First "ENT" appointment tomorrow & what to EXP

socknitster wrote:

I would just breathe a little easier.

Having had that surgery myself, I think you will be ASTOUNDED by how much better you will feel. It won't be "a little" unless your septum isn't that bad. Get a second opinion, maybe?

Jen

Thanks SockNitser, I really should get a second opinion and I really wanted to get the surgery before the end of the year as I have already met this years deductable! Have A Great Day

Going for the CT Scan??? today at 1pm for the nose and throat pictures, they said it is a doughnut shape machine I will go in.. I got my ENT"s nurse in trouble... didn't want to have to go in and raise cane! I had my 1st. ent appt. on Oct.6,07 and they told me it would be about a week to get an authorization for the CT Scan, I called and left a message with her/the nurse, got no response back so, last friday I went to the office and complained about it. She called me, all PO"d saying I didn't leave her a message, I said YES I did and she basically called me a liar but I GOT the AUTHO that same day.. I could already of had this septum surgery done and over with if she would of done her job! Anyway, I suppose her and me will be on bad terms everytime I walk through the door. She never was friendly to me at all and is just one of those lazy, I hate my job, type of a person She shouldn't be working in that profession if she dosen't care for the patients!!! Have a GREAT DAY ALL!

SleepyNoMore wrote:....... I had my 1st. ent appt. on Oct.6,07 and they told me it would be about a week to get an authorization for the CT Scan, I called and left a message with her/the nurse, got no response back so, last friday I went to the office and complained about it. ........

I know what you are talking about. I had a retitration on October 1. My sleep doc said they would make an appointment for me to see an ENT who specializes in sleep apnea patients. The sleep nurse called today, October 16, (15-day delay) to tell me she made an appointment for me with the ENT on November 9 (40 days from the retitration).

She was quite miffed when I told her I had not been sitting on my hands waiting for her. I made my own appointments with the ENT and had already seen him twice!!!

On October 8 he stuck an endoscope up my nose down to my vocal cords and on October 12 he did allergy tests and discussed the results with me.

Why wait around for some butthead getting paid by the hour when my health is involved?

Rooster,

If you haven't posted the results of your allergy tests yet, could you? And if you already have, could you point me to the thread? I'm very curious about the results as well as what methods the ent used.

I have had allergy tests done by an allergist and when I told him that his test had to be wrong, he made up some absolute crap. I have known I am allergic to milk for years. One only has to eliminate a food from the diet, see relief and then reintroduce it along with the symptoms a few dozen times in order to verify. I"m not stupid.

He insisted I am not allergic to milk. He said it was my tonsils causing it and if I got them out the problem would go away. Guess what? He was wrong! I don't trust allergists when it comes to allergies anymore. Give me and ent any day. At least they do real science. I probably shouldn't paint all allergists with the same brush, but that was my second bad experience and my problems with allergies were never even remotely helped by one.

Anyway, I'm curious to hear about it, Rooster!

Jen

socknitster wrote:Rooster,

If you haven't posted the results of your allergy tests yet, could you? And if you already have, could you point me to the thread? I'm very curious about the results as well as what methods the ent used.

......................

Jen

Yeah Jen, the allergy tests were all negative. They gave me those tiny shots of 16 of the known worst offenders and none of them caused a "rated" reaction. 9 of the 16 are so potent, that they give you a very tiny dose. After waiting 10 minutes and observing no reaction, they gave me larger doses of these 9 and there was still no reaction.

I have had better experience than you with allergists. I took the desensitization shots in elementary school, again in my early twenties and again in my late thirties and had very good results each time.

As you get older your immune system seems to get wiser about not overreacting to allergens. That appears to be my case now.

The allergens they tested me for were things you inhale like pollens and dust. I drink lots of milk and eat lots of cheese and some ice cream (damn, if it weren't for the guilty feeling I would eat lots of ice cream). I am lactose intolerant but control it perfectly with lactase tablets.

So what are the symptoms of a milk allergy?

rooster wrote:

SleepyNoMore wrote:....... I had my 1st. ent appt. on Oct.6,07 and they told me it would be about a week to get an authorization for the CT Scan, I called and left a message with her/the nurse, got no response back so, last friday I went to the office and complained about it. ........

I know what you are talking about. I had a retitration on October 1. My sleep doc said they would make an appointment for me to see an ENT who specializes in sleep apnea patients. The sleep nurse called today, October 16, (15-day delay) to tell me she made an appointment for me with the ENT on November 9 (40 days from the retitration).

She was quite miffed when I told her I had not been sitting on my hands waiting for her. I made my own appointments with the ENT and had already seen him twice!!!

On October 8 he stuck an endoscope up my nose down to my vocal cords and on October 12 he did allergy tests and discussed the results with me.

Why wait around for some butthead getting paid by the hour when my health is involved?

ROOSTER, THAT CRACKS ME UP~ , BUTTHEAD , I HAVEN'T HEARD THAT ONE IN A WHILE, brings back alot of good old day memories ~ It was around 39 days for me, I could have already had that septum surgery and been half way recovered by now, I am such a chicken about pain and my grandson had the septum and sinoplasty both at once and he went through hell, he is 16 and he said it was very painful... The anticipation of waiting is almost as bad as the surgery itself huh, huh? YEA, I wish, don't we all wish. I noticed my right eye is drooping and looks smaller than the left one and my right ear always seems to be plugged up and I have to try to yawn to open it up. Also, my head just dosen't feel groggy alot of the time, do you experience similiar symptoms? Well, I went for the CT Sinus Scan today, it only lasted 3-5 minutes tops. I'm glad that is over and off my back.. Keep us posted

Rooster,

According to a source I have about milk allergy it can present with a wide range of symptoms. Here are some quotes from a book called, "The Milk Free Kitchen" The forward (where this info comes from) is written by the Chief of Allergy at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, a Dr. Friedman.

"A true milk allergy is a more complex problem. it may be more difficult fo diagnose and our knowlege of the immunologic mechanisms is still incomplete. There can be a large array of symptoms involving more than the gastointestinal tract. Though a milk allergy occurs in adults, it is more common in infants and children.

Milk allergy can show itself in a variety of ways. It may cause a sudden reaction throughout the body with vomiting, severe abodominal pain, diarrhea, as well as a rash, respiratory obstruction, and even circulatory collapse. More often a target organ, the gastrointestingal tract, may be predominantly involoved.

Or a milk allergy can be more subtle. It may worsen a chronic skin rash, called atopic dermatitits or eczema, or it may occasionally be one trigger for asthma or chronic nasal congestion, called chronic allergic rhinitis.

A fortunately rare severe allergic reaction to milk may cause the bowel to be unable to absorb almost all foodstuffs, and can provoke bleeding from the bowel, leading to iron-deficiency anemia. This most often occurs in infants.

The majority of persons with a milk allergy will have evidence of other food or respiratory allergies. Most, though not quite all persons with a true milk allergy will have a positive immediate skin test to milk proteins. A blood test called RAST test can give similar information. However, there are persons with positive skin tests who can drink milk safely.

Someone exhibiting only gastrointestinal complaints for whom a lactase deficiency or other gastrointestinal disease has been excluded, may show dramatic improvement with the exclusion of milk or milk products from the diet. Conversely, the patient may show a recurrence of symptoms when these foods are reintroduced into the diet. This may be the best evidence that a problem exists."

My symptoms were pretty severe irritable bowel syndrome. I had had so many tests on my bowel. . . won't go there. My secondary symtom was chronic allergic rhinitis and thickened mucous to the point that I had chronic sinus infections--literally one right after the other year round unless I took strong doses of antihistimines to try to keep it clear. I was being treated for dust allergy with desensitization shots at that time--that was thought to be the cause of the chronic allergic rhinitis.

When I had been on the shots for years with no result, I went to a new ent to see what he would think. (My current ent.) and he said it sure sounded like a food allergy to him. He recommended an elimination diet called the caveman diet where you remove everything you commonly eat and slowly add them back one by one. In the meantime you eat a bunch of weird stuff you never eat--this was not going to be easy.

I was ruminating this when I was in the car with my Mom and a friend of my sister, a neonatal nurse. They were discussing the introduction of foods schedule that is now recommended for infants. She was saying it is no longer considered safe to give cows milk to children under age 1. My Mom was like, oh, hell, that is riciculous, Jenny got milk from 2 weeks old. Apparantly breastfeeding was thought to be "disgusting" in 1972 and I couldn't keep formula down, so the doctor told her to give me whole milk with corn syrup in it.

Can you say aha! moment?

I eliminated milk immediately and got relief within a couple of weeks. Complete relief from all the symptoms.

I almost died as an infant from this malignant practice. I had the bleeding of the bowel that leads to severe anemia mentioned above. I was hospitalized. I had to relearn how to walk etc.

Then the problem laid dormant most of my life until I lived in Costa Rica and, living in the middle of nowhere with a host family, drank milk straight from the cow and got an intestinal infection of some sort. It was cured at the time, but the symptoms I described came on slowly but surely after that.

So, I'm sure that is more than you asked for, but it feels good to get it off my chest!

So many people and doctors even scoff at my allergy. It doesn't sound real to them. I am here to say it is real and I'm not crazy.

BTW, milk is in nearly all processed food fyi. Casein, whey and milk powder, sodium caseinate, milk fat--all cause problems for me. I have to be a label reader and I make a lot of stuff from scratch and I reformulate recipes. I should really write a book about it because I am so good at it people would never guess I don't cook with milk. I make everthing from ice cream, to cake, to frosting, to gravy etc etc without milk.

Jen
jen

socknitster wrote:..............He recommended an elimination diet called the caveman diet ............

Ah the caveman diet! Fine wines, expensive aged cheeses, rare mushrooms, nova lox, tender organic brussel sprouts, slices of portobello mushrooms, huge grilled sea scallops with roasted sweet peppers and a touch of bechamel, wild north Atlantic salmon line-caught, fruity mango salsa, fingers of tender lamb crusted with mustard and herbs, melange of vegetables layered with spinach, yellowfin tuna topped with a branch of sweet basil, grilled pork chop, couscous mopping up the juices, free-range chicken with a gingery sauce, creamy coconut sorbet, chocolate souffle and brownie covered with locally grown organic raspberries.

My dear, my dear, another urban myth bites the dust.

I make everthing from ice cream, to cake, to frosting, to gravy etc etc without milk.

Jen,
Are you aware of the term "Parve" or "Pareve"? In Jewish law meat dishes must be strictly separated from milk. "Meat and milk (or derivatives) cannot be mixed, i.e. meat and dairy products are not served at the same meal, served or cooked in the same utensils, or stored together. Observant Jews have separate sets of dishes for meat and milk."

"Parve" means that the food contains neither meat (or its derivatives) nor milk (or its derivatives).
Whenever you find that on kosher food you can be pretty sure it contains no milk or its derivatives.

Symbols indicating that a food is kosher (kashrut symbols) in the states include


    

And you may want to take a peek at kosher cook-books too -

O.

Not being a Jew myself, there are times I say to myself, "thank God for kosher! Yes I know about Parve. On those days when I just want a snack, I can usually find something in the store with that symbol!

Thanks for pointing that out, I don't know if it is widely known outside the Jewish communitiy.

I say, if things can be so easily made without whey or caseine, why add it. It seems like it is an afterthought--or a cheap filler. I have had products without it that taste great. It doesn't seem to add anything but frustration for me.

Rooster, you crack me up!

Jen

I had never heard of a milk allergy. I make have to check into that one. I have tried just about everything but I still have congestion...

The bad news for me will be... if it is a milk allergy... will be... I LOVE MILK!!!!!

rooster wrote:Yeah Jen, the allergy tests were all negative. They gave me those tiny shots of 16 of the known worst offenders and none of them caused a "rated" reaction. 9 of the 16 are so potent, that they give you a very tiny dose. After waiting 10 minutes and observing no reaction, they gave me larger doses of these 9 and there was still no reaction.

socknitster wrote:I have had allergy tests done by an allergist and when I told him that his test had to be wrong, he made up some absolute crap. I have known I am allergic to milk for years. One only has to eliminate a food from the diet, see relief and then reintroduce it along with the symptoms a few dozen times in order to verify. I"m not stupid.

Can believe I missed this thread! I am allergy queen. I so totally agree with you Jen.

Here's my story:

I also had the allergy shot tests... all up and down both my arms, my entire back. Diagnosis: No allergy.
But my symptoms remained: migraine, runny and stuffy nose, aches and pains. Age: 12. Doctors gave up. At around the same time a friend of ours was very sick and nearly dying, he went to an alternative doctor (kinesiologist) after all the regular MDs hda given up on him, and he was found to have a milk intolerance - and now's he back to normal by avoiding milk.

So my entire family and I went to a kinesiologist as well. He tested us all using "muscle testing" ... for me it was wheat, chocolate, sugar, corn syrup (!), and some other stuff. For my dad it was wheat and others. He had similar symptoms as me, but worse. Including mental problems like bad temper, depression. For my sister it was milk. Her complaint? At age 5, continual water in the middle ear. She even had to get tubes in her ears. The moment she stopped drinking milk, she got better. Upon stopping to eat the foods we were allergic (actually: intolerant) to, all of us were so healthy we never got even caught colds. So no, don't trust the pin-prick tests. This was nearly 20 years ago, when even food allergies weren't widely recognized by the medical community.

From all my reading and research, I've come to learn the disctinction between a true allergy and an intolerance: an allergy is where you produce specific antibodies to a particular substance, and that's what the pin-prick tests test for. An intolerance works by some other mechanism, I'm not really sure what (and neither does the medical community because it's not yet really recognized by them!). But for whatever reason, your body will react to certain foods at certain times - like for me it's when I've eaten something too many days in a row - and you will get those symptoms. It will not show up in an allergy test because your body doesn't produce antibodies for those foods.

So this started me on the path to discovering alternative medicine. Now I'm a very scientifically-minded person and you won't find me easily accepting annecdotal stories for real evidence, but in this case, I cannot deny what has worked for me. Others may laugh, belittle, and decry alternative medicine, but for me it has saved my life. From a very young age I used to get horrible migraines with terrible nauseau and vomiting- the moment I discovered my food intolerances it all went away. All I have to do now to get a migraine is eat something I'm intolerance to, and I'm sure to be floored for a day or two. And it will never show up on a pin-prick test.

So back to the alternative stuff: the muscle testing is what I use to detect foods I'm intolerant to. "Cleansing" has helped me regain my health and reduce my intolerances, notably: candida, parasite, and liver cleansing. Some people say that "leaky gut" causes undigested food to enter the bloodstream, causing a reaction. Causes of leaky gut can be parasites and candida (overgrowth of intestinal yeast from too much sugar, not enough "good bacteria" in the gut, antibiotics, etc). This in turn overloads the liver, causing it to become sluggish and accumulate stones. Liver cleansing (or liver flushes) help to unclog the liver. This is something I've only started reading about in the past year, and it's quite "alternative" but also quite easy to do.

OK go ahead an laugh, but I'll be laughing more when I'm healthy as a horse and those laughing at me are suffering from weird maladies the doctors can't diagnose, or getting cancer, or whatever.

I personally think that all of these problems: allergies, OSA, weight problems, inflammation, are all related. There's no chicken and no egg, necessarily, but a vicious feedback loop where when one part starts to break down, it drags down your whole health with it. Then it's up to you to repair not only one part of the problem (e.g. fix OSA), but fix all the rest of the damage as well (food allergies/intolerances, bowel and liver health, ....). For me I'm sure it started with receiving antibiotics at age 1 for a runny nose (!), and being genetically predisposed to having intolerances (due to poor liver or bowel function?), and it just got worse after that (more antibiotics, more intolerances, more damage). For example my sister intolerances are much less severe than mind, and both of ours are much much less severe than my father's. In my case, avoiding the foods I was intolerant to was not enough to stop the damage - I still ended up with OSA, I still ended up with reflux - thus my attempt now to get to the root cause, which is why I'm looking into cleansing. I believe everything has a cause, and can probably be fixed by fixing the body itself, and that's why I refuse to take pills for reflux for 20 years, like my dad did, and still end up with esophageal cancer.

My non-medical opinion, supported by the positive benefits I've seen in me, my family, and my friends.

SleepyNoMore wrote:I noticed my right eye is drooping and looks smaller than the left one and my right ear always seems to be plugged up and I have to try to yawn to open it up. Also, my head just dosen't feel groggy alot of the time, do you experience similiar symptoms?

My mother had the same thing: one droppy eyelid. She did a candida and parasite cleanse and it went completely away. So did her rheumatoid arthritis that she's had since the age of 18!! (Try http://humaworm.com/).

Interesting post, Echo. I don't think anyone who has ever suffered as we have would ever think to make fun if you have found a solution that works for you. I agree that poor bowel health/digestion must have something to do with these intolerances. I know I have been feeling a lot better since I started adding PB8, a non-dairy probiotic capsule. I wish I could take yogurt, but it is just unacceptable to my poor body!

One day I might try eliminating wheat for a while and see if it helps. I know I do better with less refined sugar in my diet. As my husband said last night, though, sugar is like crack! He almost NEVER consumes refined sugars, prefering to sweeten with alternatives or natural fruit juices etc.

Jen

Only reason I put in the 'laughing' disclaimer was because I saw a few posts on this forum about a month ago totally trashing "alternative medicine" and I didn't want that to happen again.

Yes sugar IS crack, it's horrible for you and horribly addictive. I also can't seem to get over it. My BF never eats sugar either, and he wonders how i can be so addicted. My "addictions" get better if I'm in a cleansing period - some how my bodies just asks for good food. If I'm in a rut then the more sugar I eat the more I crave it.

i have read that pre-biotics (like inulin) are just as important as probiotics - the prebiotics feed the good bacteria. Supposedly vegetables naturally contain inulin but since people don't eat enough veggies, plus the nutritional content of veggies is probably lower than it used to be, adding inulin to the diet can help.

Have you tried goat yogurt?

I think you're better off with the pills in this case. I read a study last year that compared commercial brands of yogurt, and found that even within the same brand, over different dates, the amount of probiotics greatly varied, from barely nothing at all to normal (whatever normal that is).

Can you eat/drink milk, say, one day, once a week, without symptoms? That's how it was for us - some things we could never eat, but some things we could have once a week w/o problems. After time (and years of avoidance) a lot of my intolerances went away, only to be replaced by new ones.

My body can't really seem to tolerate much milk at all. I immediately get a mild sore throat and thickened mucous. Sometimes my bowel will be irritated (meaning run to the bathroom and empty entire contents) and it gives me a lasting feeling of malaise. Usually when I'm eating in a restaurant I can tell even as I'm eating if something has milk in it. I am careful in what I choose and sometimes ask for special help, but that usually backfires--either the food comes out completely bland or they lie or they just don't have a clue. I often get milk in my food when i specifically ask about it and have better luck just choosing foods based on my own knowledge of food preparation.

And goat milk proteins must be similar enough to cow that I can't really tolerate that either. I used to eat some goat cheese but don't bother any more. So, while I occasionally ingest some accidentally, like at a restuarant, I remain pretty vigilant. I guess a super spaced out occasion doesn't bother me too much. I did eat a halloween sized tiny kit kat bar for nostalgic reasons on Halloween and my reaction was very mild.

The worst for me is restaurant food and hamburger and hot dog buns. I'm not about to bake them myself and they are hard to find without milk and soy protein.

If I could tolerate some milk I would drink kefir. It usually has 7 to 11 different probiotic strains. It is related to yogurt, but is more runny, like a drink. Available in health food stores. I buy it for my son every week after his pediatrician recommended it after some tummy trouble post-antibiotics. Some people with milk allergy can tolerate yogurt, I hear, because the proteins in foods that are fermented are usually denatured or hydrolized in some way, rendereing them less noticeable to antibodies.

So far PB 8 is the only probiotic i have found that doesn't have dairy and instead is grown in inulin and contains inulin. A very nice product. Studies have shown that people get a lot more benefit from cultured milk products than pills, though.

I haven't tried goat yogurt. I actually have bought it and then let it sit in the fridge because I was ambivilent about it. Knowing what goat milk smells like and goat cheese tastes, I was reluctant! Goofy, I know! I should give it a try.

I sure wish my intolerances would go away.

I read once that they believe food allergies are related to a different pathway in the immune system that isn't regularly tested. That is where the whole IGa, IGg etc mediated response comes in. It takes different pathways. Each little letter after the IG is a different pathway in the immune system and I doubt there is much understanding about how this works.

Science is starting to take it more seriously. On the cbs early show this morning they were talking about it and a woman who has become a big advocate for kids with food allergies because her kids are all sufferers--one so bad she could die from eating eggs. The stats they gave are that 1 in 8 people are affected by food allergies. And there has been a 400% increase in diagnosis in the last 10 or 20 years (Sorry I can't remember which they said.). It is mostly children, but sometimes we get a late start like I did.

Jen