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No More Burning Skin
I've been doing well for the most part, eating mostly beef, potato chips (yes, they are second!), potatoes, and occasional other things like rice, chicken, pretzels, and sweets. I have even eaten chicken wings (from Papa Johns!) and devoured them - skin and all - and felt great afterward - no insomnia, itching, hives. In fact, I may have even felt better the day after eating them. However, because I did so well with the wings, yesterday morning I tried some chicken sausage. Ingredients were simple - chicken, sugar (I am okay with that), spices. I was awake all night itching, and had restless legs. I am thinking this is a sulfite reaction, since I have developed a sulfite allergy as well, but I get a similar reaction when I try something like summer squash or celery. I wish I knew why my body reacts so strongly to all of these things. I don't want to develop "autoimmune" issues down the road.
Summer squash is mostly GMO , designed to withstand large amounts of herbicides, celery is usually poisoned too.
I was re-reading the last blog entry by @ggenereux2014 regarding aldehyde dehydrogenase, and thinking about the possibility that some of us, for whatever reason, don't produce enough of this enzyme. I happen to fail to produce sufficient sulfite oxidase enzyme, and therefore have to limit sulfites in my diet or suffer the same reactions I have to carotenoids, plus some more life threatening ones. So perhaps some of us who did not do well on the diet have additional problems, such as not being able to tolerate beans or black pepper, as I cannot.
I also want to report that I was told at my eye exam yesterday that my eyes are younger than my age (44): I have no far-sightedness, the meibomian glands look good (I was previously diagnosed with blocked meibomian glands), and the corneas are in excellent condition (they were previously compromised after an eye surgery to remove pinguecula). I still have two pinguecula on one eye, but they have gone down in size and no longer have angry red blood vessels leading to them. Pinguecula is a yellowish growth on the eye in response to UV light or "aging", but I am convinced that vitamin A is a factor as well.
So for the time being, I am going to stay on this diet. I am still occasionally eating chicken wings, but otherwise sticking to beef, chicken breast, potatoes (and potato chips), and some rice.
I had sulphur metabolism problems when I was mercury toxic - but the meat and epsom salt baths were ok for me, only sulphur vegetables, garlic, eggs were problem. I took molybdenum.
Thanks, @bludicka. I have molybdenum and take it often, but not everyday. I can eat meat fine as well, but no eggs, beans, nuts, spices, many flours and sugars that are bleached with sulfites, preservatives, flavors, certain fruits and vegetables, wine, the list goes on. When I have an attack, I take molybdenum to help, but it doesn't go away completely and usually lasts for a couple of days. My reactions to sulfites include itching, hives, headache, insomnia, restless leg, and worst of all, difficulty breathing/asthma.
"Sulfite oxidase is found in high concentrations in the liver and lungs and requires the co-factors - molybdenum
and vitamin B2." - people are often deficient in B2 too.
Interesting protocol on this site about recovering from B2 depletion
Thanks. Whenever I was deficient in something, I was looking for synergistic nutrients because otherwise the saturation didn't work long term - some other nutrient has been depleted.
Interesting is the link between riboflavin and MTHFR:
http://rutlandphysio.ca/mthfr-gene/
But, some recent research suggests that taking super-high doses of B12 and folate for a long period of time may not be ideal. I discussed this in an interview I did with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald.
That’s why I was really interested to come across research done by Alex Leaf, a researcher for Examine.com. He found some studies suggesting that people with MTHFR mutations may simply need a little extra riboflavin (vitamin B2) in order to make the enzyme work properly.
For example, one study he reviewed showed that in MTHFR carriers, homocysteine levels are only high when riboflavin levels are low—regardless of folate status.
Another study found that taking just 1.6 mg of riboflavin a day reduced homocysteine levels by a whopping 40 percent in people with two copies (homozygous) of the MTHFR C677T mutation.
We’ve been testing riboflavin levels in people with MTHFR mutations in my clinical practice for some time, and it’s not unusual for them to be low."
I don't tolerate most supplements - I get the same allergic reaction when I take them. I only tolerate small amounts of liquid molybdenum.
Also, over the past few days I've regressed to having intense itching and burning skin that keeps me up all night, along with a fast heart rate and heart palpitations. I tried taking Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) and molybdenum, but they barely helped. The only new thing in my diet it chicken, and I believe I am having a latent reaction to it. If I eat chicken at lunch, I am up all night until maybe 5am, when I can finally sleep. If I have it at dinner, I can sleep until maybe 1am, and then am up the rest of the night.
So because I cannot eat simple things like chicken, white rice (only a small amount) or beans, I am setting up an appointment with an allergist, though I suspect it may be a gastroenterology issue.