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People ask "What CAN you eat?" and I say "Well, no _________, no ___________ of any kind, no ________ including __________ ..."
That's not what they asked. It's the best and shortest answer I have at the moment, but it's in an unhelpful and inconvenient form. The harried admin trying to order lunch for thirty-five will understand only that I cannot have anything the restaurant offers. The guy doing the Costco snack-food run can read labels for an hour and still not find something I can eat. It's not even, when you get right down to it, a useful answer for myself. I know mainly what to avoid. It's a lot faster and easier to know what to go find.
[LJ-CUT TEXT="After five-plus weeks looking around, I can at least start this list now."]
If something's on here, presume that what's there is just that thing plain: ie chicken, NOT honey-roasted chicken or Kentucky fried chicken, JUST chicken.
I can eat these ingredients:
All vegetables except potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, and parsnips.
Almost any meat or poultry. (Careful of the sugar-cured stuff, maple sausage, and the like.)
Eggs.
Any herb or spice I can currently think of.
Mustard (the condiment as well as the spice).
Oils such as olive oil, sesame oil, peanut oil.
Butter and margarine.
Soy products such as tofu.
Some fruits people don't tend to think of as fruits, such as tomato. (Need more examples here)
Any cheese. There are fussy details here, but frankly, this will do.
Unsweetened plain yogurt.
Any nuts.
Peanuts (technically a legume, but they're okay).
Unsweetened peanut butter or almond butter.
I dislike, but can eat:
Broccoli.
Mushrooms.
Artificial sweeteners.
I can eat in moderation:
Beans and legumes.
??Coconut??
??Milk??
Very dark chocolate with almost no sugar in it (careful of those "89% dark" but "16g sugar / serving" bars! Grab the "5g sugar in the whole bar" kind instead).
Lemon juice or lime juice used as flavoring or in cooking.
The basic things to avoid:
Sugars, fruits, starches, grains.
Nonobvious corollaries - also avoid:
Most commercially-made salad dressings, ketchup, bbq sauce, chili sauce, salsas, canned soups, marinades, dips, spaghetti sauces, Chicken Tonight sauces, and the like.
Most spicy foods made in Chinese restaurants in America.
Most fast-food burgers - full of sugar even if you ditch the bun.
Corn in any form including corn starch.
Alcohol including those stupid Atkins-bar "sugar alcohols".
Caffeine (may be unrelated to the yeast control diet, but it's listed in my treatment handout).
Fish or seafood of any kind (completely unrelated; these simply make me throw up).
Basically, if it isn't a fruit and isn't bread, and it's on the periphery of the grocery store instead of down one of the aisles, there's a good chance I can have it. If it is commercially prepared, there's a good chance I can't have it.[/LJ-CUT]
More helpful yet would be lists of made things somebody could buy rather than lists of raw ingredients. I'll get there.
That's not what they asked. It's the best and shortest answer I have at the moment, but it's in an unhelpful and inconvenient form. The harried admin trying to order lunch for thirty-five will understand only that I cannot have anything the restaurant offers. The guy doing the Costco snack-food run can read labels for an hour and still not find something I can eat. It's not even, when you get right down to it, a useful answer for myself. I know mainly what to avoid. It's a lot faster and easier to know what to go find.
[LJ-CUT TEXT="After five-plus weeks looking around, I can at least start this list now."]
If something's on here, presume that what's there is just that thing plain: ie chicken, NOT honey-roasted chicken or Kentucky fried chicken, JUST chicken.
I can eat these ingredients:
All vegetables except potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, and parsnips.
Almost any meat or poultry. (Careful of the sugar-cured stuff, maple sausage, and the like.)
Eggs.
Any herb or spice I can currently think of.
Mustard (the condiment as well as the spice).
Oils such as olive oil, sesame oil, peanut oil.
Butter and margarine.
Soy products such as tofu.
Some fruits people don't tend to think of as fruits, such as tomato. (Need more examples here)
Any cheese. There are fussy details here, but frankly, this will do.
Unsweetened plain yogurt.
Any nuts.
Peanuts (technically a legume, but they're okay).
Unsweetened peanut butter or almond butter.
I dislike, but can eat:
Broccoli.
Mushrooms.
Artificial sweeteners.
I can eat in moderation:
Beans and legumes.
??Coconut??
??Milk??
Very dark chocolate with almost no sugar in it (careful of those "89% dark" but "16g sugar / serving" bars! Grab the "5g sugar in the whole bar" kind instead).
Lemon juice or lime juice used as flavoring or in cooking.
The basic things to avoid:
Sugars, fruits, starches, grains.
Nonobvious corollaries - also avoid:
Most commercially-made salad dressings, ketchup, bbq sauce, chili sauce, salsas, canned soups, marinades, dips, spaghetti sauces, Chicken Tonight sauces, and the like.
Most spicy foods made in Chinese restaurants in America.
Most fast-food burgers - full of sugar even if you ditch the bun.
Corn in any form including corn starch.
Alcohol including those stupid Atkins-bar "sugar alcohols".
Caffeine (may be unrelated to the yeast control diet, but it's listed in my treatment handout).
Fish or seafood of any kind (completely unrelated; these simply make me throw up).
Basically, if it isn't a fruit and isn't bread, and it's on the periphery of the grocery store instead of down one of the aisles, there's a good chance I can have it. If it is commercially prepared, there's a good chance I can't have it.[/LJ-CUT]
More helpful yet would be lists of made things somebody could buy rather than lists of raw ingredients. I'll get there.
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And that, my friend, is truly what sucks.
From what I can tell, too, is that recovery and the route there varies from person to person, depending on their immune system and if they have any other coinfections (did you check for those?) or virii to deal with on an ongoing basis (eg HPV, CMV, HSV, etc.).
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Plus the whole "years-long treatment is NOT a cure, just a stopgap" thing. That sucks too.
We checked for B.henselae, probably the most common coinfection, but that's it. (Negative.) Best I can tell, my immune system has got to be the studliest thing I've ever heard of. After years of this, untreated, I'm not particularly sick. O'course, that may mean that my improvement will be correspondingly minor and gradual, too. 'SOK. My favorite look-on-the-bright-side phrase is "Hey, I'm not DEAD."
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Kinda where I've gotten to, too, especially since I have had some excruciating pain days w/ this ick, and since my best friend coded twice and they had to resuscitate her in hospital...
Life is a good thing. It's better than the alternative.
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Yep. When it stops being better than the alternative, I reserve the right to stop playing. So far, I'm still in.
And I'm amazed I didn't take more damage from 17y of Lyme. I still can't wrap my head around that one. Why am I so lucky as to still have a functioning heart and nervous system? Why am I so unlucky as to have Lyme at all? Life is unfathomable.
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"Still this side of the grass"
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