Some health stuff

Two things:

1. I'm very hopeful that I may have figured out a way of dealing with the hives (which, yes, I still get occasionally). Aloe vera gel. Just the plain, pure-aloe stuff from the pharmacy that they usually sell for sunburns. When I put it on the hives, it makes them stop itching and they go away within an hour. This gives me some hope that the hives are purely a skin-irritation issue (I've always had sensitive skin) and are not some kind of immune system thing. (I've read that chronic hives can be a symptom of various autoimmune diseases, but I have none of the other symptoms of any of them, and I feel generally OK so I'm not racing off to Dr. House to find out what's wrong). I've also tried sort of a casual version of the elimination diet to see if cutting out certain foods stopped the hives and nothing I tried getting rid of - cashews, peanuts and peanut products, caffeine, chocolate (that week was hard), certain grains - did.

But I'm hopeful that the aloe vera will allow me to manage the hives, and since I've been using it, I seem to get fewer hives.

2. I am, however, having stomach issues. I think this is (tmi alert) female stuff, and female-approaching-the-Change stuff. I remember a trip my family took to Disneyworld when my mom was just a bit older than I am now, and how she spent most of one day not being able to eat (and throwing up a couple of times). It wasn't until years later that I found out it wasn't that she simply had food poisoning or something. So I've been trying to eat VERY low fat these past few days....that fried chicken Monday night really threw my stomach for a loop (and I only ate one piece of chicken, it wasn't like I gorged on it).

Yesterday we had a faculty meeting. I had eaten my little cup of yogurt and little dried fruit and little stack of crackers before the meeting, and then when I arrived, one of my colleagues was eating pizza. Which smelled really good. And which made me terribly hungry for pizza, which I figured was a Bad Idea giving how my stomach was reacting to fat at that moment. 

So, last night, I made a batch of breadsticks using the pizza dough recipe from "Going Solo in the Kitchen" and heated up a little marinara sauce. And that was really what I needed and wanted: the bread and the tomato. I could care less about the cheese and toppings. So breadsticks made a good solution to my "I want pizza, but the fatty cheese will upset me" problem.

I'm hoping next week the stomach issues resolve themselves. Usually, if it's what I think it is, they do.

I do have an uncle who had to have his gallbladder removed and I'm trying hard to avoid that for myself. Not that it's a HUGE dangerous surgery, but still, it's a surgery, and if I can avoid having to have it, I rather would. And also, I understand you have to be EXTRA careful about fat in the diet after getting the gallbladder out. Though maybe I'm about that careful now, already - I eat all low-fat dairy (well, except for some cheese, but I eat only small amounts of cheese at a time), don't eat much meat, don't eat fried foods, try to limit the amount of butter I use in stuff. I am a little more generous with olive oil when I cook but olive oil does not seem to bother me.