FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, 1 - a quick "draft" about the diet

QUESTION OF THE DAY -  WHY ARE YOU INTRODUCING US TO YET ANOTHER DIET?  

ANSWER(s): 

• I'M NOT!
• But, I have received a number of questions about "this Italian diet" and some people have raised concerns that the foods on this list that I have dubbed the INDD (Italian Nickel Detox Diet), don't jive with what they knew from other lists ... well ...   

• Yes, they actually do!

• As you may have noticed - none of the lists out there that cover dietary nickel content have ever matched.  
• This is merely a template for how to manage the diet, but doesn't solve the issue of variance in the data on nickel content collected from region to region. Ni content varies from growing region to growing region, from farm to farm, and from day to day.  This is how nature works. 

• This template provides you with a STRUCTURE, but it isn't designed to replace any list your doctor has given you ... 
• But hopefully it will complement what you have been provided till now.  Hopefully, it can work in tandem with most information sheets handed out by North American health providers, since their info is generally based on the research coming out of Europe on the subject of SNAS. 

• To find the links to the databases and the Ni App to count Nickel in your food, please go right => and click on the links I provided.  

• The INDD has merely counted the nickel ugs for you, and created a list you can use to stay well below 150 ug (or parts per million) per day.  This is the daily threshold of dietary nickel content that the studies say we need to stay below in order to reverse symptoms and remain non-reactive.  When we are better, we can slowly increase up to 250 ug in many cases. 

• The second column includes the mid-range nickel foods, and the third column, if you are lucky enough to achieve enough healing, are the "avoid foods" that you might be able to add back to your diet, with extreme, caution, in rotation - one day!

• But, it could reduce your frustration about how to go about finding and eating nutrient-dense foods, especially during the early days of the diet, or in the "detox" phase, while you allow your body to adjust to avoiding dietary nickel.
• SO, to help us all out, I took the diet, created a draft and added some average Nickel values beside most of the foods for the LOW/YES (or "detox") column, and a few in the MODERATE (use with caution/sparingly) column.  The nickel values/ug are in the colour pink.  
• I have also included an [H] where appropriate to indicate high histamine foods which can provoke reactions along with our Ni allergic reactions.  Please proceed with caution if you are HIT intolerant, or be aware that if a low Ni food is causing you issues, it may not be because the "nickel charts" are wrong, or because you are "super sensitive" to minuscule amounts of Ni, but because you may be highly histamine reactive - or histamine intolerant (HIT).  Your body may be producing too much histamine along the H2 pathway.  
• This is just a DRAFT document - a working document, if you will ... so I will eventually take it down and replace it as time goes on.

• I recommend you get into the habit of looking up Ni values yourself on the App or the online documents I already introduced you to here in the blog [go right, see the list of links, it is all there].  It gets easier if you do this, as you will eventually have it all committed to memory.  

• It is based on 100 gram units of measure 

• Just for fun, you can create a one-day menu plan (or a few) from column 1, and add up the ugs per serving, and total everything up for the day.  
• My guess is that you will end up ALWAYS well under 150 ug.  

• That was the point of this structure - the LOW list is meant to be strictly adhered to for "detox' weeks, and used as a baseline when you are feeling better and can add some foods back that are a little higher.  
• The MODERATE list is to be used to enhance your diet after "detox phase" ... and so on ... 
  HAPPY COUNTING and HAPPY MEAL PLANNING!!
• 

FAQ - Ways to think about this "allergy of accumulation"

From my Facebook post of May 24th, 2017
Why we have to keep total exposure in mind beyond Ni accumulation in our foods. An example from my own life - recently, I had some exposure to my other big allergy - formaldehyde releasers. So, my hand was acting up. A bit of DE, some cracking and peeling. Then a chest rash, then a rash all over my shoulder blade. I haven't changed my laundry products, so I doubted that the chest rash was a formaldehyde reaction. I had worn a bra with underwire a couple of weeks ago, with a mild reaction, but it had cleared up, and bang suddenly it was back 5-fold. Plus the back rash. My flirtation with chocolate was behind me, and that reaction had subsided. But I had some bread that turned out to have soy in it (I am slightly IgE allergic to soy, plus the nickel allergy), so another reaction. By last night, the itching was sooooo bad, after a low nickel meal. WTF, I asked myself.

Then I took a good look in the mirror. No eye swelling, hmmm ... but in my ears - a pair of gold hoop earrings! I have always been able to wear 18k gold and above, and these are the earrings I default to when I do try to wear jewellery these days. I took them off, had a shower, and didn't even bother with taking any of my rescue meds or extra vitamin C. I simply went to bed, and meditated my way through itching so intense it felt like nerve pain. Woke up this morning much improved. A food reaction doesn't reverse this quickly with me. My body is hopefully letting go of the last of the soy. But I took a good look at the earings, with a magnifying glass, and yep ... I had assumed they were 18k, but nope, they are 10k! Probably up to 8% nickel. Had them on for about 4 days, and with each day the tiny rashes were growing.
Today, no itching. Coincidence, or total accumulation and exposure?

That's today's aha moment!

Getting Started, Part 3 - Rationale for My Approach

The dietary approach that I am following personally, is informally dubbed by a few of us SNASies, as the INDD (Italian Nickel Detox Diet).  It is loosely based on the Mediterranean diet, and more specifically on the  Italian Low Nickel Detox Diet, adapted from Italian FB group - Allergia al Nichel - Il gruppo originale! -  ... with permission of the group's administrator, Mavie Aliena.  Versions of this diet are utilized and recommended by the medical community, and backed by extensive research, in Italy and Denmark.

A similar approach also seems to be getting more and more recognition  by researchers and medical professionals in the US and Canada, but I believe the lists that patients get here, often do not go into enough detail, or provide enough education to help us manage the fact that SNAS is allergy to accumulation (of nickel) while at the same time, it can provoke or exacerbate additional symptoms of excess histamine production in our bodies.  The INDD does take into account that to achieve symptom relief, it's important to give ourselves at least an eight (8) week period on both - a very low nickel diet combined with ideally, a low histamine diet as well.  This approach assumese that certain high histamine foods can keep us in cycles of reactions that may not be directly related to the accumulation of nickel in our bodies. This is what happened to me!  My body was very reactive even to low nickel foods, initially, but when I addressed the need to stay away from histamine-loaded foods, as well as nickel-loaded foods, my symptoms began to slow down and resolve.  Unfortunately, I hadn't realized that there was a whole diet in Italy that addressed this 2-prong approach, and I thought that this was a situation unique to my body.  So, I would constantly have to consult several different lists as well as the nickel "counting" lists and the Ni App.   When I discovered the Italian groups I was thrilled!

Their philosophy is that during the "detox" period, this combined approach allows the body time to naturally "detox", or naturally eliminate the nickel in our digestive tract from our former nickel-loaded diet, while helping reduce symptoms more quickly than the low nickel diet alone. 

The Mediterranean Diet Pyramid
Modifications for the INDD (or  a Modified Mediterranean Diet for SNAS):
While we must exclude most whole grains, nuts and legumes, and a number of dark green vegetables during the detox phase of the INDD,  this pyramid depicts the Mediterranean approach - We must also, ideally include perhaps more meet, fish and eggs initially, during the nickel detox period, the focus is on whole foods, variety in choices, drinking water always, and daily physical activity.   

In other words, or to reiterate - the INDD goes a step further in the early stages of the low nickel diet that is normally recommended here in North America, because it  embeds in its philosophy the role of histamine production in our GI systems, and the role that histamine reduction n symptom plays with allergies that manifest through the same or parallel pathways in our bodies.  So, it is intentionally designed to also reduce our consumption of high histamine, and histamine liberating foods.  The good news is that many high nickel foods are already, coincidentally high in histamine, so it only takes a few tweaks to customize the "dual" approach! The basic theory is that Healing takes longer if we consume too many histamine foods during the detox period of the low nickel diet, because they provoke similar symptoms in a vast majority of people with SNAS.

I think it is really important to learn about the nickel content of your food, and not just follow lists that have been provided to us, which can be either outdated or not relevant to our geographic area, or to the area where our foods are grown.  I know, this just sounds like too much! But it becomes important in the context of this allergy being one of "accumulation" - Researchers have suggested that to be free of symptoms, you must eat below the threshold of 150 ug total dietary nickel per day. Other researches peg it as high as 250 ug per day. Many of our peers say they actually need to be as low as 100 or fewer ug per day ... Children under 12 also must consume below 100 ug of nickel per day. 

All this takes time, and it isn't always completely necessary to change your life overnight, unless you are very ill.  Start with the basics - Part 1, and move toward starting the full INDD (Italian nickel detox diet), in Part 2, after a week or 10 days.  

The "Getting Started, Part 1" document is something I created myself, distilled from and supported by research, and accepted practices by health providers who deal with the allergy around the world. I believe it is quite comprehensive enough to get new SNASies started.

"Getting Started, Part 2", is the INDD in detail, translated from the Italian, and adjusted to reflect foods available in North America.  It may continue to be adjusted over time, as we learn more.  Both these posts will be edited and revised soon, to reflect my own learnings as I move through the diet and the research.  And of course, we should maintain a practice of checking the Ni content in foods lists (the Ni App and/or the other lists I have included in the side-bar of this blog.

Getting Started on the Low Nickel Diet, Part 2 - The INDD (Italian Nickel Detox Diet)

*Revised April 20, 2017*
Listed here is an updated version of the Italian Nickel Detox Diet. Adapted from the Italian online community "ALLERGIA AL NICHEL: il gruppo originale!" (on Facebook) 

The "Key to the Diet" page provides a more or less direct translation of the Italian original text, and hopefully it clarifies some questions, and key concerns that Canadians and Americans have around how to manage the diet.

The KEY is still too lengthy and disjointed, but that is how the Italian version reads.  In time I will continue to edit and re-organize it and the diet itself to meet our needs.  A work in progress ...

The food charts themselves have been partially adjusted to include some common food names and examples that weren't included in the Italian version.  These are highlighted in red.