B12 and salicylates and the descent into food addiction

[stephbg]

No, this is still not the post about my party (I have a sneaking suspicion that what happened at the party should probably stay at the party) but I should nake some food/medical notes. There's potential good news in there, which was only revealed by me being bad, so clearly I'm going to have to keep being bad every now and then.



In approximate order (but otherwise lacking scientific robustness):

I started taking a liquid form of B12 suspended in alcohol, to which I did not react badly. That was nice.

I ate a slice of home make orange and almond birthday cake gifted to me by the lovely delicious_irony (and what a perfect username for such a source). An hour later I did not experience the anticipated salicylate reaction (mostly breathing difficulty, phlegm, sinus pressure). Awesome, I thought. I'll have some more.

I ate more cake, and was not punished in the expected fashion. This was nice. I got hungry.

I ate some anti-pasto party leftovers. Normally anything in the anti-pasto family would floor me, and I was a little concerned that some of it had been out of the fridge for a while. But no, I survived the next couple of hours unscathed. The rest of the cake followed forthwith.

This was all very atypical, and it occurred to me that perhaps the hard-fought B12 in my system was nudging it somewhere towards normal. I think the last hint of control left me then. Hunger had nothing to do with it - it was all about pressing buttons in my brain.

I ate some more olives and fetta and sun-dried tomatoes, the last being an absolute red-flag item. This went on for a couple of days, mostly because I could not stop; the glutamates (natural flavours) were hitting me like a drug and I just hoovered everything down. I realised that I was in trouble and that I'd have to get the leftovers out of the house, but couldn't get them out before they were gone. I'm quite serious about the drug reference: I was getting high. Add to that mix girl hormones, insane pain levels and psychological factors after a big week and my behaviour is unsurprising. I let myself off the leash for a bit, but I thought I was getting away with it.

Now I'm starting to feel the effects of the processed food and glutamates (hellish headache and major fuzzbrain), but only the slightest of salicylate reactions (I'm breathing just fine). This bodes well for the future: salicylate tolerance means more fruit and veges. However, I need to go cold turkey to break the current addiction. It would be best if I ate as little as possible for the next day or two. I also need to go to the supermarket tomorrow and that will be a tough visit requiring major discipline.

In the last couple of days I've also read 1 1/2 Lee and Miller novels, so the obsessive/completist behaviour has started to generalise. If I let that go on I might reduce my world to the absolute minimum until I am in a virtual foetal position. I will hide at home and then in bed and cross the line into Depression. I'm hoping that this can be avoided.

BTW I studied addiction in second year psychology in 1989. It hasn't changed much since then, but it remains difficult to notice the early signs in oneself.

Comments

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I like this blog a lot, thanks for the rec. It reminds me of theoatmeal.com.