almond overkill

{found via pinterest from me & the mountains}

i realized yesterday that i forgot to share this story. i even went back this morning and double-checked because i really thought i would have, but not so much.

this story kind of starts way back after keane was first born. i was on three different kinds of meds to help me heal from the emergency c-section, and one of them was 800 mg ibuprofen. keane was probably two weeks old when i started breaking out in hives all over the place. it happened slowly, over the course of a few days. at first i was just a little itchy. it slowly spread, and i ended up in urgent care with a slightly baffled PA who told me to just stop taking everything i was taking. she thought it was probably the ibuprofen, even though i had never had a reaction before. she said ibuprofen was one of those things that can build up in your system.

after adele was born i figured it had been long enough since i had a reaction to it, and had taken smaller doses in the meantime with no reaction whatsoever. so i went ahead and took some of the ibuprofen prescribed after my c-section with her {gotta love those tiny non-child-bearing hips}. after a week or two my lips swelled up.

therefore, 800 mg ibuprofen is not exactly my friend.

well. apparently almonds can build up in my system too.

this is particularly heartbreaking because i really like almonds. i have never had any kind of reaction to them either. ever. but while we were doing our cleanse i ate a lot of almonds for the first week or so. we bought a huge bag of them since they were one of the few snack foods we could eat. we used a bunch of those almonds to make almond butter, and i proceeded to have plain almonds for a snack, and to slather almond butter all over celery {and sometimes carrots and other crudités too} to add taste and calories to the veggies. they were my constant go-to.

for the first few days of my legs being super itchy i really didn't think much of it. it was fairly cold outside, i like taking hot showers, hence i had dry skin. not a big deal.

the day they turned into hives, and ended up all over my legs, and started spreading to my stomach i realized there might be a bigger problem than dry winter skin.

i took some benadryl and stopped eating almonds, and over the course of a couple days the hives went down.

i've only had a couple of almonds since, and i'm rather afraid to drink any of the kids' almond milk.

i told peter i think this explains why i like to mix it up and vary my diet so much. i've never liked to eat the same thing back to back to back day after day for more than a couple days at a time. i like trying new things, and i get sick of things rather quickly. the only thing that i have every single day is coffee.

anyway, our cleanse has now been over for a while and i'm back to eating sugar. i've cut back on certain foods that i now realize have sugar {or more sugar than i thought} and still add in more vegetables to my everyday eating. and stay away from having as many carbs as i was before. i have made some subtle changes, but i still have a wicked sweet tooth.

and i'm probably about to overdo it on peanut butter because i've been rather obsessed with a combination of peanut butter, honey, and graham cracker crumbs for the last two weeks or so. sometimes i add in some cheerios, sometimes oats, but man is it good.

so good that i need to stop eating it.

have you ever had an out-of-nowhere reaction to food? or is it just me?
{i'm getting itchy just thinking about this again...}

happy thursday!

xoxo