This is my favorite question these days when I tell people about my husband’s diet. It is meant innocently, of course. But sarcastically in my head I think “because we are super cool and trendy” or “because we are noble and we treat our bodies as temples.” In reality, my husband is on an extremely limited diet as a means to determine what is causing his body such pain when he eats.
Allow me to back up a bit. About a year ago, my husband Judd told me that he was going to see a GI doc because his throat felt tight when we eats. As though he was giving me the weather report he casually mentioned that he had “choked a couple of times.” That doc prescribed reflux medication. No surprise there – Judd has had reflux at different times in his adult life and his father has reflux.
Months later, Judd had no relief from the pain in his esophagus. In fact, it felt worse. Drugs were switched around and still no relief came. Finally an endoscopy revealed that he has EOE. EOE stands for Eosinophilic esophagitis and now you know why everyone calls it EOE.
According to the American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders:
“Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic, allergic inflammatory disease of the esophagus (the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach). It occurs when a type of white blood cell, the eosinophil, accumulates in the esophagus and persists despite acid-blocking medicine. The elevated number of eosinophils cause injury and inflammation to the esophagus. This damage may make eating difficult or uncomfortable, potentially resulting in poor growth, chronic pain, and/or difficulty swallowing.”
Food allergy testing gave us some information on possible culprits. We learned he is allergic to lots of things: peanuts, hazelnuts, navy beans, tomatoes . . . . seriously more than I can even remember off the top of my head. But to narrow down on the true cause, we were advised to do a total elimination diet. Here is how it works: for four weeks he cuts out all possible allergens. Then he will have an endoscopy to confirm that the triggers have cleared out of his body. If everything looks good, he gets to add back in meat, then another endoscopy four weeks later. Every four weeks he gets to add in another food group and he gets an endoscopy to let us know if the reintroduced food caused a reaction. In Judd’s case this will take 20 weeks if all goes well.
So there you have it. I’m sorry to report that we are in fact NOT trying to create a new fad diet. But if we did, we would name it something awesome. This blog will chronicle our journey as we aim to get Judd healthy. EOE is a newer diagnosis and we hope to connect and encourage others with EOE as well.
