Well, it’s been about a month since I finally got my less-than-satisfying diagnosis of eosinophillic esophagitis. Actually, I should rephrase that– it was INCREDIBLY satisfying at first, and then a major bummer once I realized there was no quick fix for it.
Eosinophillic Esophagitis (or EoE) is an autoimmune disease of the esophagus that causes inflammation, ridges, and scarring in the esophagus. I am here to tell you that it sucks. It really sucks. It causes a variety of unpleasant GI symptoms, the most common being feelings of food being stuck in your throat or being unable to swallow. For me, the symptoms were periodic episodes of severe nausea and vomiting that always happened in the morning, seemed to be triggered by nothing, and were pretty much incapacitating. It was like having really bad morning sickness but with no baby and no end in sight.
My GI doctor recommended a whole host of tests which I basically never followed through with because the initial, least-invasive ones found nothing, and I find GI problems to be depressingly elusive. Around November though, things seemed to get much worse– I had extremely severe abdominal pain that sent me to the ER, I couldn’t sleep anymore because I kept waking up in the night feeling like a brick was lodged in my throat, and I had basically constant heartburn/stomach pains. I was also starting to get really bummed out and feel like a failure, because I’m neurotic and that’s how I roll. I always find it helpful to sink into a self-blaming depression whenever something bad happens.
Everyone seemed convinced it was my gall bladder, but after about a billion tests turned up nothing, I finally agreed to do the endoscopy, which I thought would also turn up nothing. Even though I did get a diagnosis from this, clearly the best thing to come out of the endoscopy was the video that Wife took of me crying about Carson Wentz’ recent knee injury as I was coming out of anesthesia.
I was so convinced that the test wouldn’t find anything that I never bothered to listen to the message from the GI doc for 2 days, at which point I discovered by biopsy was positive for EoE. That was momentarily elating, as I noted, until I realized there’s no quick fix for this. Like Lupus or allergies or eczema or Chron’s disease or a million other things, EoE is basically the body being an idiot and deciding to attack itself due to an overreaction. In the case of EoE, it turns out that it’s often triggered by food allergies.
I was like, food allergies??? WHAT???!! I’ve never been allergic to any foods! Not to mention I guess the universe wasn’t listening when I said I would lose all will to live if I was ever allergic to gluten. So obviously the next step was getting an appointment with an allergist which takes about a million years. I finally found an allergist who could see me at the end of this month, which is a small miracle, because before that the earliest appointment was May. Until then, I’ve embarked on the recommended treatment for EoE which is the-worlds-worst-you-can’t-eat-anything diet.
This is called the 6-item elimination diet, in which the 6 items to be eliminated are joy, enjoyment of life, worry-free social activity, hope, sense of humor, and patience. …or: wheat, dairy, soy, eggs, nuts, and fish. Which if you’ve ever read food labels, you know is basically everything processed ever. And a lot of stuff that’s not processed. I confess that I haven’t really stuck to this religiously, because I refuse to cut out dairy. It seemed to difficult to do all at once, so I started with the first 5.
The results of this are as follows:
Extreme crankiness. Wife has noted that I’ve started becoming bizarrely defensive about completely nonsensical things. Example:
Wife: When I was laying in bed last night I heard an owl!
Me: I KNOW. I heard it; I was here TOO.
Hatred of Health Fanatics. I’ve become really unfairly judgy and resentful of anyone complaining about their New Year’s diet that they voluntarily embarked upon. I know it’s unfair and petty, but I can’t help it. YOU CHOSE THIS.
Whininess about all the things I can’t eat. at least 10 times a day I feel compelled to point out to someone how hard my life is because of this. For example, I’ve started glaring at Wife every time she eats an egg.
Self-pity. See above.
Improvement?? It’s only been a week and a half, so really too soon to tell, but I have to grudgingly admit I feel better. The nausea and vomiting only comes on periodically, so it could just be I’m in a symptom-free period. But I can honestly say I haven’t had any heartburn, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or other GI symptoms since I started the diet. And, Wife totally appreciates that I’m far less gassy. (Which I never perceived as a symptom, personally.) It’s hard to say whether I’ve truly eliminated an allergen, or if it’s the placebo effect (because dammit, this better be working), or if it’s just that we would all feel better if we didn’t eat processed shit all the time.
Well… I guess I’ll find out at my allergist appointment on the 22nd! Stay tuned!
Some Supervision Required. 