Paleo saves the day/my well-being

[Matt DeVoe]

The short version

For most of my life, food has lodged in my throat rather easily. After going to the ER twice to have steak removed, I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis, some sort of allergen(s) were causing high inflammation in my Esophagus and, as it turns out, in the rest of my body.
I had blood tests done to determine my IgG4 response to food allergens. In the meantime, my doctor suggested I lay off the meat, she suggested that the high inflammation was caused by too much Omega 6s from the meat, and try to derive my protein from egg, bean and whole grain sources.
I felt like total ass on the "new" diet; low and behold the results yielded an allergy to the following:

Anything Dairy (very high allergen response)
Eggs (also very high)
All beans/legumes (moderately high)
Ginger (moderate)
Garlic (moderate)
Coffee (low)
and I've always had a severe anaphylactic response to nuts

I'd been aware of the Paleo diet for awhile and this seemed like the perfect time to strictly fucking adhere to it. My God, it's a beautiful thing. While I can't wait for the years of inflammation to slowly die, the immediate reduction in high inflammation is absolutely amazing.


btw - The only thing keeping me going before the paleo-diet were my OmegaBrite Fish Oil caps

[Daniel Labuz]

Everyone can benefit from regular fish oil supplementation, but of course all the people I try to get to do it just look at me like some recently released mental ward patient

[Mike ODonnell]

Sounds like you are on your way. Dairy is the worst offender by far. By I am surprised to see ginger as that is supposed to be anti-inflammatory. Tumeric spice is also anti-inflammatory if you want to try that with food.

[Garrett Smith]

I have had several patients with swallowing problems. These have all disappeared upon going on a gluten-free diet (which really includes dairy as well) and proper implemented iodine supplementation (not just willy-nilly).

Auto-immune thyroid disorders, hypo- and hyper-, are well-documented to be related to gluten intolerance. You may have a mild goiter that pushes inward and not outward.

You might want to ask your doctor to do some autoimmune thyroid testing to further investigate this avenue--and no, your thyroid hormone labs don't have to be out of the normal ranges for this to be an autoimmune problem.

For the best gluten intolerance testing, go to www.enterolab.com and at minimum, get the "Stool Test for Gluten Sensitivity".

Or you could just be gluten and dairy free and rid yourself of the problem.

Best of luck.

[Matt DeVoe]

I have had several patients with swallowing problems. These have all disappeared upon going on a gluten-free diet (which really includes dairy as well) and proper implemented iodine supplementation (not just willy-nilly).

Auto-immune thyroid disorders, hypo- and hyper-, are well-documented to be related to gluten intolerance. You may have a mild goiter that pushes inward and not outward.

You might want to ask your doctor to do some autoimmune thyroid testing to further investigate this avenue--and no, your thyroid hormone labs don't have to be out of the normal ranges for this to be an autoimmune problem.

For the best gluten intolerance testing, go to www.enterolab.com and at minimum, get the "Stool Test for Gluten Sensitivity".

Or you could just be gluten and dairy free and rid yourself of the problem.

Best of luck.


That's not a bad idea. I'll mention that to my doctor, but to be honest, I'll probably just stick to a gluten/dairy free diet. The days that I completely avoid dairy and grains are absolutely amazing.
And it is odd that Ginger and Garlic is on that list. The reactions are mild, but they are present. My operating theory revolves around the fact that for about 2 years, I had high amounts of ginger and garlic and diet (lots of both almost every day). My doctor seems to think that given the right steps, I can decrease my sensitivity to these two substances, if not beans as well (although I'll probably still avoid legumes).

Thanks all.