Part of the fear I had going into LASIK was I felt it would be a life changing event, though when asked I couldn't exactly say why. I knew the simple aspects of it: no more going to the eye doctor on an annual basis. No more glasses, no more contacts. No more expense that goes with wearing contacts. Being able to see when I open my eyes with no corrective lenses. Being able to go swimming and actually see-I can take water aerobics now! Things like that but nothing that was really earth shattering, other than it was change and I'm not a big fan of change.
So I had it done. And then I got sick. It was just a cold; I'd been fighting it leading up to the procedure so it wasn't really a surprise when it hit full on a few days after. But apparently that wasn't enough because a little over a week after I had LASIK, in addition to the cold, I came down with food poisoning. Or so I thought. But it wouldn't go away. So after 36 hours of throwing up, I went to the doctor (mainly because my co-worker told me too).
I had an instinctive feeling before I left for the doctor so I checked the item that started the throwing up (vegetarian buffalo wings and yes, they were actually pretty good-until I threw them up) and found onions buried deep in the list. I then checked the ingredients of the noodles I'd eaten the next day and also threw up. And found they had onions too. So I told the doctor I was no longer sure it was food poisoning but thought it might be an allergic reaction to onions. I told him I'd had environmental allergy testing but not food and asked to have that done. So he sent me to the lab for blood work and told me to eat bland foods, such as bread and crackers until my stomach could tolerate food again.
So I did what the doctor said but just wasn't getting any better. It was frustrating and getting a little scary wondering why I just wasn't getting over this. I thought that perhaps healing from eye surgery, the cold and whatever was going on with my stomach was too much for my body to handle all at once. And then I got a call from the doctor's office. They had the results of my blood tests: the CBC and the hydration tests came back normal. But something popped on the allergy test: I'm allergic to baker's yeast.
Naturally, the first thing I did was ask if baker's yeast and regular yeast were the same thing. Since the advice nurse didn't know, I looked it up. And found all kinds of contradictory information. For one thing, there are two types of yeast: one that is derived from a fungus and is used in baking to make bread rise. The other is bacterial and grows naturally in our systems. This is the yeast that causes yeast infections. The frustration I'm running into with trying to determine what to eat or not eat with being allergic to yeast is that most sites seem to intertwine the two. What one site says is okay to eat with a yeast allergy is not allowed on another. The only thing that seems consistent is yeast (obviously), vinegar and anything fermented.
Another thing I have read consistently is the symptoms of a yeast allergy are not your "typical" allergy symptoms. They include fatigue, depression, nausea, vomiting and "fog head" - feeling light headed or dizzy. All things I have been experiencing for years and contributed to other things; mainly grief. So now I'm on a quest to find a nutritionist who specializes in food allergies to find out what I can and cannot eat from a credible source.
I kept saying getting LASIK was going to change my life. I never expected to go have my eyes done and come out allergic to food! (Okay, so that's not what happened, just how it came to light). On one hand, this is a pretty odd allergy and as I said, frustrating at this point. On the other hand, I am looking forward to hopefully actually feeling good for the first time in years once I get it under control.
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