Davin’s blog Occassional posts on Web design, technology, my faith, family, and so on

I’m corn intolerant

Isn't that a crazy thing to say?

Anyway, I've had this reaction to some foods for years, and I've been trying to figure it out. Lots of different pizzas would cause problems for me, some pasta sauces and salsas. Other foods with some sort of sauce as well. So, I was thinking it might be tomato or some sort of spice or additive or something.

Anyway, the more likely candidate now is corn. Which makes sense when you think about it. Salsas I would pretty much always eat on corn chips. Pizzas often have corn meal in the crust or corn syrup in the pizza sauce. And it turns out that many different kinds of sauces have corn syrup. As does most pop.

The key for me was last weekend I had some corn-on-the-cob at the balloon festival in Mason, MI. That evening I noticed that my mouth was feeling a little raw. The next morning it had gotten so bad that when I brushed my teeth, my gums began to bleed. And, not the between the teeth sort of bleeding. This was like layers of skin (think about eating corn on the cob and how the corn really gets all over the front of your mouth) had been eaten away. Almost like someone splashed acid on my gums.

Anyway, it was not so much fun.

So, because the effect was so localized, I made that connection with the corn-on-the-cob.

Chey looked up corn allergies and found out that many of the symptoms that I get after eating pizza (Little Caeser's is particularly bad. As is Jack's frozen pizza. Which stinks, because I love Jack's pizza. Loved, anyway.) are associated with this type of corn intolerance or allergy. Specifically, the day after ingestion I get pretty ridiculously bad headaches and my mouth gets raw and sometimes bleeds. I think it also affects my nasal passages, because they seem to swell up.

So, there it is. Now I know what to watch out for. Corn, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, and apparently MSG was listed as well.

It's rice cakes and fresh-brewed coffee for me, from now on.