Shortly after giving birth to my third child, I developed a severe allergy to peppers. Not the kind of allergy where you get hives but the full blown anaphylactic allergic response where blood pressure drops with heart palpitations, bowel flush, difficulty breathing and throat closing up type food allergy.
I remember the first time it happened very clearly. It was Ramadan and I had made shami kabobs for my husband and I to break fast with that night. I ate while our newborn slept and within 15 minutes my nose felt completely blocked and my throat started swelling. I sat on the floor shaking my head in an attempt to breathe for maybe 5 or 10 seconds while struggling with complete airway blockage. At that point, adrenaline started pumping in my body due to the fear of what I just experienced, and alhamdulilah, adrenaline is our body’s natural way to responding to fight-or-flight life threatening situations.
After then I began to breathe again, the rest of the allergic responses continued until my husband and I decided that I need to go to ER. I took an antihistamine before going to the hospital, and by the time the doctor saw me at 3AM, my symptoms had completely subsided. I was sent home and told to get checked by an allergist.
Over the next few days and weeks, I continued to have reactions to any type of peppers I ate, not just spicy chilies.
I met with my family doctor, two allergists, and a naturopath; none were able to give me any answers about my newly diagnosed allergy. I was told to not to worry about it, that it’s just one of those things that happens and that there is no known cause or explanation. Basically, the established protocol of modern medicine was that I was expected to just live with it, give up peppers and walk around with an epi-pen and antihistamine at all times.
Doesn’t seem like a big deal, right? Here’s the thing: Peppers, in one form or another, are in EVERYTHING! Pasta sauce, salad dressing, mustard, marinades even Doritos chips are enhanced with peppers (paprika). Did I also mention that my husband is Pakistani? Meaning peppers are a staple in my cooking. So it is kind of a big deal to me.
Really?
Maybe it seems odd to think that peppers were the turning point for me, but they were. As I learned to adjust my diet and struggled with accidentally ingesting peppers from restaurants or foods prepared by anyone other than myself, I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life like this. I knew there must be a cause as to why my body is rejecting peppers. And I also believed there must be a way to heal whatever was causing this adverse reaction.
And that’s where the story began…