Food Allergies and My Ancestors’ Lousy DNA Legacy

I'm writing this as I have a so-so gluten-free pizza in the oven alongside my husband's Screamin' Sicilian pizza with extra pepperoni. I discovered my serious food allergies later in life after years of being rushed to the emergency room, or passing out on boats, planes and while driving. No doctor steered me in the right direction. It was a lightbulb moment each time, after experiencing great misery after eating something I was allergic to.

I started to realize a connection to food after several events. The irregular heartbeat got to the point where my physician at the time fitted me with a heart monitor to record my beats for a few days. He said I may need a procedure. Really!? I was in my forties.

I drank soy milk at the time, thinking it was healthy. That was until I stumbled upon a story on a health site with multiple accounts of side effects from an allergy to it. One of the side effects was an irregular heartbeat along with massive headaches. The popcorn I'd get at the movies was saturated with fake butter-flavored soy syrup, and I'd lie awake all night with a pounding heart and thinking my head would explode. I finally made the soy connection, stopped consuming it and the symptoms disappeared. But it's in everything: tea, canned goods, tuna, holiday treats, sometimes masked as "natural flavoring" and other harmless words. Reading every food label is now the norm.

The next was wheat. Another feature of my lousy inherited DNA was scoliosis. Eating wheat made it excruciating, where sometimes my back would lock up almost instantly. Stomach cramps, sweating and throwing up were the usual symptoms, and the runs, until my body fully expelled the evil culprit.

The worst is dairy. I loved Captain Crunch Bars and the swirly Soft Serve at the local amusement park. Milkshakes or a hot fudge sundae were a special movie night treat. While saying the Pledge of Allegiance at school, I konked out and toppled backwards, while my fourth grade classmate, George Roman (somehow I remembered his name and his failure to catch me), stepped aside while I crashed onto his books. I got hauled off to the nurse, my dad picked me up and the doctor declared me fit as a fiddle. It was probably due to a breakfast of a bowl of Lucky Charms with milk or a mug of Ovaltine that morning.

After seeing the movie The Omen, a friend at the time hailed a car to haul me to the ER. It wasn't the shock of the devilish theme to my young mind that did it, but eating an ice cream bar out of a vending machine as we left the theatre. Again, the ER doctor found nothing wrong, despite the anaphylaxis reaction. Because I could sometimes ingest dairy with milder symptoms, I was kept in the dark for decades. Other times, it was lights out, especially as I got older. I'd eat an all-natural yogurt with fruit for lunch, and had to leave work with severe stomach cramps. More research led to my determining a casein allergy, as I read others' and their experiences.

Recently, I came across a story about movie actor Billy Bob Thornton and his food allergy discovery. He said he grew up in Texas eating meat and dairy, and assumed everyone felt lousy after eating. He discovered he has a very rare blood type, AB Negative, only present in one percent of the population, and possibly lacks the digestive enzymes to eat these foods. He was at a movie shoot and the buffet backstage had lots of yummy food and nothing he could eat, so he picked up a grape and dipped it in Dijon mustard and commented humorously that it became his new favorite snack.

From AI Overview: Billy Bob Thornton has shared that he follows an ultra-restrictive diet to manage lifelong digestive issues and allergies to wheat, dairy, red meat (beef and pork), and shellfish. He humorously describes himself as a "vegan who cheats" by occasionally eating fish.

This was a new revelation. I'm RH Negative, which is in fifteen percent of the population, and may account for my similar issues. Doctors through the years, including allergists, never seem to equate these severe food reactions to my symptoms. It was trial by fire in my case, and a process of elimination later in life.

So the cauliflower pizza has a little cheese and the pepperoni may have a pinch of soy somewhere. But it's Saturday night and I have to have something. I'll be ok tomorrow - not great but ok. If this post can help anyone uncover their health symptoms, I hope sharing my story will spare them or a loved one years of misery.