After my food allergy test I decide to start adding back in a few new foods to se what happened and in my last post mentioned I was adding in nightshades.  Last week I had some eggplant, that seemed OK.  On Sunday I had Venison Chili which was AWESOME.  I had another bowl of the chili last night to finish it off.  The results – today my weird arm symptoms and general brain fog are back with a vengeance.   My upper arms feel like I just did about 100 push-ups, like they did months ago before I bit the bullet and went AIP.   My head just is not all there and I haven’t experienced this for months on AIP either.    So, I think the answer to the question on the tomatoes is Not to Eat for me.

This could still be eggs if the reaction takes a while to build up in my system but I’m done with nightshades for the near future and we’ll see if this goes away in a week or so while still eating eggs.  If not then the eggs go too and I’ll be back on pure AIP.

Obviously my immune system is getting triggered by something and causing an inflammation response.  This has to be one of three things – saponins, lectins or lysozyme.  Saponins or lectins are the culprit in nightshades, lysozyme in egg whites.  After a bit of reading I’m betting on saponins.   As The Paleo Mom explains, nightshades are problematic and

“They tend to be even more problematic for those with autoimmune disease and of all the foods restricted in the autoimmune protocol, are probably the least likely to be successfully reintroduced, especially tomatoes and chilies.”

Yep, I unsuccessfully introduced those two foods on Sunday.   Paleo Mom goes on to say that tomatoes in particular have a saponin called a-tomatine and (my bold):

“Very importantly for those with autoimmune conditions, saponins, such as α-tomatine, have adjuvant activity. An adjuvant is a chemical that stimulates and exaggerates an immune response. The glycoalkaloid α-tomatine is such a potent adjuvant that it is used in vaccines to ensure that the recipient develops immunity against the virus they are being inoculated against.”

This seems to fit, the tomato seems to have my immune system on high alert right now and it is going after my head and arms.

My bigger question which is still unanswered is what the heck is the underlying autoimmune condition that I’m dealing with?   Last year both Dr. Bowen and Dr. Shrivatsal tested me for about every AI condition known to man when we were trying to figure out what was going on with my feet being numb.  Nothing showed up except Epstein-Barr reactivation.   This does not seem like EBV and is more an immune response plus the EBV seems to have been in check once I got to 3mg of Naltrexone daily.   I’m thinking maybe it is time to retest for some of these disorders and see what the real problem is and what my immune system is in the process of destroying.

Regardless, I know what to do and that is AIP.  AIP has worked get rid of this before and it will work to get rid of it again.  Hopefully by next week my head will be clear and my arms will be feeling back to normal.   Until then I’ll be taking it a bit easy for a few days.