The other morning I headed out to run my regular 5km route at our cottage. A few minutes into my route, I realized I was having a lot of trouble with my breathing. My airways felt really tight and my sinuses felt full. I don’t have asthma, but I wondered briefly if this is what asthma feels like. I stopped a number of times and cleared my throat, but my breathing took a long time to settle.
Then I remembered my dietary transgressions in the last few days had involved ICE CREAM!
Yes, with the beautiful weather this week, I treated myself and my kids to some chocolate ice cream. A rarity for me – because I have had a life-long dairy sensitivity. I joke with my family that I will have my “annual” ice cream cone on the August long weekend when we are on holiday. I self-discovered my dairy sensitivity as a child when my Mother would encourage me to drink milk. We lived in a farming community and, like many families, cow’s milk was always on the dinner table.
I recall saying to her when I was about 10 years old that I couldn’t breathe when I drank milk. It was as if a giant web of mucous (YUCK) covered my throat and I couldn’t get a full breath. I also suffered terribly with eczema. Well, my mother was no fool and figured out that without milk, my eczema improved as did my breathing complaints. Conventional testing denied any allergy to dairy, but I knew better! Only later in life when I discovered food sensitivity testing was my problem with all things cow confirmed.
I still avoid dairy products and beef to this day and that morning’s breathless run was a great reminder WHY. Oh well, sometimes experience is the best teacher!