Reintroduction

[Meg1]

I only have 7 days to reinstate foods before I travel to Alaska. Can I shorten the 30 days to 28 and then start reintroduction? If not, can I shorten the reintroduction of foods from 3 days to 2?

 

[Meg1]

I will only have 7 days to reintroduce foods before I travel to Alaska. I realize this is not ideal. The best options will not be available in the airport or on the trains in Alaska.

What are some options for me? Can I shorten the 30 days to 28? If not, can I reintroduce foods every other day instead of every 3? I really want to know how I respond to dairy, gluten, peanut butter, wine, and sugar. If a food does not bother me day 1 can I introduce a different food day 2?

ie. day 1 : drink orange juice with breakfast and put honey on sweet potato + whole foods 

no effects so

Day 2: peanut butter on apple + whole foods

digestive issues so wait until day 4 for gluten

Any ideas? 

[Jihanna]

I wouldn't do either, personally. The 30 days are intended to be finished fully in order to give you the best possible baseline, and the 2 days in between each reintroduced food is meant to give time to return to baseline before the next test (some reactions aren't evident the same day but might be noticeable the following day, for instance). If you have a particularly nasty reaction to something, you might even need to give an extra day or two to recover before jumping into a new food test.

What I'd probably do in your shoes is look at what foods I'm likely to need to be able to eat while in Alaska, and use that to determine how I'm going to reintroduce... or skip one reintroduction this time and leave that food out while traveling, probably gluten since it's relatively easy to avoid it (though if you'll be on a cruise, you'd want to verify there will be gluten-free options available). If skipping a group, then once home I'd just do a quick W30 reset (just to return to baseline, so at least 3 days but possibly more like a week for me, based on my own experience) and then test that final group so I can learn how I react to it.

That's me, though... and ultimately this is all about you finding out how you react to the foods, so it's your decision on how you want to handle the tail end and your reintroduction.

[Jihanna]

I do see that my post from the other topic was shifted over, but I had already typed up some additional thoughts here... so hopefully that's okay

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If you're doing the quick reintroduction, you don't really have to test added sugars separately. It's likely to be present in at least some of the foods you reintroduce (and in your diet afterward unless you purposefully remove it again)... but definitely do separate tests for legumes, non-gluten grains, dairy, and gluten grains. The 2-day recovery period between test days is important, because not all reactions happen on the same day and it's possible to see reactions outside of the gut, too. If you shorten the recovery period and experience reaction(s) during the next test, you can't say without doubt that the reaction is due to one but not the other.

As an example of delayed reactions -- I have a dairy allergy (I've known this since I was a kid, but it definitely didn't keep me off dairy, ugh). I was actually going to skip dairy reintroduction my first time through because I knew about that allergy, but I'm glad I tested it! I grew up with this idea that I processed dairy perfectly fine, but that it gave me rashes if I had too much, so I limited it overall to avoid the rashes. I learned during reintroduction that most dairy leads to indigestion within 15 minutes of eating it, followed by heartburn and sometimes nausea. In a day or two, however, these little water-filled bumps (which I now know is dyshidrotic eczema) pop up on my hands. As far as I can tell, I don't get a rash anymore, though I do feel "itchier" when I've had dairy on consecutive days (because intelligent me still didn't take it totally out of her diet, despite the intention to do so!).

I also needed about 5 days to recover from the effects of my peanut test (I did a slow-roll reintro to allow me to test specific foods within the larger groups, so I could make more informed post-W30 dietary choices), so I always suggest being open to flexibility in terms of giving your body the time it needs to recover before doing another test.

Good luck to you, however you decide to move forward with your experience!

[Meg1]

Thank you so much for your feedback!