking gut issues with my good bacteria levels being wonky and way off. (if you have health issues work with a healthcare professional that can help with gut issues as most disease begins in the gut!)
He started me on the auto-immune protocol a few months ago. Basically the concept is to cut everything a minimum of 30 days then slowly introduce foods and see how you do. So to make it quick, I was eating meat, veg, and of course good fats like cultured ghee and so on. No dairy, eggs or grains of any kind. I even had to cut nightshades- peppers (I eat habanera on every dish), tomatoes and potatoes. I was feeling on top of the world!!!! I normally go to the chiro weekly, my L5/hip/lower back goes out easily especially lifting my wife 80 times a day. However I did not see him for 4.5 weeks. That is a record over the last 1.7 years. WOW. I even ended up going just because I thought- hey, why not make sure all is OK. I was great. Overall I felt amazing and was getting better, My wife sees the same guy, he decided now was the time to have her do the Array 4 – Gluten-Associated Cross-Reactive Foods and Foods Sensitivity test with Cyrex Labs. So the thought was that I might as well do it too. This throws a kink in the auto immune protocol because you should go slowly introducing foods.
Keep in mind that the only foods that I list below that I was eating during the auto immune protocol was tapioca in my protein powder.
We decided to introduce the following foods to test for:
Eggs, dairy (in the form of raw grass fed A2 cheese, grass fed butter and grass fed whey protein powder), coffee (yuck), quinoa, white basmati rice, chocolate, sesame, buckwheat, potatoes and tapioca. We did not do corn, as it is now 94% all GMO, so even organic you might as well hang it up with cross pollination, not to mention when I used to eat sprouted corn tortillas I would get stuffy and my allergies would flare. The procedure is that we eat the foods at least 3 times a week for 3 weeks. Then wait a week and then test. There are other foods on the list like millet, teff, etc. that we did not even choose to eat.
We were both miserable while eating these foods. Within a few days my hips started to give me severe pain and went out constantly to the point I technically needed a chiro every few days. My light allergies became intense, I had a mild headache (I never get real headaches ever), I got a fairly decent constant sore throat that never went away until 2 weeks or so after finishing eating these foods, I was blowing my nose all the time, and generally was beyond tired and drained. I will say I as truly miserable. My sleep was bad as well as my energy, but it was worth it! Now I will know what I react to.
I wondered which food or foods from that list were doing that to me. A doctor realized that many people were gluten free and not getting better. Why? Many people go gluten free and still eat dairy, eggs, and all of the non-gluten containing grains but still have health issues. Typically a leaky gut also called intestinal permeability allows these foods to enter the bloodstream before they are fully broken down causing the immune system to rightly tag the antigen. (And you may not even present with common gut or digestive symptoms. I didn’t.) If you become sensitive to gluten, it’s possible to become sensitive to these other foods as well. It’s something called “molecular mimicry” when it causes a cross reaction in the immune system. Basically what happens is your body reads the part of the protein molecule in those foods as if it were wheat/gluten since it looks so similar to gluten. There are also tissues in the body that can get tagged as foreign because these tissues have such a similar protein structure as the gluten and the other foods causing antigens. The thyroid is a common one but many areas can be marked for destruction, hence “molecular mimicry”. The immune system is intelligent, not going haywire as some assume. The genius doctor from Cyrex Labs figured this out. This test and everything he has done will likely win him a Noble Prize. So if you think gluten free is doing it for you, likely it is not.
Excellent write here: http://www.thepaleom...ving-it-up.html
Keep in mind that I have not had wheat in over 2.5 years.
The results, you can see here.
I can only have Coffee and Tapioca! WOW. Shocking! (I don’t count corn or oats since I didn’t even eat those foods so cannot know if they are truly okay.) I still showed allergy to many foods I didn’t even eat and haven’t eaten for years! Oh yea, you will see wheat listed, I did not eat any and I tested off the charts for it. Like I said I have not eaten any in 2.5 years. This is an autoimmune reaction; this has serious implications for health. (My wife’s test is not back yet so I can’t comment yet on hers.)
I just want to say, we were eating pure, all organic foods and I even soaked and sprouted the quinoa and I was miserable. Just because you may be gluten free or eating real foods does not mean you are OK! That’s the point and beauty of this test. I could care less if I ever get these foods again. My guts can heal and maybe in a few years I will test for potato and white rice but I am done with the other foods forever. If healthy foods can do this than imagine what foods that are not healthy can do to you. I will say, and some may not like this, you have a choice in what you eat. I can either feel well and skip these foods or feel like dirt and eat them. Keep in mind that now my thyroid is healing, and I’m causing no more inflammation and autoimmune reactions to foods in my body. I just thought I would share.
Take care all J
Kevin
Armour........3 1/2 grains per day.
