A new round with an elimination diet to check my food sensitivities

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone tells you they’re “doing the carnivore diet”?

If you’re like my husband, who works in the fitness world, it might just be an eye roll. If you’re a vegan or vegetarian, it might be disgust.

What if I told you that I’m doing the carnivore diet as an alternative elimination diet, similar to how people use the autoimmune protocol (AIP) diet to identify foods that cause flares of their autoimmune disease? Does that change your response? I’m hoping it tickles your curiosity.

Several years ago when I was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (MG), I tried the AIP diet in hopes of managing my symptoms and “curing” this disease. It was restrictive as hell, and I was always hungry. But I was able to identify a few foods that definitely exacerbated my symptoms.

I tried my hardest to stay on the modified diet, paying attention to the foods that I’d learned cause flares for me. I discovered that soy gave me a headache, for example. After about a year of no soy, I went back to eating my favorite takeout food: Chinese.

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How this food survey is going

Last month I decided it was time to try an elimination diet once again to identify what I was eating that was still causing my bloating and joint pain. These aren’t necessarily symptoms of my MG, but they definitely affect quality of life. Based on research and discussions with my husband, I opted to try the carnivore diet as my elimination diet of choice.

For the past month, I’ve been eating more fish, chicken, pork, beef, and some fruit. I’m following what’s called a “dirty” or plant-based carnivore approach. I know certain foods, including watermelon, don’t affect me. Since it’s one of my favorite fruits, I didn’t cut that out.

I kept eating this way for two weeks before starting to add things back. I need sauces to help move food down my throat, so I tried a barbecue sauce we always use. The next day I woke up with a headache. I looked at the ingredients a little more closely and saw it was made with soy. Well, all right, then. Soy definitely remains a food that my body doesn’t like.

A few days later I tried some of my son’s homemade bread with supper. I woke up with the joints in my hands hurting. I waited a few days and tried another piece. Hands hurt again. Looks like I have a wheat sensitivity.

Next on the food add-back list was oatmeal. And not prepackaged oatmeal because guess what? It’s made with soy. Old-fashioned oats for breakfast, please. No noticeable reaction. Wahoo!

My home health aide made me a spread with Greek yogurt. Within 20 minutes I had a cough because my increased phlegm was going down my trachea (windpipe) and not my esophagus (throat or food pipe). I stopped consuming dairy and began drinking water to help thin the phlegm. Twenty minutes later, the coughing stopped.

I tested this dairy theory a few days later by adding some hard cheese to my meal. Coughing ensued. No cheese. I’ll be exploring if I have a lactose or whey sensitivity later, but it’s safe to say that I’ll be avoiding dairy going forward.

Holistic and natural treatments, such as monitoring the foods I eat, aren’t going to cure my MG. What they will do is help me identify foods that don’t agree with my body, so I can avoid them and reduce my inflammation triggers. The less my body has to work at fighting things it doesn’t like, the more the MG plays nice and seems to respond better to treatment.

So yes, I’m on the carnivore diet, but not because it’s the cool thing to do or the current fad. It’s in hopes of finding the food sensitivities that trigger inflammation and eliminating them while being able to maintain this way of eating for the long haul.

Note: Myasthenia Gravis News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Myasthenia Gravis News or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to myasthenia gravis.