NOTE: This post is not intended as medical advice. I am not a doctor.
I took a mini vacation this past weekend. It’s the first time I allowed myself “time off” for more than a 6-hour period in the last 6 years. It was nice to step away from work, even if it was just for a day.
I was invited by an acquaintance to go clamming in the Sound on the Connecticut shoreline and since I’d never been, I jumped at the chance. I stayed with a friend of his in her gorgeous house and got to experience what life was like on the wealthy side of the state.
When we got to the beach, the tide was only just starting to go out. We waded in anyhow, out up to our chests. Thankfully the water didn’t go deeper than that. I was instructed to use my toes to dig down into the sand and feel around for the slightly pointed, round edge of the clams.
Everyone else I was with seemed to be finding them left and right and I was the odd one out, until my friend finally showed me (with his foot) what I should be feeling for. Thankfully, after that I got the hang of it and I ended up finding four clams.
Anyway, the point of this story is that the next day after I finally made it home with a giant cooler of clams on ice, I had to cook them up. I separated the extra large clams from the smaller ones and steamed them all. The big ones got chopped up and went into my freezer so I can make clam chowder when the weather gets cooler. And the little ones (probably 25-30 quahogs) went into our bellies!
I ate 3 small ones raw but the rest were steamed and dipped in butter. My boyfriend ate some but I ate most of them myself. They were delicious!
I woke up around 2am to pee and noticed that the right side of my jaw hurt– A LOT. Like it was painful to open. I hoped the feeling would go away by morning but when I woke up, it still hurt, even more than before.
I knew it was the clams. I googled symptoms of shellfish poisoning, but none of the reactions matched the description that came up. I decided it must be an allergic reaction in my body. Remember how I said I was getting the allergic rash to sugar only on my right arm? This is the same thing, the allergy only occurring on my right side.
Anything can be an allergic reaction. The most important thing is that you recognize it as such and don’t panic. I could have freaked out and thought I had shellfish poisoning, but I realized that my symptoms would be a lot worse if it was poison and that this was simply my body disagreeing with a certain food or the extremely high doses of minerals I got from that food.
Let me walk you through my detoxification process, which is working well so far. I am so glad I’m an Herbalist in this situation!
The first thing I want to support is my liver. I took a capsule and a dropper with milk thistle, burdock root, artichoke leaf, and dandelion root. These will support my liver in processing the toxic load going through it.
Next I wanted to be sure to support my kidneys. I pulled some frozen Cleavers ice cubes out of the fridge and melted them in a cup before drinking them with a little squeeze of lemon juice. This helped IMMENSELY and I’m so glad I make and save cleavers juice every spring!
Then I went for a walk and after that I jumped on my Rebounder for a couple of minutes to move my body and help push any stagnant lymph through. Toxins, dead cells, viruses, and more build up in the garbage dump that is your Lymphatic system so moving your body helps pump it all out.
I took my normal supplements for breakfast but doubled up on the black cumin seed and also took two Turmeric capsules to help with the pain in my jaw. This has worked beautifully and as of right now my pain has gone from a 9 to a 3. It still hurts a bit and my right jaw muscle is feeling tight, but I can open it well enough to eat.
I ate an egg and some fruit for breakfast, followed by a cucumber and some orange bell pepper. I want to fill my body with phytonutrients and lots of water to help push this out my kidneys and give my cells the power they need to heal.
I’m also taking a dose of Parasite cleanse tincture (three doses over the course of the day) just in case. Thankfully, my trees look like they’re loaded with black walnuts so this is going to be a good year to harvest and I’ll be able to make more of this tincture come October.
I’m not 100% yet but I wanted to share my thought process with you so that if you ever find yourself in a similar situation you can help yourself too. Of course, if you have symptoms of poisoning or anaphylaxis, PLEASE GO TO THE HOSPITAL. Do not use this blog post as medical advice.
My reaction is unpleasant but certainly on the mild scale as far as allergic reactions go. When you feel like you ate something that didn’t agree with you and you want it out, you want to make sure you have probiotics and digestive enzymes aplenty in your gut and then follow the chain of detoxification I outlined above. I go over all the best gut healing products as part of my Gut Healing Protocol.
Please comment below if this post has helped you! I’d love to hear about your encounter with an unexpected allergy.
Please note that several of the links in this post (products that I order and take regularly myself) are affiliate links. I receive a small commission if you buy the product through my link at no extra cost to you.