Follow-up appointment

I had my follow-up appointment with the alternative doctor two days ago. It was a bit disappointing because he was totally unprepared. He had looked at the results of all the allergy testing he ordered, but hadn’t looked at any lab results– I had a ton of labs done– and seemed to have forgotten everything that he asked me to do– which was a ton of things. I have to pay for the visits out of pocket so I started asking him direct questions, but if I had known he wasn’t going to be prepared, I would have given him a review and gathered all the lab tests myself.

As it was he wanted to order more lab tests without even having seen the first! Anyhow. I am very grateful to him for recognizing that I had a food allergy.

So vaguely what I got out of the appointment was that I can either cut corn completely out of my diet (which is beginning to seem very difficult, if not impossible) or I can do Low Dose Allergen Therapy. The doctor prefaced this by saying that this method meant coming to his office once every 2 months for 2 years and getting an injection that costs $200 and taking supplements and seeing a dietician. He framed it all in a way that was very discouraging, but honestly I have spent already more than that on my two visits with him and and 4 allergy testing sessions. (I realize that I am very fortunate to be able to afford these things.)

You can read more about Low Dose Allergen Therapy here. This is the website of W.A. Shrader, the doctor how developed it. I also came across this site, which has a more succinct description. It actually sounds pretty awesome with what it can accomplish– ridding you of all allergies– food and environmental– but there are some serious restrictions in diet around the time of each injection.

The doctor was very enthusiastic about me starting iodine supplementing and gave me a prescription for Lugol’s, which is the liquid form of Iodoral and doesn’t contain corn. I said, “Doesn’t that taste horrible?” and he said, “It doesn’t taste horrible. It’s disgusting.” He said I should take it with 2 ounces of juice and then follow it with a 2 oz juice chaser because it burns as it goes down your throat. Nice.

Instead I ordered I-Throid by RLC Labs. They say that it’s exactly the same formulation as Iodoral except without any corn. RLC is the same company that makes Nature-Throid, a natural thyroid hormone replacement, so I am optimistic. It hasn’t arrived yet.

In the meantime I started taking magnesium in the form of magnesium orotate. My lab test showed that I am low on magnesium, and the doctor recommended I take Magnesium-Potassium Taurate from Emerson Ecologics.  I decided to give the magnesium I had already purchased this spring a try instead. It was a new bottle, and it didn’t appear to have any corn ingredients in it. It was recommended by someone on the Iodine Yahoo group: “Nutrient Carriers Incorporated, Advanced Research, Magnesium Orotate, 500 mg, 100 Tablets” from iHerb.com.

Bad idea! I started taking it two days ago in a fairly high dose as the doctor had recommended. Nothing unusual happened the first day, but last night I had trouble falling asleep and then woke up at 1:45 and was awake until at least 4:30, then up again at 5:45, my body buzzing and warm. This is exactly what happened when I took Iodoral and Vitamin C. It’s funny– it actually didn’t occur to me that it was the magnesium until this morning. Last night I was thinking it was something I ate. But honestly I seem to have the strongest reaction to corn coming from supplements. One ingredient that is also in the Vitamin C that affected me so strongly is magnesium stearate. I just realized that it’s not listed on the corn allergen list I have been using, but it is on this one: corn allergen list. The other ingredients listed are “Provsolv, Pure Food Glaze, and Avicel.”

I think I really need to just start calling the manufacturer to ask if there are any corn derivatives in the product. One interesting thing that the doctor told me was that many companies use corn products interchangeably with other products, depending on what is cheapest at the time they’re buying ingredients. So, for example, they might list “starch” or “thickener” as an ingredient and that gives them the flexibility to use cornstarch one week and wheat flour another. As far as food is concerned, he said that Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods were the best about listing their ingredients.

So this morning I will order the magnesium he recommended and check that there is no corn in it…  And when I start any new supplement I will take it alone for 3 days to see if I have a reaction before adding in another.

My plan right now is to start taking iodine again as soon as the I-Throid arrives, and take that along with magnesium and the other supplements Dr. Brownstein recommends for a month or two. Also to see how well I can do avoiding corn derivatives.  And then to decide whether to do the Low Dose Allergen Therapy or to get less expensive seasonal allergy shots which I can administer myself.

So really I am back where I started in January, only this time with a known corn allergy.

Iodoral and Corn

I just figured out my problem with Iodoral!  It contains corn in some form– and I have just learned that I am allergic to corn. Two weeks ago I tested positive to corn in a food allergy test. I am fairly allergic to it. The way they test it is they inject a dilution of corn into your skin. If it reacts by swelling and growing red (I think sometimes there are other stronger reactions too), then they inject you with a further diluted amount until they find the level you can tolerate. It wasn’t until the third injection that I didn’t react. And then I swear the marks on my arm stayed red and swollen for almost two weeks.

I stopped eating corn after I discovered this, but yesterday by accident I ate a couple of cheese puffs. When I realized that I was eating corn, I decided to eat more :). It’s like that crazy kind of diet logic where when you go off your diet a little, you decide to just give up the day and eat whatever you want. We had these really delicious looking Late July organic corn tortilla chips my husband bought, and I really wanted some. So after the cheese puffs, I helped myself to the tortilla chips. Then… I woke up at 4 a.m. feeling super hot, just like what happened to me all spring when I was taking Iodoral.

I had a vague memory of reading about someone being allergic to corn and not being able to take Iodoral, and so I looked it up this morning when I got up, and there is some form of corn in Iodoral. I am so excited to have discovered this. It clarifies so many things. It explains why my symptoms  got worse when I began taking the recommended supplements with Iodoral. They must also contain corn. I looked up corn allergens on the web and found this page which lists ingredients which are derived from corn. Vitamin C can be derived from corn!  My symptoms were so much worse when I began taking Vitamin C.

It’s so crazy. You know I am pretty sure that the allergic reaction threw my hormones out of balance. I am going to search around on the web a little. But my reactions started with waking up hot in the middle of the night and then moved on to screwing up my period (making it very close together) and then giving me crazy hyper-emotional PMS days. Since I stopped taking Iodoral in any amount, this has all normalized.