In 2003 I did the first elimination diet where I had food reactions.

About 1-2 hours after eating a heavy, groggy stupor would come over me. A little like being very drunk, I guess, with no element of exhilaration. Maybe like being very drunk AND hung-over. I would often just go lie down. Later, I would stumble and drop things.

Over the next few days my mind would slowly clear.

Along with the groggy stupor, I was tense, paranoid, and anxious, prone to rages. My back and neck muscles were painfully tight. The day after eating the food my knees and elbows hurt.

In 2005 I did some more elimination diets, and I got sick from 90% of the foods I'd been eating!

My reactions this time were different, less severe. Sometimes I'd start to feel slightly bad pretty soon, thinking, maybe I'm just a little tired. 4 or 5 hours later I would definitely know I was sick. Mentally out of it, not able to read or think very well, not feeling able to do much physically. Lowered consciousness. It wasn't as severe as the groggy stupor I got from food reactions in 2003.

My reactions in 2005 lasted from 2 to 6 days - the egg white made me sick for 6 days!

I had a lot of pain around my kidneys, like my back was clenching around my kidneys; I'd need to lie down to rest my back. And lower back pain.

Corn gave me postnasal drip and red eyes. I irresistably needed to stuff my face, I tried to fill my belly full. I'd want sugar, hoping a sugar jolt could shake me out of the wooziness - it didn't. I'd feel anxious after eating carbs.

I felt mentally agitated often. Sometimes really severely. The day after eating three strawberries I felt so agitated that my thoughts were jumping out of time, not lying down nicely to connect to one another. And the strawberries also made me incredibly itchy, over my whole body and my face especially. My EYEBALLS were itching. I got IgE RAST testing for strawberries and I don't have an allergy to them. But strawberries have histamine, and maybe that was what made me so agitated and itchy. Other foods made me itch too, over my whole body.

I would have to pee often, just a little bit. It felt like my urethra was irritated, a hot feeling peeing.

After some foods, like a bowl of beans, I had mild diarrhea, though I never had diarrhea for days and days.

My knee, which was injured years ago, would get stiff. My little finger that had been sprained got swollen and stiff during the food reactions.

In 2005 I was sick on my back in bed, not able to sit up for more than a few seconds because my back hurt too much, and too woozy a lot of the time to even read a novel.

And strangely, the food reactions also felt good sometimes! Sometimes before the reaction really comes on, I first feel quite happy and vivid. And later, there was a mellow tranquilized high. Especially with corn. I was cheerfully chatty with cashiers. One asked me if I had drunk too much over Christmas! Maybe the word "corny" comes from this corn-fed jolliness?

Nowadays, when I have a food reaction, I feel more mildly woozy. My back and belly hurt sometimes and I feel mildly itchy. It still goes on a few days, though, and the day after eating the food I'm too sick to go out and face the world, though I'm not confined to bed.