Family Time

This weekend my family came up to visit me at school. I am so glad that they did. I needed some cheering up. It's been a long, long year and having them around was comforting. I miss them already.
We had a great time though. We rented a hotel room with a small kitchen and had home cooked allergy free meals. The room ended up smelling like fish, but that's ok. I like fish. :) It was delicious.
Yesterday we went into White plains and did some shopping. My sister got some awesome new vibram five fingers! Then we had a nice, relaxing lunch at the Iron Tomato (I packed myself some leftover salmon and a salad). We walked around the city and enjoyed the beautiful, sunny day.

I love that we are so tightly knit. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have such a supportive family. They have really helped me through all this.
I am still having trouble with many foods, I had a few reactions over the weekend and even today, but I am fighting through it. I have to. I'm not going to let myself give up on my music and school work because I'm sick.
I'm still hard at work on "Alice Unraveled". I met with a girl today who gave me a lot of much needed help, and focus toward putting the performance on here at Purchase. It made me so excited! I feel like this is going to be great, many people seem to be interested in being a part of the production. There's so much to be done but I just can't wait to get started!

Soy is Suspect

Something has still been getting to me.

I have been feeling much better lately but every so often I relapse and couldn't figure out why.

Last week I was having a bowl of gazpacho and some herb flavored Mary's Gone Crackers and about 30 minutes into the meal my hands broke out in that familiar red rash. I was so confused because the crackers are gluten and casein free, I read the ingredients list over and over and couldn't think of what could be causing my breakout. It freaked me out a little bit.

Then a few days ago I was eating some Mint Chip Coconut based ice cream and about an hour later I was having stomach pain. Again I was baffled. What could be bothering me?

It was time to check my food log. I have been keeping a pretty detailed account of everything I've eaten this summer. I also write down if I feel I have had a reaction and the severity of the reaction. I skimmed through the log checking the ingredients of all the things that have been bothering me lately. They all contained Soy.

I did some research and found that a lot of gluten/casein intolerant people also have trouble with soy. I've decided to cut it out of my diet just for a month or so, see how I feel and then try to slowly introduce it back into my diet once I feel like my digestive system has had a chance to heal. Soy is a difficult food for the body to break down and since going gluten/casein free my diet has been pretty soy heavy, especially because I choose to stay away from red meat. I think I probably just over did it on the soy.

I've tried to be soy free today and feel pretty good so far. I hope this is the solution to my stomach troubles!