Thread by @UntoNuggan

[Food, dietary restrictions]

Working on a mind map of my #MCAS triggers

This is part of the fermented/Aged Food branch. One intolerance has a cascade effect on other foods.

[food, dietary restrictions]

This mind map thing is really helping me process some feels and I think also it's less "here's my huge list of food intolerances" more "a few categories that have many sub categories"

Which is helping ease my internalized ableism tbh

[Food, dietary restrictions]

I know there's a lot of overlap with mast cell triggers, so in case this helps anyone here's my current mind map of #MCAS triggers

Help with captioning is appreciated.

[Food, dietary restrictions]

Nest on my to do list is a map of acceptable substitutions for #MCAS triggers.

[Food, dietary restrictions]

Just preemptively : maybe don't tell me right now if I probably react to X if I react to Y.

I am still emotionally processing the cocoa thing.

[Food, dietary restrictions]

I feel really lucky whenever someone else cooks me mast cell friendly food

Because cooking is SO. MUCH. LABOR.

But it's also exhausting to try to explain what I can and can't eat

So I'm trying to streamline the communication process

#MCAS

[ food, dietary restrictions]

Also this is not necessarily a perma ban on all the things

I wouldn't be able to leave my house

It's harm reduction, and limiting how many triggers I'm exposed to at once.

[Dietary restrictions]

The metaphor my PT uses

Is that my body is like a bathtub, and the water is histamine triggers

It's important to both drain the tub (meds, mostly, and access hacks) and limit triggers (pacing, dietary changes)

So the tub doesn't overflow is flare up

This has also been (accurately) described as the Devil's Arithmetic

"My reactions on a given day are the cumulative product of the amount of irritation my mast cells have experienced in the previous day or two. There is always a running tally in my mind"

mastattack.org/2016/04/the-de…

[Ableism]

I know folks with IgE mediated food allergies deal with a ton of microaggressions around "but why are you eating X today if you're so allergic to it"

These microaggressions makes the whole "how much I can tolerate changes day to day" that much more stressful

[Ableism]

I also know there are stereotypes about "picky eaters", "special snowflakes", and "fake allergies"

My gf has literal tests documenting allergies and gets told "people aren't allergic to honey."

So the whole mast cell thing is...yeah

[Ableism]

I'm really lucky that my inner onion ring of support is totally accepting of my histamine triggers, and just ask questions when they're trying to understand better

Not like, to play gotcha

Everyone deserves that level of support.

#MCAS