I have an analogy about avoids, that may be useful. Don’t take it too far! Dr. D didn’t say this. But it does give insight into how our bodies work. And it may help explain why some people seem to tolerate more avoids than others.

I’m back home from a week of travel – three days with my sister working on estate matters, three days with my daughter moving her things to next fall’s apartment. My sister’s Type O husband suffers from gout. He watches his diet carefully hoping to prevent an attack, and at the onset of symptoms he takes medication to stop the attack before it becomes debilitating.

He recently wound up at the doctor’s for a shot. He told his doctor that he didn’t understand why he was having the attack, that he had been very careful what he ate. The doctor asked if he had changed his physical activity recently. He said yes, he could think of several things, moving some furniture, running to catch a train, and walking more than usual.

She explained that physical activity can allow the crystals that cause gout to shake loose from where they have been harmlessly sticking and cause an attack. The crystals causing the current attack could have been formed when he compromised his diet weeks or months ago. The increased physical activity caused enough of them to break loose into his blood stream and cause pain.

I thought about the comments I’ve received from my recent blog about “just a little bit” of avoids. Some people cannot tolerate any avoids. Some, like me, can handle a little bit. Some, especially young people, may not notice any effect at all.

Fortunately, I don’t form painful crystals. But I’m wondering if the concept could hold true for the BTD. I never had trouble with wheat or dairy products when I was young. The problems started after I turned 40. Could I have been building up little bits of inflammation or irritation in my early years, and suddenly it reached critical mass in my body and the symptoms started? Even now, when I think I am tolerating a little bit of avoid, could I be accumulating toxins that in a time of physical or emotional stress will break out and cause pain?

The pathology of gout and the BTD is not identical at the cellular level. But I think an analogy between the two might be useful in understanding why some people respond to avoids differently than others, and why in times of stress I notice symptoms that don’t seem to correlate to what I have eaten that day.