Food Triggers: Learning How to Identify Them

As I sat in my seat on the plane and watched the stewardess push the snack and beverage cart down the aisle, I didn’t have to wait for her to ask me what drink I would choose. It’s always the same thing, tomato juice with black pepper. While I sipped on my tomato juice, I reflected on how over the years my body has reacted differently, to certain foods, at various points of my life.

What was triggering my severe flares?

When I was younger, my eczema was quite severe to the point that my skin was open, oozing, and bloody. This resulted in very limited range of motion in my arms and legs. It was so bad, it felt like my body was in a constant state of flaring. Then there were times, the flares were off the charts. We knew something had triggered the flare to worsen, but the question was always what?

How could I document and manage my flares at the same time?

People would often suggest keeping a journal, and while in practice that made a lot of sense, the reality was, it wasn’t always so easy to execute. Trying to manage eczema felt (and sometimes still feels) like a full-time job and identifying patterns of what set things off, felt like a daunting task.  So let me share with you how we finally figured out one of my triggers.

When events were aligned to my eczema flares?

When I was a little girl, every time I was invited to a wedding or a special function, it was always filled with lots of excitement. However, all that excitement would quickly wear off, as it followed by a sleepless night of intense scratching to the point, I would be bleeding. Being that I was a little girl, and didn’t attend weddings all the time, we didn’t connect the dots.

Around the same time, whenever we would travel by plane, my skin would go nuts! Flaming red from head to toe, itching out of control. And then one day, I had a lightbulb moment, I realized whenever I am on a plane, I always order tomato juice! That was the same drink I chose from the bar, when I attended weddings or functions. For many years after that I avoided drinking tomato juice. And then at some point in my mid 20’s I decided to give it a try, and my body didn’t seem to care too much!

What did I take note of?

The key was trying to notice patterns when my skin would flare. I would take mental notes:

• What was happening just before the trigger began?
• Where was I?
• Did I just eat something new or something maybe I hadn’t had in a long time?
• Perhaps, I just visited someone or someplace that I don’t usually go to, and there’s something I was coming in-contact with.

Sometimes it can weeks or in this case years to identify the triggers.

How do I document my triggers now?

Keeping track of the events has been made so much easier these days, because of technology. While there’s always a basic pen and paper, using technology can really help save time, and make it less cumbersome. Using the notepad app, or taking photos on a smartphone, or even better an app like EczemaWise which is specifically designed for this. Whichever one you choose, keeping track of where and when triggers occur, over should help identify triggers