30 days have been and gone and I’ve now decided to extend my Salicylate-free diet (read why I started it in the first place), mainly because over the past week it has turned into a ‘low’ Salicylate rather than ‘no’ Salicylate diet!
Now that’s not because I’m lax or lazy, but because Salicylates seem to be pretty much unavoidable.
Eating out has been mission impossible, and even well researched food shopping lists have falled foul on occasion as different websites seem to give conflicting data on Salicylate levels in food. Someone create a handy app please!
Another issue has been that Salicylates are in the majority of fruit and veg, so meat and dairy have become my safe havens – not exactly the healthiest staple diet!
I was discussing my diet plan with Nutritional Therapist, Claire Hall, from the lovely Health Quarter in Knightsbridge at the recent Natural & Organic Products Show.
Claire warned me that eating too much dairy and meat would send my gut acidity skyrocketing and, in turn, my urticaria into a spin. The very thing I’m trying to avoid.
Herein lies the problem with sweeping elimination diets, which can be so extreme that they bring on other nutritional deficiencies.
If you’re trying to establish whether certain foods effect your skin sensitivity, I’d recommend maintaining a balanced diet and eliminating one food at a time – it’ll definitely be easy and healthier to sustain over an extended period.
So, has all my trouble made a difference to my skin? To be honest, I can’t say it has!
However it may well be too early to tell, and my odd slips can’t have helped.
The other thing is that with Urticaria there are so many factors at play that you seldom get a black and white picture.
Lack of sleep, latent stress, time of the month (more about this in a future post), and an impaired immune system all play their part.
If someone can find me a way to avoid all of these things at once, then I need to hear your secret!
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