Are You Ignoring These Warning Signs?

Fixing a problem might not be the best thing to do…

A few years back, I found myself in the emergency room at Minden hospital after being stung by a ground wasp.

I’d been stung by wasps before, but this one was particularly nasty and sent me into anaphylactic shock. When I arrived at the ER, I knew what to say and told the receptionist at triage that I’d been stung and was experiencing a systemic reaction.

The words did the trick. Despite the crowded waiting room, full of patients with various injuries and ailments, ranging from wounds and broken bones to high fevers, I was quickly rushed into the trauma room. Within ninety seconds, a nurse had inserted an IV, and the doctor was right behind her, handing me Benadryl capsules with a cup of water.

Obviously, I recovered, and I owe my life to the wonderful staff at that small but efficient hospital. (Sadly, our brilliant government closed the hospital shortly afterward, so I squeaked in just under the wire.)

With no hospital within half an hour now, I accepted Will Wood’s offer to retrain my immune system at HypnoThoughts Live in Las Vegas a few years ago. Will specializes in depotentiating allergies, and although I’ve successfully done this with several clients, it’s easier to have someone else do it for you.

After some specific questions and testing, Will assured me I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore, and I’m 99% certain he’s right.

But presumption can be dangerous, and I’m not stupid, so I keep a couple of EpiPens here at the cabin, just in case...

Which brings me to my current situation.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve experienced a variety of negative effects from eating wheat and grains. Initially, it was joint pain and congestion, leading to frequent bronchial issues and ear infections. At the time, I was told dairy was the real problem, but even after removing cheese and cream from my diet, the issues persisted.

When I reintroduced dairy and eliminated wheat, my symptoms disappeared.

Now, someone might be tempted to tell me to “just eat gluten-free.” But gluten is only one of about six wheat proteins you can be sensitive to.

And the truth is, I liked pizza, toast, bagels, and donuts.

But clearly, they didn’t like me, and every time I went back to eating wheat, I paid the price. At first, it was horrific knee and neck pain, and my hands felt arthritic.

But over time, it got worse.

A lot worse.

I experienced stomach discomfort after an Indian meal with naan bread and felt overly full, like I wasn’t digesting properly. So I stopped eating naan and was able to enjoy fiery vindaloo dishes, without any issues at all.

But the sensitivity continued to worsen. Wheat and grains have always made me put on weight in record time, and nowadays, a single pint of beer causes me to bloat up by about three pounds, and the water-retention typically lingers for two or three days.

So a few months back, I had an amazing Turkish meal with my wife, and the kebabs were served on a plate-sized layer of Middle Eastern pita bread. My stomach hurt for hours, and my joints felt like they were going to explode with inflammation.

And still, it kept getting worse.

Then, a few weeks ago, my friend Ken made some incredible pizza from scratch, in a special oven, but after a couple of slices, something felt wrong.

Within an hour, I was nearly crippled by stomach pain, leading to 400mg of ibuprofen and activated charcoal as I attempted to counteract it.

The pain felt like I had a bucket of thumbtacks and barbed wire in my stomach, wrapped around an angry bobcat who was clawing his way out.

The agony lasted nearly thirty-six hours. I rated the pain a seven out of ten, and if it had notched up to an eight, I was seriously considering heading to the nearest hospital.

Now I know I wrote about my sensitivity to wheat back in June, but at that time, pizza wasn’t an issue, and neither was pasta. Clearly, something had changed, and the sensitivity had gotten much worse.

So, a couple of weeks later, we went to a nice little steak and pasta house near our cabin. Cheese cannelloni was a personal favorite, and I’d ordered it in the past without any problems, so I figured I’d be okay. Especially since the pasta was paper-thin, so there’d be far less wheat than in the pizza slices.

But about an hour later, I realized the cat was back in my stomach, using my gastric lining as a scratching post, and it kept hurting until the following evening.

Then the sensitivity got even worse, as though my brain was asking, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you still eating something that makes you feel terrible? How many times do you need to go through this before you realize it’s bad for you, and smarten up?”

So, I avoided wheat and grains like the plague, and my joint pain vanished again.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, we ate at a fancy restaurant, and I automatically said NO to the bread rolls.

But here’s the thing...

The condition had worsened yet again, to the point where the dusting of bread crumbs on the calamari put me in pain and self-recrimination for another twenty-four hours.

So, why am I telling you all this, and why don’t I just use the immune system retrain that’s worked so well for my clients in the past, helping them with allergies and sensitivities ranging from cats to lilacs to cheese?

Because my unconscious mind has finally gotten my attention and ramped up my symptoms higher and higher to get me to stop eating wheat and grains.

I think it knows something I don’t...

So rather than trying to treat the sensitivity, I’m simply staying away from grains altogether. As Mark Sisson says, “There’s no good reason to eat grains.”

It’s deprivation, but it means no joint pain, no horrible systemic inflammation, and no bobcat and barbed wire in my gut.

I think that sometimes it’s best to heed the persistent warnings we get, rather than try to work around them.

And I think that applies to many areas of life...

- Mike Mandel