New Year and some revelations

I had severe food allergies growing up.  As in, I ate nothing with Wheat, Gluten, Dairy, Chocolate or much refined sugar in it until I was 17.  Seriously.  I had my first taste of ice cream when I was 17 as I was introducing foods into my diet to test my tolerances.  It was weird.  I had never tasted ice cream (real ice cream) before.  The kicker?  My dad worked at a dairy.. how fun was that?  He would bring home cheese, butter and cases of yogurt and ice cream that I could not eat.. nice.  Except that I don't remember caring much because I had never had it.

I was the kid who had a fruit cup at birthday parties, or my mom would make gluten free cupcake with carob chips.. ackkkkk.. gaaggg..

I had allergy shots each week, one in each arm on a Tuesday after school and again on Friday after school.  Twice a week for 14 years.  I developed some tolerances to food and now those tolerances have again eroded.  I have given up these foods several times in my adult life, only to succumb back to their siren song and pretend I can live with the effects. 

This last week, it has gotten nearly intolerable.  The itchy is back, I am completely bloated and my gut is in tatters.  My skin is so dry and flaky and horrible, I almost can't stand it. 

What to do??? well research of course.  I am thinking that I need to do another elimination diet and will probably have to give up wheat, dairy, gluten and chocolate.  I am hoping that I can still tolerate soy and corn though, but I will most likely have to moderate those.  This blog will probably change focus just a little bit, and I am going to really try and document this process as I will need to keep track of how I feel each day and what foods do what.  Who knows?  maybe someone else somewhere will find it helpful.  Stay tuned, as I have to plan a little for this.  Hope everyone is having a lovely year of the dragon so far.