Original posting: 11/02/2015

Anyone who has had to order my mom a latte would understand why I have an issue with being difficult when eating and drinking at food establishments. I am not the one who will send anything back, even if they get the order wrong. I am just thankful to have the meal prepared for me, and enjoy the food that I have. I have had to shift my mindset once again to realize that making conscious choices to improve my health is not “being difficult.”

In the last two weeks, I have had dairy only once. This came as a result of a social situation where I did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings or seem ungrateful. I figured once wouldn’t hurt. Right? Well, I got my answer. Wrong.

Almost every symptom that I finally seemed to be getting ahead of came back just a few hours after eating. The creepy-crawly headaches. The numbness at the base of my neck.The shooting pains into my temples. The word blends. The aphasia. The next day was even worse. I had gone from saying the wrong words maybe five times a day to nearly every sentence.

The myelin sheath that coats and protects nuerons is comprised of a protein that is also found in greatest foe: Milk. One molecule can trigger and autoimmune response, attacking both the milk protein in your body and the coating of your brain. Nice. Apparently, I needed to see if this was true for myself.

When I was a kid, I basically just avoided cereal and ice cream because it made me so sick to my stomach, but I dealt with any discomfort in the name of cheese. Glorious cheese! Oh, and gravy. It wasn’t until my late-teens that I had even heard of lactose intolerance. But, I cannot think of dairy as merely an intolerance any more. I need to view it as an allergy. On the same mental shelf as Neosporin, Keflex, and PPD. I don’t ever apply Neosporin to a cut thinking, “Oh, just one time won’t hurt.” Mindset shifted.

In other news, I have taken my Aubagio for seven days and have not suffered any side effects or sprouted a third appendage. Also, I have discovered that I am still not allergic to wine. So there’s that.