Hidden Allergic Reactions
Allergies and cravings, atypical. Through the painful school of hard knocks and incidents, I find out about changing allergies that trigger symptoms in my brain. Tree pollen doesn't make my nose run or eyes itch, but it can build up over days or even months in my brain and trigger short-fast seizures (very pailful) and confusion.
I can do fine with sunshine and outdoors over and over,, but at last 3 or 4 times in my life I've had allergic reactions in my brain to sun poisoning and had massive meltdowns. I was hospitalized for having a metal breakdown in Colorado due to the high elevation sunshine and having been indoors binge working on computer for two weeks in prep for leaving and travel. 5 hours standing in the sun one day after 2 weeks indoors and I have a brain shock to histamine reactions. I was incoherent and in agony. I like walking and outdoors, but social encounters when I'm trying to monitor my brain and body are exhausting. I can get caught up in fun and complex conversation and forget to check sun exposure or water.
I crave variety and flavor in foods. I love hot sauce and the pain relief I get from it. My teeth are yellow from a lifetime of Tabasco and other vinegar sauces. Pickles. Sour kraut. Salty, dark chocolate, savory. But then i tend to trigger allergies. While living in South American in 2004 I had a serious illness that was likely malaria. And I spontaneously developed a gluten/wheat allergy that I never had before. I was dizzy and feeling my brain in a fog for over 4 years before I finally tracked down the cause. I thought seizures from my autism had caused it when I discovered autism at 38 but it turned out that I became allergic to bread when I wasn't before. I stopped eating all wheat for 2 weeks and as soon as I would eat it I would turn red and get dizzy. Now a dozen years later, I can eat bread without turning red but it tends to give me intestinal problems and I think it does seem to cause my mind to get loopy if I eat bread/wheat multiple days in a row.
I used to work i health care computer department running a LAN and designing high perforce computers for claims analysis. I now have massive anxiety about paperwork and making mistakes. with medical insurance. it sucks.
I can get food cravings that are persistent and keep coming back to the brain. And they are often not healthy or I want to binge eat. It's a problem trying to manage these urges and impulses when they keep popping up in my brain. I've found through that hard-knocks school that some of the cravings are things that destabilize my brain.. Like coffee. But it also depends on other factors if it's going to hep me or hurt me. But in hospitalization they always take caffeine out of the equation which impacts some people due to withdrawal. Food memories can be strong with my travels, and it's intrusive thoughts.. All about those sensory overloads that feel good or rebalance part of the brain memories.. But I often don't have the money to waste or the skills to get what I am craving, so it's a process of trying not to burn myself out in stress over the choices and finding at least something I ca satisfy the urges with.
July 2024 was harsh for me in Arizona where I was hospitalized several times in Lake Havasu City, Parker, Yuma with sun-related photodermatitis and problems coping with temperature changes.