My Fibromyalgia Food Sensitivity Story

There has been a lot of talk about #OwnVoices stories in fiction in recent years. One of my #OwnVoices stories has to do with  living with chronic pain from multiple sources. Here is part of that story.

There was one night a few years ago when I was miserable. My fibromyalgia was flaring, and I had heartburn. I took a heartburn med and propped myself up in bed to wait for at least my heartburn to go away. When my heartburn went away, so did most of my pain. It got down to non-flare level. That was weird.

A few months later, I had heartburn again, took the heartburn meds and both my heartburn and my pain went away.

After two more incidents when my heartburn and fibro pain went away after taking the heartburn medication. I became curious and started to research the medication I was taking, Zantac, ranitidine


It turns out  ranitidine is from a different class of antihistamines than other allergy medicines sold over-the-counter. I began to wonder, “Was my pain caused by an allergic reaction to something?” There had been some people I had met, in person and online, who suggested that for many people some of their fibromyalgia pain might be caused by food sensitivities. I didn’t believe them before, but now I had enough evidence to check into the possibility.

Here is one article, there are many, describing exactly what I was experiencing.

I did an elimination diet. I started with an 18 hour fast. I was almost pain-free. Then for the first day, I ate only rice. I didn't have any increase in my pain. I added chicken. No pain. When I added broccoli my pain flared. I went back to only rice and chicken. By adding one food at a time, I found what foods were triggering most of my fibro pain.

It was a complicated process because the pain wouldn’t show up until 30 minutes to 6 hours after eating the offending item. What made it more difficult was that I discovered I was reacting to corn, and anything derived from corn which I found out was in every vitamin and over-the-counter drug I was taking.

The list of foods I can eat without pain is shorter than the pain inducing foods, but I have found ways to cope. When I eat something I shouldn’t, ranitidine still stops the pain reaction.
I’m not saying this will work for everyone, but it works for me. I still have pain from changes in the weather and other causes, but I would say that I have reduced the occurrences of pain in half.

If you suffer from Fibromyalgia and wanted to try an elimination diet, I would recommend having corn be one of the first foods you try. It is in so many everyday prepared foods and over-the-counter meds that finding out early on would be useful.

Here is a link to a list of foods/ingredients containing or derived from corn. I react to most of them.

Corn Allergen List

And here is a link to the most common food allergens.

Most Common Food Allergens

I am in a lot less pain than I used to be, but now I have another #OwnVoices story.
Food sensitivities and a very limited diet.  More on that later.