I'm very suspicious that my diet isn't 100% perfect. This is because around the time that I added more milk back into my diet, I also noticed an extremely unpleasant allergy developed. I swear sometimes the happenings in this world are beyond coincidence.
January of last year, I was training for the Illinois Marathon in April. It was a cold winter training, which I enjoyed. Nothing like a cold day to keep you cool while you run for an hour. I've always been a runner. In middle school, I was the freak that chose the jogging option repetitively. The gym instructor one time told me, "If you really enjoy this, you should try cross country in high school." I hadn't heard of cross country. I have always been out of the loop, in my own happy place. Her words stuck with me, and cross country was the first sport I did in high school. The only sport I did with the school my freshman year. I ran for all four years. I was an average runner, 7-8 min miles, nothing impressive in the big meets where you find a bunch of girls with 6 min miles. Still, for our team, I was a reliable decent runner.
In college, I let off of the running a little bit. It was a stressful time. Whenever I did workout, running would be a part of it. When I returned to running with the marathon, nothing beyond slow miles had changed. I didn't care, so what if I did a 12min mile, so as long as I finish that thing. The most I had ever jogged or ran was 6 miles before that, so I was a little intimidated by the mileage.
People say allergies come out of nowhere, or come and go as you age. I have never been one to have allergies, so it's really peculiar that between April and October of last year, under 6 months time, I developed a reaction to running....or maybe the cold. I don't have a problem when I bike. I didn't have any problem when I was skiing New Year's Eve. Only when I run, and possibly prolonged periods of walking fast, do I have this problem. A year ago, I was training in the winter without an issue, what is going on?
The reaction is really something awful. There are no visible symptoms, aside from some slight redness. But it itches worse than anything I've ever experienced. I transform into this nasty creature I'm in so much torture. And it's awkward because it itches from my butt down to my knees. Who wants to run and violently scratch their behind at the same time? It goes away when I stop.
Funny, isn't it? How the life long runner became allergic to running? Literally.
Some thoughts on the matter:
When I was in cross country back in high school, there was a teammate who was allergic to the cold. In October, around the end of our season when all the important meets took place, her performance would drop. She said she would break out in hives. I thought it was crazy at the time. Never heard of anybody who had an allergy to cold. She must have been miserable! Come May, I'll be able to figure out if it is really running, or if it is specifically running in the winter if I don't solve the problem by then.
I firmly believe this has been a development in response to something in my diet. My health has otherwise been only improving, so if anything I'm feeling younger now than I was feeling two years ago (metabolically I'm probably younger at least). It's only been in this last year that I've made such extreme changes to my diet. Possibly culprits include: wheat (despite me axing it), pasteurized milk, meat, or eggs.
The reaction is very similar to a condition called dermatitis herpetiformis. Only less severe since it goes away quickly, and it doesn't blister. It could be in the developing stages. If so, I would really need to stick 100% to a gluten free diet as gluten-free is the only known cure for it. Since I've never been tested for celiac disease (although gluten-free has had significant benefits for me), I've been slightly okay with ingesting small amounts of it around friends or family. I was hoping that I'd be gluten sensitive, and not celiac. However, if this is reaction happens to be the early stages of dermatitis herpetiformis, then there's a >80% chance that I'd be positive for celiac. No thank you, I do not want a doctor cutting out a portion of my skin to test for dermatitis herpetiformis. Instead, I will keep experimenting until the answer develops.
By the way, that's 100% gluten-free, 100% of the time for at least 6months. If you have dermatitis herpetiformis and ingest wheat...however small, you can expect to have to wait 6months before you will be symptom-free.
I've read that milk can be very allergenic. Considering that I stopped drinking milk for a long time, and only very limited diary products, it could be a similar reaction caused by milk. Unfortunately, for we're talking in the time frame of 6 months, this will be a really difficult experiment. I hope to find some raw milk very soon and experiment with that. I've read from the pro-raw milkers that it happens to not be allergenic when not pasteurized.
No, I'm not terribly afraid of getting sick from raw milk. That's just something the FDA wants you to fear. I'm more afraid that I won't like it since I'm not accustomed to drinking it. Unfortunately, finding raw milk is a pain. In the state of Illinois, you have to buy it directly from the farmer.
Today I went for a 20min jog to test out the reaction again. It wasn't as awful as in October, but it was still fairly unpleasant. That was the motivation of today's rather long post.
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