Hello, world. So nice to see you again.

Today I made an apple crisp and put cardamom instead of cinnamon because the words looked similar to me and I failed to notice that cardamom is not cinnamon-colored at all. I added some cinnamon and decided to give it a try anyway. It was surprisingly good—even after I went and fell asleep and left the crisp in the oven for nearly an hour and a half. We added some water and put it back in the oven to reconstitute itself. This is an example of how useless I am after four days of intense headache.

I’ve had a migraine since Friday morning. A bad one. That’s four days. My skin’s all splotchy and red and dry. I haven’t been able to stay hydrated no matter how much water I drink. And sleeping, which is the only thing that sounds good to me, is difficult. Four days out of an intensive grad school schedule is bad news, but reading, writing or even constructive thinking has been out of the question. I’ve cooked some, because it gets my blood flowing a little to move around and because it doesn’t involve reading or complex thinking. And while chopping and organizing and cooking things, I’m somewhat distracted from the pain.

The worst thing is I know it’s my own fault. Yep, I brought it all on myself. I ate cake without reading the ingredients list. I knew better. I’ve known I’m allergic to corn and all its products for a couple of years now, and it’s taken that long to learn all of the places that corn can lurk. I read somewhere that of an average 10,000 items in a supermarket, 2,500 of them have corn in some form. And I believe it. Once you know all its names, its shocking how many things you can’t eat. Dextrose, maltodextrin, sorbital, corn syrup, modified starch … And in Britain, it goes by different names: maize starch, glucose syrup … And even worse, more and more corn products are being developed every day and more and more food companies are switching to these ingredients, which are often cheaper sources of such things as citric acid, alcohol for vanilla extraction, anti-caking agents for salt, powdered sugar, spices …


Now, luckily, I’m not as allergic as some—I don’t have anaphylactic reactions, and I haven’t noticed a reaction to many things that others are unable to tolerate. And I’m not also allergic to wheat or dairy or something. But even just the corn is pretty extreme. For instance, last summer, I was on two daily medications (unrelated to corn allergies). I let one of the prescriptions run out and just didn’t bother to take it for about a month. When I got it refilled, I started feeling not so hot and by the end of the first week I had a horrible headache. When I tried to figure out the trigger (I can often tell when a headache is corn-based) I suddenly had the idea to look at my medicine labels—sure enough, they were made up of the drugs in a corn starch base! So I switched to new brands with different bases (though these bases are of things that can be derived from corn, they aren’t always, and I had no choice but to try them. They seemed better). Another example of the sensitivity is that I seemed to get all tired and cranky and headachy when I ate orange cheese. Hm. That’s weird. I looked at ingredients and the only thing the orange foods had in common was annatto, a plant-based coloring. It kept happening, so I assumed I had a separate allergy to annatto and stopped eating orange foods. Then once I looked at a package of organic mac-n-cheese and there it was: annatto (annatto, corn starch). Aargh. So, bottom line, yes, I’m sure beyond a doubt that it’s corn.

This time round I was at a friend’s birthday party and after a couple of glasses of wine, I made the very very stupid decision to have a tiny piece of cake without being able to read the ingredients list. I knew better. So why did I do it? I don’t think it’s just the wine to be blamed for my lack of good judgment here. I think it’s this:

Sometimes, I just get sick of the whole thing. Tired of reading labels and not being able to snack at public events. Tired of trying to pick and choose what I can eat without having to either offend or explain to the host. I don’t want to be the person who always talks about her food issues, especially given that it’s so weird that many have a hard time believing I’m not imagining it. Sometimes, it just seems easier to take the risk and eat something. Of course that’s crazy. Cause then I get three or four days of horrendous headaches and tears and stretching and hot/cold showers and drinking gallons of water and tea to try and clear my system and not being able to take pain killers because they are all (and I do mean all) based either obviously in corn starch or in a range of bases that may be derived from corn but aren’t always.

Here in the UK, I’ve had to switch my prescriptions and just cut one out altogether because there was no corn-free version. My migraine medication (which rarely works for very long, if at all) is now in the squirt-up-my-nose form. And while the outside box of my birth control pills says the inactive ingredients are other than corn, I just realized that the insert list says maize starch. Which means I’m taking a tiny pill of poison every day, just so I have a nice baseline of irritation in my system at all times. I’m furious, but I’ve done my research and there are no other options. I’m on the pill partly because it controls hormone headaches, so I could quit and trade off one kind of headache for another. But even then I’d also have to find a new contraceptive method and none are really appealing to me. So, a tiny bit of poison every day until I get home to the States. (yes, I will talk to my doctor and look for other options, but some that would work in the US I know are not available here and others involve risks I’d rather not take.)

On the other hand, I feel better now and I have renewed faith that it will always stop hurting eventually and that I can get through it without resorting to stabbing myself in the head with a steel rod, which sometimes sounds like the best plan. If I can get a good night’s sleep tonight, all should be well by morning.