Egg On My Face

Boy, do I have egg on my face. Literally!

When I was younger, I used to occasionally get a floating pain in my chest and stomach. It was a very distinct sensation, and I never knew what caused it. Back then, I hadn’t considered food as a contributor to symptoms, so I didn’t think to ask myself if it was something I was eating. The sensation only happened once in a while, so I didn’t pay it much mind.

Eggs have always been a staple of my diet. As a kid I preferred scrambled eggs and omelets, and the occasional hard boiled egg.

Fast forward to today, I was recently having a recurrence of SIBO. This meant I had to pull back on a lot of grains, fruits, and veggies. So what did I do to compensate? I double downed on anything else I COULD eat, such as healthy fats and proteins, including eggs. In fact, I started eating A LOT of eggs, at least two, if not three a day. Most days they came in the form of hard boiled eggs.

Amongst all my digestive symptoms that came with the SIBO (I had a lot, believe me), I started having that weird, floating pain, too (the one I had once in a while when I was younger). But now, I was feeling it almost every day. I assumed it was part of the SIBO—just another symptom to add to the list.

Even though eggs are generally safe for people with SIBO, I decided to give them up temporarily, to see if it would make me feel better over all. Considering I had been eating so much of them, perhaps I had overexposed myself to eggs, causing a new sensitivity (this can happen when you eat too much of the same thing for too long).

To my surprise and delight, after four weeks without eggs, I did feel better! Not only did I feel better in general, but that weird, floating pain sensation stopped. But just to be absolutely sure it was the eggs, I had to complete the test by reintroducing eggs.

So that’s what I did. After four weeks with no eggs, I ate two hard boiled eggs, and the very next day, that floating pain occurred. It was settled, eggs were clearly bothering me.

So I went back to avoiding all eggs again.

But then I had an “aha!” moment!

Although I recognized that the pain the eggs brought on was the same pain I had occasionally felt as a younger me, I didn’t make the hard boiled connection. It hit me: Although I ate eggs frequently when I was younger, they we almost always scrambled or in an omelet. I rarely had hard boiled eggs. Similarly, I rarely felt that pain. And then I realized how much more frequently I was eating hard boiled eggs recently after getting SIBO.

Could it be? Was it not eggs as an entire food that was the problem, but rather, hard boiled eggs, specifically?

So, I recently conducted another experiment, an experiment I called, “Is Heather sensitive to ALL eggs? Or just hard boiled eggs?”

This past week I tried an omelet. A day later, no symptoms. Hmmmm. The following day, I tried another omelet. A day after that, still no symptoms.

Note: This is the standard method for testing any food once it’s been out of your system for a while—eat a small amount over the course of 2-3 days, and then wait a few days for a reaction. If nothing happens, you are safe to eat it, and experiment with higher dosages. Of course, if you have a reaction right away with only a small amount, it’s pretty safe to say that food is NOT for you!

So now this all made sense! Food sensitivities are unique and different than allergies, in that, the way a food is prepared can absolutely make a difference. For example, someone with a peanut allergy would have to avoid peanuts, peanut butter, and peanut oil. Whereas someone with a sensitivity might be sensitive to just the nut or just the oil. In my case, it’s clear that hard boiled eggs do cause a reaction, whereas other eggs do not.

When I thought about it more, I realized this applied to many other foods. I can eat bread with very few reactions, but give me a bagel, and I’m out for the count! Similarly, I’ve found nut butters more difficult to tolerate than actual nuts (even when there are no additional ingredients in the nut butters). Preparation can make a difference!

Try your own experiment with foods you suspect you may be reacting to. Try preparing the foods a different way - soak your grains, eat veggies raw or cooked, try nut butters instead of nuts, fresh pasta instead of dried pasta.

It’s always good to do these trials. You learn how much flexibility you can have in your diet. If you learn that a food is bothering you, it may be easier in some cases to just avoid the food entirely, and in other cases, it may be worth exploring to see if you can keep the food in your diet, and just prepare it a different way. You know what’s best for you! Happy experimenting!