hi, I'm Meg

I started on the allergen elimination diet for EOE (eosinophilic esophagitis) in September of 2024. This is my third attempt at the diet - my first two tries I got 2 months in, and cracked for gluten and cheese. Each time I gave in, I couldn't get back into the discipline of the diet. For someone whose favorite food is buttered sourdough toast, this diagnosis and accompanying prescriptive diet felt impossible.

Each time I'd fail, I'd give up, deciding I'd rather choke on my food for the rest of my life than have to live without whatever food is causing my issue. Always needing copious amounts of water to push my meals down my esophagus seemed like a small price to pay for being able to eat whatever I wanted. But each time I came to this conclusion and started living without considering what I was eating, a painful (and often public- shoutout to my boyfriend for giving me the Heimlich in that restaurant that one time) impaction would steer me right back to considering the diet. On one particular night out, a piece of steak got stuck in my esophagus and landed me in the hospital until early morning. This was my first impaction that did not resolve itself within 20 minutes or so, and instead lasted for almost 4 hours. Holy shit it sucked. I was hooked up to an IV, and the on call doctor was brought in for an emergency endoscopy to physically remove the steak when my body managed, after hours of trying, to forcefully expel it (I will spare the details on this). My sister, who is a DO, and happened to be in town for the steak episode, was adamant that I make a change.

So here I am, successfully doing the diet, and I feel like I've finally figured this thing out. Third time's the charm. I'm sharing what I've learned, and what I've figured out works - in the hopes that I can prevent those of you struggling with the diet from having to do this more than once. For those of you who are feeling hopeless - I'm finally in the reintroduction stages of the diet, I have stopped choking on my food, and my recent biopsies showed that the eosinophil count in my upper esophagus has gone from over 100 to ZERO, so I'm proof that this actually can work!