5 Things To Do When You Are Diagnosed With a Nickel Allery

When you are finally diagnosed with a Nickel Allergy (and I say finally because I'm sure it was a process) you will almost immediately feel overwhelmed with navigating the nickel free world.

Here are my tips to make the change to nickel free as easy as possible.

1. INSTALL THE NICKEL NAVIGATOR APP ON YOUR PHONE.

This app is a literal lifesaver, you can search pretty much any food and it will comeback with a LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH nickel rating, along with the average level of nickel in that particular food. You can then click onto that food and see where the data was obtained from. I use it every day. It's free and simply the best app ever!

2. JOIN AN ONLINE COMMUNITY

I joined the Facebook group Low Nickel Diet & Lifestyle - Living and Eating Well with Nickel Allery/SNAS.

It has been such a great resource and its so useful to hear first hand what does and doesn't work for people. You can find the group here

3. FIND A NICKEL FREE FOOD YOU LOVE

Giving up nickel foods is hard, like really hard. My diet was FULL of nickel, my breakfast was a home made chia seed pudding that had cacao and hemp seeds, with more seeds sprinkled on top (literally the most nickel heavy food in existence) My indulgence foods were dark chocolate, nuts and peanut butter. When I had to give these up I panicked as I didn't have anything I could switch in.

Sweet treats I added in at the beginning were stewed apples, honey on sourdough bread and Gelatine gummies, these made the world of difference with my moral and ability to stick to the nickel free diet. You really need to have something that you love, but it might take time to discover it.

4. TAKE VITAMIN C TABLETS (and IRON)

Vitamin C and Iron both block the absorption of dietary nickel in the body. I take Vitamin C tablets (1g) evert day and an additional Vitamin C (1g) before I eat a meal potentially containing nickel. Also, I've always had low iron levels and now I wonder if that contributed to my potentially higher nickel absorption? I now try and eat red meat once a week and get my iron levels checked regularly.

*Prior to taking any new vitamins or medications you need to consult your doctor

5. DO THINGS THAT WILL HELP EXCRETE THE NICKEL FROM YOUR BODY

Nickel is a heavy metal, and certain foods can help you detoxify by getting rid of heavy metals from your body, they do this by binding to the metals and removing them from the digestive system. These foods include;

• Cilantro (Coriander)

• Garlic

• Dandelion root and leaves

• Milk Thistle

Also, sweat inducing exercise is another great way of excreting heavy metals from your body, I always avoided sweaty exercise as it would irritate my eczema, however a week after starting the nickel free diet, I decided to conduct an experiment and signed up for a month of HIIT classes, after each class I was red and puffy but once I had a shower my skin calmed down (after 90mins) and I felt amazing. It definitely didn't cause any more flare ups. I think the sweaty exercise definitely sped up my recovery.

These are lots of ways your life will change when you are diagnosed with a Nickel Allergy, these are just the initial steps that helped me.