Introduction

Hello, everyone! I would like to begin by with a disclaimer: I am NOT a member of any medical profession. Nor do I give advice to others. I am trying to find the reason behind my one medical problem by trying to discover what causes my symptoms. With this blog, I hope to get people to pose questions to their medical doctors. The big question being "Could I possibly have a food allergy?" Remember this question and use it when there seems to be no other hope or reason for an illness.

Several years ago, I began eating soy products to help slow down the female problems that come with aging. Menopause is not a fun thing when you watch others deal with hot flashes and the miseries associated with it. I want to avoid menopause or, at least, lessen its effects. Soy was my best friend. I drank soy milk every day with my morning cereal. I ate organic frozen meals which contained soy. I ate soy nuts. Soy this and soy that. Everyday I ate something soy.

I began experiencing symptoms of nervousness, my heart racing at a fast rate, and a fear that my heart would race. I had to go to the emergency room three times last year for drugs which would return my palpitations to a normal beat. When I went in to the emergency room, I couldn't have my blood pressure taken because the machine wouldn't recognize it while my heart was beating fast. I mean, 214 beat per minute! It would let my heart race and race like this for hours because I didn't like the medicine given to me. The medicine gave my really bad breath for days, made me lethargic and made me urinate with a hot or burning sensation. DON'T DO THIS TO YOURSELF!!! GO TO THE HOSPITAL WHEN YOUR HEART BEATS THIS FAST!!! I learned from the last experience that it is not worth waiting as long as I did. I could've done terrible damage to my heart. I will get to the hospital within 30 minutes from now on if I ever get these symptoms again. PROMISE! Even though I don't like the medicine, I will never chance it again.

I had to go to a cardiologist for a check-up after being released from the hospital. My cardiologist is great and treats me with respect. I was told to cut out caffeine and chocolates the three times I went for a visit. OK. Kill me. Chocolate is one of my major food groups. They are both hard to kick, but it's worth it for good health. Then, after hearing the OTHER options for a third time - do nothing until the next attack, take blood pressure medicine every day (for the beta blockers), have an operation on my heart which would entail cutting a nerve in the center of my heart so it wouldn't double beat - it scared me because that the last option may be my option. My health was good. Nothing else was wrong with me, I was told. My emergency room visits were getting to be every three months on the nose and it annoyed me and set me back a huge chunk of money, to boot.

The changing point for me was when a co-worker called in to say she'd be late to work because her heart was racing. When she arrived to work, she said she had palpitations when she'd go to a buffet restaurant which used a lot of MSG. BINGO! I looked up MSG and guess what it was made from? SOY! The last time I had palpitations I had soy something-or-other for breakfast and washed it down with the coffee I couldn't give up at that time. So I checked what I had to eat the day I talked with my co-worker. I had toast (soy, soy oil and soy lecithin), really great chips for a snack (cooked in soy oil), my favorite organic frozen dinner for lunch (tofu and soy products). I looked up allergy websites to see what kind of symptoms show with a soy allergy. HEART PALPITATIONS was one of them. I HAVE BEEN POISONING MYSELF is what I was thinking. From that day on (early October 2006), I vowed to quit soy for at least 3 days to a week to see what would happen. I kept a journal of everything I put into my mouth. After 3 days, I was not feeling as anxious. Ok, so I kept on being soy free. After one week, it was amazing how much better I felt. It took a long while to quit thinking about when or if my next attack (as I call it) would come. It took months to get over this feeling, a feeling of dread of sorts, but I can say I'm not thinking of it now.

IF I DO HAPPEN TO EAT SOMETHING WITH SOY IN IT, I CAN FEEL THE HEART RATE GO UP. Soy is in just about everything made, today. I take my own heart rate just about every day to make sure it's not high. I count the beats for 10 seconds and multiply by 6 to give me a good approximation of beats per minute.

I have not yet gone to get tested for soy allergy. It is one of the things I will do as soon as I can. Hopefully, this will confirm that I am allergic to soy or something that happened to get cut out of my diet because I'm not eating soy.

I'm going to leave you now with all of this to think about. If you have a mysterious illness that a doctor cannot pinpoint a cause for, ask the question "Could I possibly have a food allergy?

Next time, I will tell of all the products I found soy in as well as the hidden names for soy-based products.

Regards.