Say WHAT?!

last week i met my new doctor. dr. moynihan, nd. i was pumped to meet her! my plan was to walk into her office, spill about my troubles (without crying of course - crying is not good to do during very first meeting with new doc), and then sit across from her desk while she enlightened me with a simple recipe (i was envisioning 3 vitamin c's mixed with two carrots and 1-4 glasses of red wine per day) that, if followed faithfully would make me 100% healthy and pain free.

HA!

dr. moynihan listened to me spill about my troubles. she listened to me cry. a lot. then she told me that yes, diet was probably playing a huge role in how i am feeling and that yes, we were going to test for food intolerances. (i was pretty excited at this point. sweet. maybe it was dairy. i could live without cheese. it would be a challenge but i could do it. maybe it was gluten? that's cool. i don't even actually know what gluten is so i could definitely go with it...) the doc talked up food intolerance testing. then she said that (unfortunately) typical food allergy/intolerance testing does not work for people with auto-immune diseases. SO - we were going to have to do it a little differently. the plan: i am going to determine what foods i do not tolerate by following the "hypoallergienic diet." for 6 weeks. (at the end of the six weeks you begin re-introducing each potential allergen one at a time, every three days to find out what is causing all of the commotion).

all of the sudden the sweet quiet doc sitting across from me appeared to be growing horns from her head as she named the things that are excluded from the h.a. diet:

dairy

wheat

gluten

sugar

soy

fruit (except pears. who knows?)

corn

caffeine (crap)

alcohol (HOLY CRAP)

fish

eggs

all meats (except lamb. again, who knows?).

here comes the kicker. the diet makes people extremely sick for the first week due to the shock of removing these foods from your diet and from detoxification.

SAY WHAT?!!!!!

i left her office feeling a wee bit less encouraged than i had hoped to. i thought about it all evening. my husband immediately reminded me that i recently said i wanted to go on a "salad diet" and i promptly reminded him that salad diets include things like ranch dressing and goat cheese and buttery, garlic-y french bread and wine to compliment the lonely salads... needless to say, i was scared of the h.a. diet. BUT (and this is a very big BUT) it had been a long time since i had heard a doctor say "i think we will find some answers."

so i have decided to be on board with doing whatever it takes to feel better. i love answers and i am strong willed.

i am not super strong willed however... which is why i will be starting the diet on a very specific day. the day after i have a giant piece of my son's first birthday cake (preceded of course by a delicious burger and half a six-pack).

h.a. diet meal ideas:

breakfast: puffed rice with rice milk (whoa. exotic)

lunch: rice bread with pear butter. raw vegetables (at least i can still have my carrots!)

dinner: plain indian rice or herbed millet (nope, i don't have a clue what millet is. soon to find out. the cool thing about millet is that it is not rice. at least i don't think so. by dinner, i may be sick of rice).

pray for me. cross your fingers. and your toes.

cheers.