so i’ve been doing this for about 2 months now: logging every single meal, the time i ate it, how much, and then waiting to see what happens. portion size matters, time of day matters, whether i’d already had a flare that day matters. i’m tracking dermographism, flushing, tachycardia, how fast the reaction starts, how long it takes to settle. it’s meticulous.
my allergist was sort of… noncommittal about it when i showed him my logs. he said “that’s thorough” and then moved on to the next appointment. didn’t really use it.
so now i’m wondering: am i doing this for him, or for me? because the thing is, if i don’t do this work, nobody else will. my partner can see when i’m flushed or when my heart’s doing weird stuff, but he can’t see the pattern. he doesn’t know that flushing at 3pm after eating at 1pm is different than flushing at 10pm after eating nothing.
the invisible pattern work: that’s entirely on me. i’ve found correlations my docs haven’t mentioned (like how my H1 blocker onset timing changes depending on what food triggered the reaction). but i had to notice that myself because nobody was looking at my data with me. does anyone else’s doctor actually want this level of detail, or is pattern tracking just something we end up doing alone?