For years, I've gone through life feeling like something wasn't quite right. In the months leading up to my discovery, I was wearing down - a general feeling of malaise had settled in, causing me for two weekends in a row to do nothing but lay in bed and watch television. Very specific symptoms, all seemingly unconnected, plagued me: Severe foot cramps, persistent gynocological problems, bad tastes in my mouth that I covered up by using a lot of mouthwash and chewing a lot of gum.
Yet none were so severe (other than the gynocological problems about five years ago) to cause me to really question what was wrong. It was a feeling that was lodged in my subconscious: Something was off about me.
I tried to eat better. I'd been subsisting on Lean Cuisines for lunch for a very long time, and I decided about a year and a half ago that I should stop being so lazy and instead prepare something fresh for my lunches. I switched to salads, yogurt, fresh fruit. Dinner was cooked by my very talented husband, usually also fresh. I drank one, maybe two cups of coffee a day, never had any interest in pop, and rarely ate any candy or excessive sugar. Although I wasn't militantly healthy, I was at least as healthy, probably more so, than your average North American. (Let's not talk about exercise, though.)
But it still wasn't enough.
On November 5, 2012, less than one month ago, I discovered my "dark passenger." Unfortunately, my life isn't an episode of Dexter, so it involved a sandwich and google instead of saran wrap and blood slides.
On that Monday, I went to a training session at work. Lunch was brought in, and I helped myself to a salmon sandwich. My rationale was that I needed more omega-3 fatty acids in my diet because I rarely eat fish, and this was an effort towards being healthy.
I bit into the sandwich and was immediately repulsed. Who puts Miracle Whip on salmon? I asked myself. If I'd had a choice - ok, we all have choices in life, but I mean, a choice that didn't involve throwing away a free lunch - I would have gotten something else to eat. Unfortunately, there were only so many sandwiches, and I was raised not to be wasteful. Or to spend money that I didn't have to spend.
I choked the thing down, but my disgust at the sandwich was my body's way of warning me. Unfortunately, because I didn't listen, I spent the rest of the day sitting in the training class feeling nauseous and generally awful.
On the train ride home, I found myself wondering why I would have reacted so severely. I couldn't ignore it - the human body has the uncanny ability to recognize what makes it sick, and I absolutely knew the Miracle Whip made me sick. I've always hated Miracle Whip, but I've always loved mayonnaise. Despite my natural curiosity, I had never wondered enough to find out what the difference between those two substances were. Right then, I did wonder, and that curiosity has changed my life.
Did you know that both mayonnaise and Miracle Whip are both made from oil, egg yolk, and mustard? But Miracle Whip has a couple secret ingredients: Sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
EW!
I already knew that high fructose corn syrup is bad news, but I never made a huge effort to stay away from it. But, I wondered, what about HFCS made me sick? Maybe I'm allergic to corn, so I googled that as well.
I discovered that, yes, people do have allergies to corn. But it didn't seem right - I can eat corn on the cob and popcorn, and I'm fine. I love both, in fact. So maybe it's the high fructose corn syrup itself.
A couple more taps on my phone, and that's when I found it: Fructose malabsorption, formerly known as dietary fructose intolerance.
At that moment, I didn't realize how it would change my life, but I did realize as I read through the list of symptoms and the lists of foods that cause the issues that this was it. I have this. I know I have this disorder. This is what's wrong with me.
I could probably have gone to a doctor, gotten on a wait-list to be tested, been officially diagnosed, and then been shuffled around from specialist to specialist who only knew enough about the disorder to be dangerous. (Maybe someday I'll tell you what I really think about health care, ha!) Instead, I decided to rush head-first into a FODMAP elimination diet.
I texted my husband to tell him what I had discovered. When I got home, we discussed the disorder, key trigger foods that were unfortunately staples in our diet, and possible reactions I could have to eliminating all fructose and fructans immediately.
We talked over a delicious dinner of tacos containing onions, garlic, tex-mex spiced ground beef, and flour tortillas, which subsequently gave me horrible abdominal pain that felt like a tiny person was climbing around in my gut stabbing needles into my insides. As I laid in bed, stoically curled in a ball, braced against the pain as per my usual coping mechanism when this happened (on a regular basis, I might add), I thought to myself, "Maybe this is the last time I'll ever have to go through this."
That was the first day.
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