What was Quercetin Doing for Me?

I have joyful news.  I am currently pregnant and expecting our fourth child.  As with my first child, many of my major symptoms of MCAD were greatly diminished once my severe nausea began.  I did not improve with my second or third child so this is a very unexpected blessing.  I have been able to stop taking all of the Claritin, Ranitidine and Benadryl that I had started in the last few months as my MCAD entered "body freak out mode."

At first I stayed on the 2400 mg of quercetin that I started six plus months ago  However, since the effects of quercetin on a developing baby are unknown, I stopped taking the quercetin after breakfast on November 16th between the eleventh and twelfth week of pregnancy.  My midwife could not find a lot of information on pregnancy and quercetin so I made the decision to stop.  So what happened?  I tracked above current baseline symptoms for a few days to see what impact this would have on my body.  Previously when I had stopped quercetin for 24+ hours, I had increased problems with word recall while speaking, increased spelling issues and had a hard time remembering people's names.  During those times, however, I was not pregnant so I may not have those symptoms reappear at this time.

November 16

8:30 am: took 800 mg quercetin

12:30 pm: did not take quercetin with lunch

6:00 pm: Itchiness (eyebrows and legs).  Did not take quercetin with dinner

9:00 pm: Restless.

November 17

9 am: Inexplicably tired.  I slept the normal amount of time last night and do not have any sort of communicable illness.

12:30 pm: Restless and itchy still.

1:30 pm: Took a nap and am still very tired.

9:30 pm: Some word stumbles.  Had to concentrate on the words.

November 18

Itchy.

Back pain.  I do have an old back injury but why is it flaring now?

Short term memory decreasing.

Just felt sick.

Worsening rash on face.

November 19

Sense of smell significantly diminished, perhaps by 50%.

Itchy with some hives at the end of the day.

Rash still there on face.

November 20

Awful headache (could be due to less sleep than normal)

Still itchy.

Sense of smell still significantly reduced.  No signs of a virus, etc. 

Digestive track distress

Bad day.

November 21

Still reduced smell

Digestive track distress

November 22

Fatigue.

Still reduced smell.

Bad headache (could just be the weather change)

Rash on face so bad I put steroids on it (not supposed to do this!)

November 23

Fatigue

Still Reduced Smell

Rash on face still present

Now it is January 4th, 2015.  I am now over 18 weeks pregnant.  The severe headaches, and decreased smells have continued.  My baseline continuous headache is now always at least a four and often a six.  I have increased my medicated sinus wash to twice a day which has not yet seemed to help.  The bleeding in my sinuses which started several weeks ago, though, is responding to the increased steroid.

The memory and word recall issues have continued.  This is not surprising since I noticed that the brain related stuff were the first symptoms which improved.  The rash on my face greatly improved with the steroid cream and now I can keep it relatively controlled by putting coconut oil on it at least twice a day.  My hands are definitively more reactive now so I have to put lotion on them every time I wash my hands.

I think it is safe to say that Quercetin was doing quite a bit for me.  I plan to take it again as soon as possible, but it is not recommended to take while breastfeeding.  I do plan to breastfeed my fourth child so will have to at least wait until my little one is mostly on solids before starting this again.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Holiday season and wish you all a Happy New Year!

Gluten Free Pizza Crust

Gluten Free Pizza Crust

After being disappointed by gluten free pizza crusts, I created my own pizza crust and am quite pleased with it.  This crust stays together, doesn't crack and has a very mild taste.

Ingredients

2 t yeast (or use one packet which is just a bit more)

1/2 c water, warm enough to proof yeast

1 t sugar

1 egg

2 1/2 c oats

1/2 t salt

1 T olive oil

1 t minced garlic

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  Whisk together the water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl.  Set aside for about five minutes. 

Meanwhile, use a blender, food processor or grain mill to grind the oats to a flour.  Set aside about 1/4 c of the flour and place the remaining into a large bowl.  Add the salt to the flour and mix.  Next, add the yeast mixture, oil, garlic and egg.  Mix until a ball forms and all the flour has been incorporated.

Dust a rolling surface with the oat flour that you set aside.  Roll the dough out in a pizza shape.  Place the crust onto a nonstick pizza pan, pizza stone or another pain coated with oil.  Bake the crust for about ten minutes.  

Remove the crust from the oven.  Add your desired toppings and then return the pizza to the oven. Bake for an additional 8 - 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the crust edges have browned.

We generally double this recipe and make two pizzas.

What is it like to have a Chronic Illness?

Having a chronic illness, visible or invisible, impacts the everyday life.  While chronic illnesses vary I do think that they have all one common denominator: lack of energy.  Every person has suffered some type of illness at some point.  We all know that when you have an infection or a virus, your body works overtime and as a result you are less energetic. You call in sick to work, you sleep longer, you take some medication and hopefully feel better in several days to several weeks.  Now, hang on to that tired sensation and stretch it over two months, two years, two decades....  What would that mean for your life?

Let's see if I can break this down a bit further for you.  Let's say that the normal person has 100 energy dollars (ED) to spend each day.  By the time you get home from work, you have spent 60 ED. That leaves you with 40 ED to do with as you would like that night.  You make your dinner (5 ED - lots of chopping!), you do some laundry (20 ED), take out the trash (1 ED).  Other nights you might go out to dinner with friends (30 ED).  You go to bed each night and apart from minor illnesses wake up with 100 ED to spend the next day.  Minor illnesses take varying amounts of ED, but you have sick days so you can call in sick when work would be too much.

All those crazy symptoms that the body of a chronically ill person's puts out are often bad enough. However, those same symptoms also consume ED.  The body needs energy to put those symptoms out or to compensate for a deficiency in the system.  Medications to control symptoms often also consume ED.  So some medications are worth the energy cost and some are not.

Depending on the severity of my chronic illness I can honestly say that I have had as little as 30 ED to spend on a day. When I was working full time, I generally had about 65 ED to spend on a day.  My family needed my income so that meant that I worked and really did nothing else.  Some days at work took more energy than I had.  It times of fair health I could then borrow from the next day and just hope to make it to the weekend.  Eventually I borrowed too heavily to meet the needs of the current day or habitually borrowed over a long period of time.  Weekends would then become inadequate to make up that deficiency.  I would then use my vacation time to simply stay home and rest.  Nearly all of my sick days were used simply on the most extreme manifestations of my chronic disease.  Medical leave became necessary several times.

Additionally, I had a reoccurring commitment on Thursday nights after work.  In order to attend that event every single week, I had to get permission from my boss to work a later shift on Friday.  Sometimes I simply could not borrow ED from Friday and would have to miss the Thursday event even with this compensation.

For all of you saying that clearly I was a poor employee, ask my employers.  I was still routinely promoted, recognized for excellence of work routinely and at review time, and doubled my salary in six years at the same company.  I spent all my ED for the day at work and my family had to take care of the other things that needed doing at home.  Sometimes I had some ED to help out, but those were definitely exceptions.

But, I was not lazy.  I was not taking advantage of someone else.  I simply had nothing left to give that would not jeopardize the income needed by my family.

I no longer work outside of the home but instead stay home with my children.  What does that mean for my day? Certainly I have much more control over my daily activities but do spend much of my ED on caring for my sweet blessings.  On the fair days, we are busy in the mornings and more sedate in the afternoons.  On poor days I orchestrate instead of participate.

The guilt, though, and the longing for a normal amount of ED!

I do hope that this glimpse into my life has blessed you in some way.

Low Histamine Italian Pork Tenderloin

Here is a recipe that our family has enjoyed that is easy to make, tastes wonderful and is also low histamine.

Italian Pork Tenderloin

By the time that I thought to share this recipe with you, this was all that was left of two lbs of pork tenderloin. Everyone in the house loves this.

Ingredients

2 T Italian Seasoning

1 t garlic powder

1 t onion powder

1 t salt

1 t black pepper

~ 2 T Olive oil

2 lb pork tenderloin

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Mix the first five ingredients in a small bowl.  Coat the tenderloin in the olive oil.  I do this by pouring the olive oil in my baking dish and then rolling the tenderloin in it.  This also then coats your baking dish to prevent sticking.  Next, rub the seasoning mix all over the oiled pork tenderloin. Roast the pork tenderloin until a meat thermometer inserted in the center of the tenderloin reads 160 degrees F.  Let stand for about ten minutes before slicing. 

This serves eight 3 oz. portions.

If you are sensitive to any of the seasonings, sub them with other ones.