Lettuce

So sorry this has been affecting you like this!

Just from friends I know who have major food problems, I could say this, first: it is typically most likely that you have one or two underlying issues that are causing big, widespread problems, than that you have dozens of small issues (like having dozens of allergies, as an example).

Second, from the same experience.
- if you react to both raw AND cooked veggies, you can be pretty sure that the protein in these veggies is not the issue - cooking typically denatures the proteins and therefore folks with protein issues (aka allergic reactions) tend to be able to eat the cooked veggies).

- you mentioned veggies but not fruit - can you have fruit? If so, and you are wondering about fiber, it can be helpful (for both you AND to help any doctors one forward more quickly) to see if the highest fiber foods match to your worst reactions, and your most tolerate foods match to the least reactions, you know?

- there are some diseases and disorders that can cause your body to start having a LOT of problems with a LOT of foods due to damage or inflammation they cause in the gut - even when these foods are not initially part of the problem. Some of these include lactose intolerance, celiac disease, Crohn's disease, certain food intolerances to commonly eaten foods (like gluten, casein, annatto - a common dye known to cause gut issues in a percentage of the population - xanthan gum). I believe that extra fiber does make some of these much worse, if damage is already present, actually.

- vitamin or nutrient deficiencies, or gut bacteria deficiencies. Veggies and fruits need to be broken down be certain enzymes and bacteria in the gut. If you are lacking in these, then they don't get broken down properly and can cause big problems and pain. And certain vitamins and/or minerals are needed for many enzymes to be made, so if you are low in some of them, you may not make enough of the enzyme. If you aren't taking any vitamin supplements, and you can, you may want to consider it, as it sounds like your diet has a lot of limitations that may be impacting this.

- There are some sensitivities that develop to certain consituents that are IN our foods. One example is salicylate - these are in huge numbers of our veggies, but unless you know about them, you wouldn't see a connection between a large number of foods (good website for salicylates - http://salicylatesensitivity.com/about/food-guide/ ). Sometimes, you can have more than one substance that is an issue, so a person can't rule out . For example, I know some folks to have problems with foods high in oxalates and foods high in salicylates, and that knocks out huge amounts of produce. However...plain lettuce is good with both of these issues, so neither seem likely to be the singular cause of issues. Might not hurt to explore their 'what to eat' diets, though, in case something pings for you. And exploring forums for folks who have this can often be helpful, because people WITH odd sensitivities like this frequently had to search for a while before they found answers, and sometimes, information they encountered along the way may be what YOU actually have wrong, you know?

- And a weird one, but one that I have myself - it may be something ON the veggies. I have some issues with what seem to be certain chemicals that are commonly used on produce as pest control agents (both chemicals used with conventional produce AND with different ones used with organic). The thing is, the big farms nowadays tend to use the same pesticide agents, so if you react to them? You start reacting to ALL produce, nearly, if you buy it from the stores. I finally started being able to tolerate produce when I grew my own, or when I interviewed farmers at farmer's markets and found some that hadn't used pesticides or pest control agents I couldn't tolerate (for example, neem oil on organic products really messes me up).

- one last one - you could check out something called a mast cell activation disorder, potentially. I would check out support groups first, before medical sites - even for basic information - because the medical sites are out of date and tend to mention only the worst reactions as though that's all there is. When in fact, this disorder can cause a lot of pain and problems in just one system - like the gut - to a huge number of things - like all veggies. It is a rare disorder, honestly, so I'd only check it out if nothing else pans out. But it might help knowing the term anyway, if you get desperate.

Good luck, hon, and hope you can have more food soon!

Why a drinkable probiotic? A pill will be just as good and a heap of a lot cheaper. If you know someone with a Costco membership, Nature's Bounty is a good brand. No need to buy stuff off the internet. ( I even think walmart sells nature's bounty).

PB8 is my favorite probiotic. I usually buy it from vitacost. Much cheaper than a drinkable, unless you just like drinking yogurts.

Yes - they worked fairly well. For those talking about probiotics and that pills are just as good - no, they aren't, at least not most of them. The listed probiotic counts for probiotics are for how many live bacteria there were ONLY at the time of packaging. Unless the probiotic is one that requires refrigeration (which a few pills do, but almost all liquids I've seen do), to put the bacteria into a dormancy, then the bacteria begin to die off as soon as they are packaged, basically. So any probiotic that isn't refrigerated tends to be worse than ones that are.