36 Diet Wise
symptoms were particularly bad she preferred to stay at home rather than
mix with others, making up feeble excuses. Few men were prepared to put
up with her apparent indifference and to persist. Her current boyfriend was
a little more understanding, but she refused to see him very often and could
not bring herself to tell him why. Naturally, he was puzzled and thought her
a strange girl.
Apart from the bowel disorder Maria also occasionally suffered
from panic attacks, when everything seemed to press in on her. At these
times she would experience the fright of impending doom and feel certain
she was about to die. However, her overriding emotion was not anxiety
but deep despair and gloom; she frequently felt so depressed that suicide
seemed the only answer, she confided in me.
Fortunately she had never tried it, otherwise she would have ended
up in the hands of some psychiatrist and the outcome might not have been
so happy. She had been admitted to the hospital twice for investigations, but
all tests had proved negative. The final diagnosis (which is no diagnosis at
all) was a “lazy colon,” and she was prescribed drugs, which failed to help.
Disillusioned and cynical, she had long since given up seeing her family
doctor.
I inquired into her diet with my routine inventory (see Chapter 10),
and she told me she was eating largely whole foods, including plenty of fruit
and vegetables, both fresh and simply cooked. She ate very few canned and
packaged meals and no junk food, except on birthdays and at the seaside:
on the surface of it, not a very high-risk diet. But then I knew that any food
was a potential allergen.
I explained to Maria that since her digestive tract appeared to bear
the brunt of symptoms, food allergy or intolerance was very probable. She
liked the sound of the approach used in the diet wise plan and decided to
give it a try.
Within ten days she had made startling progress: the flatulence had
ceased completely, her abdominal pains had dropped to a tenth of their
former level, and she felt wonderful. Her stomach was now flat instead of
bloated. Energy and confidence radiated from her. She told me confidentially
that her libido was on the increase. The black moods had lifted, and she
now considered herself equal to any social or work pressure that might
come her way.
From then on she never looked back. Apart from occasions when
she deliberately tested a food and experienced a reaction, her symptoms
have not returned. Subsequently we found she was allergic to cabbage,
cauliflower, turnip (all members of the mustard family), potato, lamb, pork,
wheat, egg and tomato. She had been eating one or another of these foods