Almonds are Negative, Prove me Wrong

When I inserted my blood into the post box three weeks ago a horrible feeling came over me. Is there a word like "trepidation" which means "a fear of upcoming irony"? I can't Google it, I'm on aeroplane mode.

When my blood was to eventually reach the lab it was going to be scrutinised for allergies and intolerance to over 100 foods and other organic matter. Life has been a bit shit lately pain wise. As it kind of has been for me since 2006. Sometimes the cause of pain is obvious, like riding a bike into the footpath, or... Actually, that is the only injury I've had of the many that I actually know the root cause of. For nearly two decades I've suffered more soft tissue injuries than the 2006 Western Bulldogs (possibly an exaggeration, I can't Google it) and this summer's recurrence of lower back pain felt like the tipping point. Why is it that for the healthy eating, regular walking, and hour of stretching, mobilisation exercises, core strengthening and range of motion maintenance I do on average daily leads me not nowhere, but backwards? Why is everything so inflamed?! Even my physio was at a loss, having proved that my mobility, flexibility and strength was fine but my lower spine would not quit crippling me. His only remaining theory was that a gut issue was causing inflammation in my abdomen that was then creating tightness, imbalance, and other conditions for my hips, core and legs to run into problems.

This seemed unlikely. If gut issues are social policies then my bowel movements are fucking Norway. But without any other ideas, and with the cost of the test only being twice what I'm forking out on the regular to my very expensive physical therapist, I figured I'd try it.

But awaiting the results has been torture, because I'm 38 now and I learned many years ago that there is no fairness in life and it was inevitable that this allergy test was going to come back and ruin something for me. Was I going to have an intolerance to yoghurt? Smoothies? Coffee? Weet Bix? Beer? All of the above? It seemed inevitable that all this blood test was going to achieve was to deprive me of whatever skerricks off joy still remained in my pitiful life.

I woke up to results this morning. Over 99% of the tests came back with a perfectly uniform and Scandinavian, "None Detected". The only real hit in all those lines? Almonds. Almonds allergy. Almonds intolerance. The most journalled about foodstuff in my 2,330 entries. At one stage I even considered adding a tag for the nut. And now the universe has taken it away from me.

I guess, if this is the cause of my ubiquitous inflammation problems, it makes sense that it's the most discussed food on this website. Come to think of it, it's very possible that the advice I read in Men's Health was the exact same issue that had encouraged me to do decline dumbbell rows with my legs locked onto the back extension machine too...

Well, whatever, if I can decrease my back pain, tendonapathy, tendinitis and general misery by even 20% I'll happily never eat another almond again.