Actual accomplishments

I don't feel like I've accomplished much recently that was noteworthy. However, today I got some important things done.

1. I made laundry detergent. Becky Ann thoughtfully commented on one of my hypoallergenic diet posts with a link to her homemade laundry detergent blog entry. I found all the ingredients today and mixed up a batch. Well, two really. I edited the recipe slightly based on information found on other websites like this one. Most of the recipes look pretty similar with slightly different amounts of the various ingredients. I used:

2 bars of soap, grated (one bar Ivory, one bar Kirk's original coco castille soap)

2 cups Borax

2 cups washing soda

I'm storing this combo in the big plastic container that we get Costco pretzels in. There's room for about 25 batches of the size above. I don't think I have strong enough arms to grate that much soap (the Kirk's was way more challenging to grate).

2. I finished a new bag for myself! The outside is batik strips from a second jelly roll that I got for the River quilt, but which I didn't end up using.

The pattern is called Sonoma Swing Bag byPink Sand Beach Designs. The pattern was quite clear except for one section about sewing the lining to the zipper. At that step, the picture could have been clearer (it's black and white and it was sort of difficult to tell what was happening). However, the bag went together correctly and I quite like the way it turned out.

I lined it with hedgehogs!! It has two small pockets on one side of the lining and a divider down the center, which I added myself. I didn't think there were enough internal pockets. I should have made the divider slightly narrower as it sort of bows to one side or the other, but I think it'll work fine.

I made a little zipper pouch to use as a wallet, but I think I'm going to have to replace that as the zipper is sort of funky. I really needed a smaller zipper.

Allergy Update - Hypoallergenic Diet, Day 3

Not as itchy last night, but doesn't seem like I'm trending back towards normal.

Breakfast: oatmeal with maple syrup

Lunch: Lentils; a hard-boiled egg (technically not allowed on the Hypo diet, but whatev)

Dinner: Rice, with a little butter, and baked cabbage

I'm headed to the pharmacy this morning for a new allergy prescription. Hopefully it works better than the one I'm on now.

Allergy Update - Hypoallergenic Diet, Day 2

Last night was not a happy night. Very itchy. However, I'm not giving up hope. It's too early in the diet to be able to tell anything and I read in several places about a sort of "rebound" effect on histamine levels after the allergen was removed.

Breakfast: oatmeal with a dash of maple syrup
Lunch: lentils
Dinner: baked cabbage, which was really pretty awesome. I'm definitely going to make this again. The cabbage was very tender and surprisingly sweet.

I ended up eating half a head of cabbage during the course of the evening. According to this website, a whole head of cabbage contains 290 calories. This website helpfully adds that there are 4 calories in one leaf, but then goes on to list other more useful measurements. I think mine was a large (7" diameter) cabbage, which contains a grand total of 300 calories.

One cup of boiled lentils contains 230 calories. I may have eaten a cup. I was kind of in a hurry to get to work, so I didn't have time to eat too much lunch.

Oatmeal is a bit more challenging to figure out (also, I've gotten way off topic from allergies here.. ). A 1 cup serving contains 147 calories. But is that 1 cup before or after cooking? It must be after cooking because 1 cup uncooked oatmeal would make at least 1.5 cups cooked... which would require a really large cereal bowl. I started with 2/3 cup, so I probably ended up with nearly a cup of cooked oatmeal. I probably added about 100 calories worth of maple syrup, based on the info on the back of the bottle.

This gives me a calorie count of 637 for yesterday. The weird thing is that I wasn't hungry the whole day, except for right before dinner. Apparently hypoallergenic diets are also good for weight loss.

Allergy Update - Hypoallergenic Diet, Day 1

Yesterday involved the following foods:

breakfast: plain oatmeal

lunch: brown rice and red lentils with frozen peas, a cut up avocado and a little salt

Avocados are actually quite high in salicylates, which I didn't realize when I put it in my lunch. I did feel possibly a bit more itchy after lunch, so ditched the avocado for dinner.

dinner: more rice and lentils and a bowl of homemade apple-pear sauce (sort of cheating because apples are higher in salicylates than pears are, but both were cooked and peeled)

I felt like I might have been less itchy when I went to bed. I didn't take Benadryl, which I have every night for the past week or so.

TD is not excited that I'm back on the hypoallergenic diet because it means that I won't be cooking dinner for him (unless he's interested in rice and lentils, which he really isn't). He's also irritated that I decided to go back on it while we still have a lot of food in the house. If it works, I'm sure he'll get over the irritation because I'll be a lot less whiny.

Allergies, revisited

My allergies have not resolved. I'm no longer using shampoo or toothpaste, although that's not as gross as it sounds because I'm doing both things with baking soda (really! it works!). I'm double rinsing all the laundry and we switched laundry detergents to one that doesn't seem to bother my skin when applied to my inner arm. I've looked at all the ingredients in all my lotions and have discarded any that appeared suspicious and am now using only Aveeno, which doesn't make me break out in little red dots.

Despite all of those changes, my allergies are getting worse. I'm taking generic OTC Zyrtec and an asthma medication that my doctor prescribed me. I'm also taking Benadryl before bed because I get so itchy.

My new theory is that it's a food. Having changed all the outside-the-body chemicals that I can think of, this is the best option of those remaining. Other options include an allergy to one of my animals, but I'm not getting rid of them, so I'm going to test the food theory first.

Supporting this idea is the observation that directly after I finished eating left-over Indian food this evening, my nose started running and I started coughing. Now, about 40 minutes post-Indian food, I'm getting very itchy in a variety of different places. I haven't changed clothes or done anything that seems likely to have caused an allergy outbreak.

I'm starting a new elimination diet tomorrow. It's going to be a pain in the butt because I'm trying to combine the hypoallergenic diet I tried last time combined with a low salicylate diet. Unfortunately, the two diets are almost entirely non-overlapping. The hypoallergenic diet excludes a lot of things, but most fruits and vegetables are ok. The low salicylate diet excludes most fruits and vegetables, but a lot of other foods are acceptable. I went through and combined both lists and here's my acceptable foods for the next 10 days:

bananas

ripe, peeled pears

cabbage

lentils

green (but not yellow) split peas

dried beans

lettuce

celery

malt vinegar

salt

possibly either sunflower or saffllower oil

rice

turkey

fish

As far as I can tell, there are no actual meals that can be made of foods off of this list. My plan is to make rice and beans and then just whine a lot over the next 10 days. If I see an improvement in 10 days, I'll start adding foods back in one at a time to see if there's any effect. If there's no improvement in 10 days, I'm going back in to see the doctor to get better drugs.

Allergies, resolved?

My father came up to visit yesterday. We talked about allergies. He's allergic to aspirin and so is at least one of his siblings. I knew that... the part that I'd forgotten about is that he's allergic to aspirin derivatives when applied to the skin. For instance, shampoo with salicylic acid (aspirin is a compound called a salicylate) gives his head and shoulders hives.

I don't take aspirin because I thought I might have that allergy. I had nasal surgery a number of years ago to remove a family of polyps; they may have been caused by an allergy to ibuprofen. Ibuprofen and aspirin both belong to the family of NSAID painkillers. Apparently there's some sort of inherited condition that predisposes a person to be allergic to NSAIDS, develop nasal polyps, and have something else happen that I've forgotten about it. It obviously runs in my family.

Hypothesis 4: Salicylates applied to the skin in a personal hygiene product.

Supporting Evidence: Detailed above.

Experiment: I crushed up a baby aspirin and mixed it with a little water to make a paste. Then I applied this to my inner arm in one of my home allergy tests.

Results: About 10-15 minutes later, after I rinsed the aspirin residue off my arm, I developed an itchy rash in that area. It went away after another 10 or 15 minutes, but for the next hour of so I had vague itchies around various parts of my body (salicylates can be absorbed by the skin and cause a systemic reaction) and my tongue felt weird.

Based on this result, I went around the house looking at labels to find anything containing "salicyl-" ingredients. Lo and behold, one of the lotions that I really liked and was using all the time contained benzyl salicylate. Also, my California Baby shampoo has willow bark extract in it. Willow is what aspirin was originally derived from.

None of my other lotions seem to be problematic, but I'm going to stick with the California Baby lotion (no willow bark) for a little while until I get another lotion. My dad says he uses Aveeno and has no problems with it.

I'm also going to keep going on the hypoallergenic diet just in case there's a food aspect as well... but the foods that contain salicylates are numerous and varied (and include most fruits and vegetables), so if I'm allergic to it in food I'm just doomed.

Allergies

I've decided that the cause of my itchiness is not the baking soda I was using to wash my hair. Itching didn't seem to change whether I used baking soda or some other random food product. This means that 1) I can use baking soda again and 2) I'm allergic to something else.

I had purchased California Baby shampoo, which is supposed to be hypoallergenic and mild and such. I've used it the last three times I've washed my hair. I think I'm going to trade off between that and the baking soda. So hair washing problem: solved.

This leaves me with a larger, more difficult problem - what AM I allergic to?

Hypothesis 1: Laundry detergent.

Supporting Evidence: We use a granular detergent and I know that it doesn't always rinse completely out because I've seen granules at the end of wash cycles. We have a teeny, tiny washer so it's possible that I've been using way too much detergent and putting in too many clothes to prevent full rinsing.

Experiment 1: Change laundry detergents and start double-rinsing everything. Also, add vinegar to the rinse to help remove old detergent build-up.

Results so far: Inconclusive. Some things after double-rinsing didn't seem to make me itch, while other things still did. It may take more than one laundering to fully remove any build-up of old detergent, so this experiment is still in progress. My three-or-four-times-laundered PJs don't seem to make me itch much.

Experiment 2: Do a home allergy test by applying a paste of old detergent to the skin of my inner arm.

Results: Small amount of redness and itching apparent. There was definitely more than the new detergent or vinegar, my control.

Hypothesis 2: Food.

Supporting Evidence: None, except that the rash doesn't seem to appear in the areas I would expect if it was an allergy to laundry detergent. I would imagine that the rash would be worst in areas that are closely contacted by clothes (waistband, underwear, socks), but that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. I've also never had an allergy to any other foods before.

Experiment: Eliminate all the usual suspects as far as food allergens. This includes dairy, wheat, soy, caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, and basically any other food that's fun to eat. Here's a complete list if you're interested.

Results: I started the diet on Thursday, so it's been 5 days so far. Basically this is how we ate over the summer: lots of veggies, with rice and quinoa as the major grains. I haven't had any major cravings, although I would like to eat some things that aren't on my list (yogurt is the biggest one). No major changes noted.

Hypothesis 3: The degu.

Supporting Evidence: I'm allergic to rats and mice; degu are also rodents.

Experiment: Home allergy test done by rubbing a degu on the skin. I vigorously applied Vu to my stomach, including some small scratches with her claws.

Results: There was a small amount of redness and itchiness, especially around the scratches. However, it's hard to say whether this was due to the degu-ness of the application or the scratches themselves.

Being an excellent scientist, I'm doing all three of these experiments at once so that I can change as many variables as possible. I'm working on the theory that I can take everything out and get rid of the allergies (the goal), then add things back in one at a time until I figure it out. It was way more important to get rid of the itchiness than to do a well-designed experiment.

Complicating interpretation of the results is the fact that I've started to take allergy meds. I wanted to sort of rest and reset my immune system with the idea that maybe it will stop over-reacting to whatever the allergen is once stop taking them. I'm going to take them for a week, while continuing with the hypoallergenic diet and change in laundry detergent / technique. After a week, I'll stop and see if the itchies come back.