1. Variety is my friend (and my son’s friend). If I eat something too often I will almost inevitably start reacting to it. There are of course a few exceptions to this – for example we eat potatoes pretty regularly and I’ve never had a problem with them. But, for the most part if I eat something multiple days in a row it will trigger a reaction. For example over Christmas I made a big pot of homemade tomato soup and ate it for one or two meals a day for probably 4 days in a row. By the end of those four days my son was miserable and we figured he must be reacting to something. Yep, he and I both reacted to tomato when we tested it.
2. If I’m reacting to something going without it for a few weeks will usually allow me to be able to have it again, but I need to be careful not to overdo it. Four weeks after cutting out tomato I wasn’t testing as reacting to it anymore and neither was my son. I have since then had tomato every now and then in small amounts without a problem.
3. I do not always react to everything that is high in salicylates or other chemicals, but if I do have a reaction to something it will almost always be something that is high in salicylates or other chemicals. For example I’ve been fine with turmeric lately (which is high in salicylate), but I recently had a bad reaction to cinnamon which is also high in salicylates (after eating it in various things two days in a row).
4. If I react to something then my son will react to it. This was really interesting to me and got me thinking a little bit about why this might be. I’m guessing that he gets my anti-bodies from my breast milk and if I react to something and don’t have anti-bodies for something then he would also not get anti-bodies for something and react to it – does that make sense? It actually got me wondering a little bit if supplementing his nursing with feedings of someone else’s breast milk would help with his reactions…?? I don’t know of anyone willing to donate their breast milk and I do really love nursing my baby myself and haven’t ever given him a bottle or wanted to, but I thought it was an interesting hypothesis. Anyone know anything about this?
5. Just avoiding the things I react to and avoiding all preservatives, dyes and food additives might not be enough to improve my health. I’ve once again started researching food and how food affects our health and I’ve learning some interesting stuff. I just finished reading Nourishing Traditions and I’ve been spending a good deal of time on the Weston A. Price Foundation’s web site. I thought we ate pretty healthy and well, but I’m realizing that there is a lot more we could do in regards to our eating habits that will help improve our health.

Well, that’s the low down on where I’m at right now. Thanks for letting me share again
Health to you and yours –
Beth

Well, hello salicylatesensitivity.com – it’s been a long time.

Lately, I have found myself again digging deeper into health research and thinking about all of you back here at salicylatesensitivity.com. I figured it was about time for a little update.

This past year has brought a lot of changes to my life and a few of those have had significant (you could say even radical) effects on my health. January 2009 I got pregnant and the changes that my body underwent throughout my pregnancy and the first few months of nursing have affected my own journey to health. I’d love to share with you all a little about how pregnancy effected me, but I’m not sure where to start. I guess I’ll just break it down a bit.

First trimester: I really didn’t notice any improvement in my sensitivities beyond what I had already achieved before becoming pregnant. I had pretty bad morning sickness and severe fatigue – neither of which are uncommon, of course. I pretty much just ate what sounded good to me. If I did react to things it was difficult to tell because I just felt nauseous, tired, and ache all the time anyway. I did realize pretty quickly that many of the vitamins I had been taking where either not good to take during pregnancy (because of being herbal) or made me feel nauseous. I was able to continue taking a prenatal vitamin, omega vitamin, calcium, probiotics, and magnesium. Overall, I really didn’t like first trimester and basically just survived it. I did notice, however, that my hives were slightly better during first trimester.

Second trimester: My hives became unbearable during second trimester. They were almost the worst they have ever been – or at least it felt like it. I also broke out in a weird rash on the back of my legs and buttock, which my sister also had when she was pregnant with her son but not her daughters. The nausea still came and went during second trimester, but got a bit better. As far as food goes I really didn’t watch what I ate nearly as much during this trimester. I still avoided really processed foods, and obvious chemicals, preservatives and food dyes, but over all I started to eat whatever I could get my hands on. This was mainly because I wasn’t gaining weight quite like I should and I was a bit worried. I had been about 10 pounds underweight when I got pregnant and I knew that being underweight when you conceive and not gaining as much as you should can contribute to problems, particularly early labor. So, I ate whatever I wanted during this time and most of the time I felt ok, although not great. I did have what seemed like a constant cold during second trimester, which looking back now, may have just been me reacting to things.

Third trimester: I finally liked being pregnant. Almost exactly the day third trimester started my hives went away almost completely, the nausea stopped, I felt like I had more energy, and I didn’t feel sick all the time. I continued to eat what I wanted, but now all of a sudden I felt really good – maybe even better then I’d felt before I got pregnant. My theory is that my body just really liked the hormones that came along with this last trimester, but there were also some other things that might have influenced how I felt. Not long after starting my third trimester we went back to the states so that we could have the birth there. I was able to see my doctor there multiple times a week. We were living with my parents, who were anxious to put some fat on me and made sure we ate balanced, healthy meals with a lot of variety. I finally was gaining some weight which was great. I also had access to more health food stores and started drinking all natural electrolyte water, which helped with the dehydration I had struggled with throughout my first two trimesters. I started to feel well enough to pick up my yoga practice again. I also started taking a vitamin supplement to help support my thyroid which I think did help a lot too. Overall, things were really good third trimester and I wouldn’t have minded being pregnant a little longer if it hadn’t been for the terrible Braxton Hicks contractions I started getting all the time the last few weeks.

Birth: I had an amazing birth experience and if you want to read more about it I wrote my whole birth story HERE. I was really worried that I would react to any kind of pain medication since I have in the past, so because of that we started researching natural birth and home birth options. The more we researched the more we knew that it was the way we wanted to go. So, we had a beautiful home birth and I would definitely do it that way again. I felt very aware during the birth and had no problems with hives, headaches, congestion, or any of the other reactions I have struggled with most days of my life.

Postpartum (the first six weeks): The first six weeks after giving birth are sort of a blur. I remember being incredibly emotional and often crying. I remember being anxious and worried about the baby. But, overall I remember feeling pretty good. I continued to see my doctor regularly, take all my vitamins, and eat well. I continued to not have hives or other reactions. In fact those first few weeks if it hadn’t been from the sleep deprivation and the emotional roller coaster I would have felt really good.

There is a lot I could share about my health and also what I’ve learned about health in the past 7 months since giving birth. And plenty that I could write about in regards to nursing and having a sensitive colicky baby. So, I’m going to stop here and save all that other stuff for a future post which should be on the way soon.

So, for now I’ll simply say that pregnancy was quite the roller coaster for me in regards to my health and for the most part I’m glad it is over. I had always hypothesized that I would feel better while pregnant (and had a few doctors also predict that), but for me that wasn’t really the case – at least not over all. I did feel remarkably better during third trimester, but the rest of my pregnancy was not really a notable improvement over my normal health at this time in my life.

Well, I look forward to sharing more soon!

Health to you and yours –
Beth

In many ways the site got far bigger than I had ever expected it too and began to require much more time than I had to give. I began to feel very overwhelmed by so many people asking for my help and advice. I began to feel terrified of giving people advice that would cause them to get worse and not better. I’m not a doctor and as I learned more about health and different philosophies of health I began to feel more and more inadequate and unequipped to handle a health site this big. The emails began to pile up and many began to go unanswered and soon I just started avoiding it all together. Eventually my husband took down the contact page all together so that we didn’t have even more emails going unanswered. I’m not proud of how I handled the situation. I didn’t handle the sites growth and my overwhelmed feelings associated with it well at all. I’m sorry for that.

The site has gotten bigger than I can handle and I don’t have enough time to devote to it anymore, but I do want this site to remain up and running and continue to be a source of help to people. My husband (Bryan) and I want to make some changes that will make it more manageable and also more of a helpful resource for all of you. You will probably be hearing from Bryan soon on the forum about more specifics on the changes we have in mind.

You may have noticed that there are a few more ads on the site now. We are doing that to help cover the cost of the site so that we can keep the site up and running. In the past few years that we have had this site it has not produced enough money to cover its own operating costs and we have spent personal money to maintain it. Now, due to a change in our financial situation, we cannot afford to continue to do that. We do want to keep the ads to a minimal though and we would appreciate it if you would inform us if you ever see an ad that you think is inappropriate or should not be on the site. Because we use google adwords we do not hand pick the ads that are displayed and therefore we do not personally endorse any of them, but we do not want inappropriate ads showing on our site.

Many of you have expressed concern about the future of the site and I want to reassure you that we plan on continuing to host and maintain the site for as long as people are finding it to be valuable. We plan on putting up the contact page on the site again and will read every email, but we want people to know up front that we will not be able to personally respond to every email and most questions should be directed towards the forum. We will work on some changes to improve the usability and helpfulness of the site, but because of a number of other things going on in my life at this stage my own personal involvement will continue to be limited. We will continue to keep the information on the blog up and available, but I will not be updating the blog anymore except for maybe communicating technical changes to the site that you all should know about. My participation in the forum will also likely continue to be scarce.
For the past year I have felt guilty about my lack of involvement and about how I left things here on the site, but now as I look at how well the forum has continued to grow even without me I feel freed up and encouraged that it’s ok for me to continue to have a less dominant presence on the site. There are many people involved in this site who have much more knowledge in this area now than I do and I can feel honored to be able to give you a place to share your knowledge without feeling guilty for not being able to share more myself. I feel grateful for the direction that the site has taken and will take with more involvement from all of you and less from me.

Much in my life has changed since I wrote last. My health has greatly improved, thanks to the help of a skilled doctor and a strict vitamin regime. My husband and I have both gone through job changes. We’ve begun to experience our first real bouts with culture shock and we’ve experienced our fair share of drama with family and friends. There is much in the next year that looks uncertain and insecure. I don’t know where I will be in the future and whether or not at some point in the future I will be able to fully engage in this site again, but for now I feel like I can do what I can to wrap up the loose ends here, optimize things to make them most helpful to you, and then turn things over to all of you, trusting that the site is in good hands whatever my involvement level is.

I thank each of you for the time you’ve spent on the site and the forum helping each other and building this into a place where people can find information that can help them turn their health and their lives around. I am grateful for each of you.

Health to you and yours –
Beth

Well, it went alright for the first week or so but then the last few days I’ve noticed some of my symptoms returning – most notably I’ve started getting those bad dizzy black out spells again. I thought at first that it was from my low blood sugar problems and thought seriously about how I had been eating lately – but really my diet hadn’t changed at all and I almost always eat small meals/snacks every few hours to keep my blood sugar up. Then I thought they were being brought on by some environmental thing, but that didn’t make sense either since I’ve been home for the past few days and there hasn’t been any thing out of the ordinary here at home. Then I realized that the dizzy spells had stopped when I started taking the vitamins and realized that I hadn’t been taking them as often or in as large a dose as I was supposed to. So, it seemed pretty clear to me that not taking my vitamins or even just cutting back on them is not really a good option/idea for me right now…. Guess I should start looking for that second job instead.

Health to you and yours -
Beth

Health to you and yours –
Beth

Health to you and yours –
Beth

Health to you and yours –
Beth

Health to you and yours -
Beth

• Norepinephrine is low
• Dopamine is low
• Serotonin is low
• Glycine is low
• PEA is deficient
• Agmatine is elevated
• Testosterone is low
• Dihydrotestosterone is low
• DHEA is low
• Cortisol is normal in the morning, deficient in the afternoon and evening, and normal at night
• Norephinephrine is low
• Dopamine is low

So, they recommended a 3 phase program to help balance everything out where it’s supposed to be. During the first phase they recommend two supplements for me to take, then phase two consists of those two supplements plus one additional one and phase three I drop back down to just two of the three supplements. Here’s what they say about each phase:

“Phase 1 is designed to support inhibitory neurotransmitter levels such as GABA, serotonin, and taurine. During this phase, improvements in anxiousness, mood, or sleep can be expected. Side effects are generally mild and may include nausea, vomiting, or GI upset and typically subside with continued use; they may also be managed with dosage adjustment or buffering supplementation with food. Phase 1 is designed to last approximately two weeks, but extending Phase 1 may be necessary if patient is still experiencing noticeable over stimulation or restlessness.”
“Phase 2 generally continues until neurotransmitter levels have been optimized and health is improved, and usually takes a minimum of 3 months. During phase dosage may be manipulated to achieve results. This is followed by a transition into Phase 3.”
“Phase 3 is important for maintaining adequate neurotransmitter levels. Without continued supplemental support transmitter levels will revert to baseline values. As a result, improved health may not be maintained.”

Ok, so I started phase 1 on Tuesday and I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes. So far I’m feeling pretty good but more tired and fatigued even than usually – but my doctor said that is common in phase 1 and to just stick with it so hopefully that will get better once everything starts to balance out. I will keep you all posted.

Health to you and yours

- Beth