by Focus
© 2000 Focus, all rights reserved
When I entered high school I started getting hives. Not only did I have unsightly red marks all over my body, but my flesh was so swollen that I couldn't make a fist. And those hives ITCHED! Naturally, mom took me to the doctor.
The doctor said it was probably an allergy. "Why," I wondered, "would I have allergies this week, when last week I didn't?"
"Your body changes as you grow older," he informed me. "It produces different hormones. And sometimes reactions build up over time."
The doctor gave me a bunch of allergy tests - a grid of scratches across my back. I reacted to almost everything... but especially foods.
The doctor said the tests were helpful, but inadequate for really finding out what was causing my problems. So he put me on an elimination diet.
What did that mean? It meant potatoes. Boiled potatoes or baked potatoes, hot or cold. But no butter. No gravy. No sour cream. No nothing! Just potatoes... morning, noon, and night. For about 3 months, until the swelling went down.
Officially, there was more I could have. I could have soy flour too. My grandma took the recipe they gave her, and made me a loaf of that stuff. YUCK! She tried a second soy flour recipe. Inedible! Nix on that! We decided to terminate our efforts to integrate soy flour into my diet.
So I ate potatoes. For breakfast I usually ate a hot boiled potato. For lunch at school, I brought a cold boiled potato. And for dinner, Mom would fix me a baked potato. For nearly 3 months, until finally the symptoms went away, I ate nothing but potatoes.
At that point, I got to add one food. Against the advice of my doctor, who said it was a food many people were allergic to, I added oranges. After three months of bland dry potatoes, I really craved something acidic and juicy! And it worked out all right. I wasn't allergic to oranges. The next week I added green beans, and that went okay too! Things were going so well, that the doctor suggested we add two things the following week. If I showed a reaction, we'd have to go back and check the items out to see which caused the problem... but if there were no reaction, my diet would be enlarged twice as quickly!
The doctor suggested we start with bland, basic foods. We chose rice and carrots. I had a helping of each at dinner - and by bedtime I was covered with hives. I was stuck eating nothing but green beans, oranges, and of course, potatoes, for the next month, while we waited for the hives to fade away.
Meanwhile, we discussed the problem with the doctor. One of those two foods was the culprit. Which? The doctor said I shouldn't simply eliminate both foods from my diet forever, as both were hidden ingredients in many foods. We needed to know. He asked me which food I liked the best: carrots or rice?
I definitely preferred rice. The doctor said my preferrence was a good sign... people were rarely fond of foods to which they were developing an allergy. Besides, rice was a food almost no one was allergic to. So when the symptoms faded, Mom cooked a meal which included a big bowl of fluffy white rice.
I loved rice. I figured that this might be the last time in my life I'd get to eat rice... so I ate enough to last a lifetime! I made a complete pig of myself, and gobbled rice until I was stuffed.
Before bedtime I broke out in a terrible rash of hives - the worst I'd ever experienced! It took three months for the symptoms to abate! For three months I was swollen and blotchy and itchy. And I haven't eaten rice since.
But I have never regretted that last rice supper. It is one of my fondest memories.