When The Body Says No

I have had allergies for as long as I can remember. Last week I talked about the rash outbreaks of my childhood that were influenced by emotional events. In case you missed it, you can catch up here.

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I am not a stranger to sensitivity and allergies. Not only is my nervous system highly sensitive, my body reflects it too. For most of my life it was an annoyance. My parents did not take my allergies seriously, and so I learned not to either.

In my 20s and 30s I treated my flares like anomalies and took my body’s reactions and signals casually.  I treated it like something that would pop up at the wrong time but go away just as quickly. I lived with sinus infections, hives, sinusitis, migraines, and eczema, moving from flare to flare, taking it for granted that my body would rebound. I did not foresee a time when I my health would stop bouncing back.

It was not until the most recent years, when I began to have widespread dermatitis that would not go away, that I began to pay attention. Rather I was forced to pay attention because my skin was on fire and I was covered in rashes and bruises. After several outbreaks, I realized something more serious was going on.

My first case of dermatitis was in 2015. I was headed to Santa Fe for Thanksgiving and excited to be spending a holiday with only my husband and no other family. The rash spread across my torso to the top of my thighs. I discounted it at the time, thinking it was a momentary reaction that would quickly leave. Instead, I spent a snowy holiday weekend scratching and feeling miserable.

Meanwhile I had a patch of eczema on my ankle that was not responding to treatment. Despite weekly allergy shots and steroid creams and antihistamines and nasal sprays, my body was not responding. The rash endured and my allergist seemed perplexed.

I was consistent with allergy shots for over 10 years and took my meds and thought it was enough. And for a while it was enough. The treatments provided relief and improved my functioning. But as the dermatitis outbreaks kept occurring, my allergist discussed the idea of an allergy bucket. You have a bucket where all of your allergy exposures go and once the bucket is full, the allergens and their reactions have to go somewhere, often through the skin. The same was true for my emotional allergens. My bucket had long been full and the reactions were spilling over.

These outbreaks of dermatitis signaled that there were larger problems brewing under the surface. It took repeated incidents to finally grab my attention.

I had another case of dermatitis, the worst one, in February 2020. I was on a cruise with my husband and parents just days before the pandemic outbreak, blissfully unaware of what was headed our way. On the second morning, I woke to small bumps covering my arms and legs. The rash spread once again, covering my body.

I waited until I returned home to treat it and it took a month of multiple prednisone courses to bring any relief. Meanwhile my immune system was compromised from the steroids at a time when the COVID virus that we did not understand was spreading. My dermatologist recommended not leaving the house because of how vulnerable I would be without a defense system.

My tolerance had clearly run out. The allergy bucket was overfilled and there was no room for additional triggers. They were spilling over and erupting through my skin. What I had taken for granted now had my full attention. What I had been doing was no longer working.

I had not made the connection of tolerance running out and how repeated exposures (both physical and emotional) equaled increasing symptoms. Each rash seemed to be worse than the last, both in how much of my skin was affected and the length of time the symptoms stayed despite treatment.

I underwent another round of allergy testing as well as patch testing. I also did a serum food sensitivity test. With the data in hand, some of the environmental allergens were making sense, and I did a strict overhaul of my daily routine and our household items. My body began to respond positively but I was not out of the woods yet.

It was a lot of work, removing all the offensive items from the house and looking for replacements. I searched for unscented products with the fewest ingredients. I changed as much as I could, knowing that even a small candle could send a cascade of symptoms through my body. These were things I had been able to tolerate before, or I thought I was tolerating, but now were clearly harming me. Unknown to me, my body was slowing waging a war and I was losing.

I tried the AutoImmune Protocol diet (AIP) that year. I read as much as I could about it and cut out all the required foods for many weeks. In solidarity, my husband tried the diet with me. My weight plummeted and I lost significant muscle mass, but my allergies seemed to be easing up.

It took multiple rounds of prednisone, frequent injuries, many medications and medical appointments until I realized the significance of what was happening. The allergist and dermatologist worked with me on the physical level and my therapist helped me sort through the underlying emotional allergens.

Next week I’ll cover part two. Stay tuned!

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