I’ve never been allergic to anything, but over the past few years, I’ve started to see that I’m getting intolerant to increasing numbers of foods.

I have no idea why this is happening and there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it. They aren’t related foods. Some of them are foods I eat all the time. Some of them I rarely eat. The effects they have vary. It’s so weird and frustrating, because every time I eat a food I’ve gained a sudden intolerance to, it makes me lose a day of my life. And usually more than one day, because I make the same mistake again, either by forgetting or not being sure what caused it the first time.

Here’s the list so far:

• Bananas – These give me stomach cramps from the second I eat them and make me sick within a few hours (most notable for making me violently sick in the security queue at Schipol airport. Turns out being sick in the queue means you get to skip the whole queue). This was my first intolerance and I had no idea it was the bananas, so I just kept eating them, which is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.
• Walnuts – These make my lips swell up like Kim Kardashian’s and make my mouth feel really hot (still currently eat these). These are at least mentioned when they’re in things, because nuts, whereas bananas aren’t.
• Pineapple – These make my throat all hot and scratchy (still currently eat these).
• Paprika – I love hot food so this is a killer for me, especially as a lot of foods don’t tend to list herbs and spices. Stomach ache for hours, although milk tends to help a bit with this one.
• Quorn – This is the most recent one, that has literally developed in the space of about a week. A few weeks ago, I was totally fine and happily eating Quorn-based things. Yesterday I had the same stomachache for literally twelve hours, until I managed to shift it. Nothing helped at all, it was awful. I’m not a big fan of protein in general, so this one is pretty bad for me. I don’t eat a ton of Quorn, but I do like it more than red meat.

I’m very grateful I don’t have severe allergies or extremely complicated/wide-ranging food intolerances and issues like some of my friends do, but it’s still so frustrating. Especially as they’re all foods I’ve been happily eating for years without any problems, and they’re quite obscure intolerance-wise so people/places don’t always mention if they’ve put them in their food.

But at the same time, I’m sitting here scared to eat anything. Which is both understandable and not, at the same time. A lot of things I haven’t eaten in the past few weeks I’m scared to go near, in case I’m suddenly intolerant to those as well. There doesn’t really seem to be a pattern, and avoiding the foods I’m intolerant to means I’m perfectly fine. It’s started happening over a period of a few years, so I don’t think it’s stress-related (and stress for me very rarely takes any physical forms, unless it’s backache). I can happily go for months and months without any issues, until I accidentally eat a trigger food, and then I’m screwed and nothing helps.

So you might be expecting this blog post to end with, “I have a doctor’s appointment and they’re going to do some tests and etc etc,” but that’s not my thing. I fully admit that I don’t take care of myself as I should, I can’t be bothered to go through all the hassle of arranging an appointment and going, only to learn that they don’t know what it is and maybe this random thing would help, which it invariably won’t, and will most likely have other side effects. So I’m sticking with this for now, and if it gets to the point where I can’t eat anything at all, well, maybe I’ll be dragged there kicking and screaming ;)