Bitten by the bug again and opening a can of worms!

Not only did I catch another virus at the beginning of the summer, but I had a blood test done to check for food intolerances. This is because for years I have had the classic symptoms of IBS and wanted to try and find out what exactly was triggering it off. I knew a couple of things that were guaranteed to lead to one or other of the symptoms (I am not going to go into detail here!), like cream or really processed, refined carbohydrates - macaroni cheese is a disaster for me - however, although I follow a diet that is considered extremely healthy by some, I was still getting the symptoms and couldn't pin it down to anything in particular.

So I decided to bite the bullet and get a blood test done to see if I could get a bit of assistance in narrowing down what sets me off.

I chose www.yorktest.com, as for quite a few years I had read good things about their test. It is a home-testing kit, where you prick your finger or thumb and fill an absorbent 'wand', which gets sent for analysis at the York Test Laboratories. It is very simple, although I must admit I was very nervous about pressing the button on the little lancet to draw blood from my finger! I needn't have worried, as the lancet was so sharp, I didn't even feel it! I posted off the wand in its little canister, along with the lancet for safe disposal and waited. Then a couple of days later decided to phone the company, as I hadn't asked when I'd ordered the test what their turnaround time was. The lady I spoke to said that my test had actually been processed the day before, so I should receive my results in about a week.

Well, I didn't. What I did get was a call to tell me that their quality control department hadn't been happy about the test (nothing I'd done wrong - I did ask!) and they'd be sending me another kit to do it again.

I was braver about the lancet this time and duly sent off the blood sample. And guess what? Another phone call! This time to tell me that I would be allocated extra time with their nutritionist as my test had brought up so many things that I should avoid! Like what? I asked. Like vegetables, was the answer. All vegetables. Plus all grains except occasionally Barley, but not gluten. And turkey. And lots of fruit. And lots of spices and some herbs. And especially garlic.

The list came. Most people have most of their foods appearing in the green 'allowed' column, with some in the yellow 'rotate' (have 4+ days break between these foods) and a very few in the red. Not me. No wonder they wanted to do the test twice. Almost all of my foods appear in the red 'avoid' column, with various gradings from 1-4. If I took this as gospel, almost all I could eat is meat (thank goodness I am not a vegetarian, although I have toyed with the idea of that in the past!), mushrooms, apples, apricots, cranberries and walnuts!

I have consulted with my doctor, and she and I have agreed that for two weeks, I just cut out the 'avoid' foods which are graded 3 and 4. This is not that many, as most of mine are graded 2 and 1. She will do more research and speak to the dietitian at the surgery and possibly the immunologist at the hospital. I will try and note which of the remaining foods I have trouble with. I am to keep a food diary. I am also having a consultation with a York Test Nutritionist on Thursday. It will be interesting to see what he has to say. I'll be phoning my doctor later next week to see if she has any further suggestions for me.

My question is, what has brought me to this? Why is my blood showing such a major reaction to food? For years now I have eaten very little in the way of junk or processed food and it seems that even the 'good' stuff is possibly doing me harm!

In the meantime, there are certain things I can do, and I shall be doing them. I shall continue to go to the gym and attempt to function as normally as I can.

If anybody can shed light on this for me, please get in touch, and I will keep you posted as to my progress.