Discovering My Nickel Allergy

These past few weeks, I’ve been sharing the story of how I discovered that I was allergic to nickel.  I found out the hard way that I have a nickel allergy after I decided to get braces as an adult.  Neither I nor any of my doctors believed that it was my braces causing my illness.  I was very sick, for a very long time, before I found the cause.  For more than two years, I suffered with pain, nausea, rashes, and fatigue.  I had biopsies; I had my appendix removed; I had exploratory surgery.  My life fell apart, my days were a battle to fend off pain and fatigue, and I had a standing prescription for pain medications.  It truly was, to be cliché, a nightmare, and the culprit, all along, was nickel. 

During the time that we believed my issues were being caused endometriosis; I experimented with several diet changes that were supposed to provide some relief.  I did find that certain foods made my symptoms worse, but I now suspect that my immune system was just so fried at that point, that it would react to almost anything.  I tried a vegan diet, a gluten free diet, an organic diet, and a soy free diet.  I was willing to try any fad or follow any lead that might provide relief.  I continued to keep daily journals of my pain, symptoms, food, and doctor visits, hoping to find a clue to anything that would make my life easier.  Nothing, it seemed, was really making a difference. 

About eight or nine months in, however, I did start to feel some relief.  The tricky part, though, is I had no idea what was responsible for this new found relief?  During this time, I was better - not healed, not perfect, but better.  I was less fatigued, and I could sometimes go days without taking any pain medications.  Days!!  It was a welcome, wonderful, amazing feeling.  Relief was nothing short of a miracle.  But WHY?

The final clue came when I went to the orthodontist for a teeth cleaning.  My braces had been in long enough by now that I had entered a maintenance phase.  This meant that at my orthodontics visits, my dentist did not need to change anything or adjust my wires.  I would go in once a month for a check-up, he would look at my teeth, and send me on my way without doing anything.  My teeth were now straight, but the braces would need to stay in until my teeth were accustomed to their new position.

On a Friday afternoon, for the first time in months, the dentist removed all the wires on my braces.   After cleaning my teeth, fresh, new wires were installed and adjusted.  By Sunday afternoon, I was bed-ridden and horribly sick again.  It was the worst pain I had recorded in my journal in almost six months.  I cried all day - I had been getting better!  I had honestly thought that I had overcome the pain and misery and could lead a normal life, only to be blindsided by pain again, and beaten back down.  I cried, because this is what I thought my life had become - a journal of good days and bad days, and only the hope that the good days could sometimes out-number the bad.

I don’t remember how long it took us to make the connection.  My husband said it first, “it’s the braces making you sick”.  What had changed?  Only the orthodontics appointment.  I started pouring through my journals, and there it was in black and white.  When the orthodontist did nothing to my braces, after a time, I felt better.  When the orthodontist touched my braces – adjusted the wires or added new wires – I got sicker.

I called my doctor and my dentist immediately.  At the appointment, my current doctor (one of the doctors who did a wonderful job taking care of me), told me he found the whole idea very unlikely, but that the only way to test it would be to remove the braces.  My dentist thought I was a complete lunatic.  He didn’t say that out loud, of course, but I could tell he thought I was a little off my rocker.  He agreed to remove my braces, though, to appease me.  He also said it was highly unlikely that the braces were causing my issues, but since my teeth were mostly set, I could switch to plastic trays instead of metal braces for the last few months of my treatment.

My braces came off on March 4^th.  Within a week, I was visibly, physically better.  Within three weeks, I was completely “cured”.  No pain at all.  No fatigue.  I gained ten pounds in those first three weeks (I had lost thirty pounds during the illness).  

I had never in my life been able to wear cheap earrings because they would make my ears bleed.  I had never given this much thought before, because I wasn’t that into jewelry.  I owned a few pairs of gold earrings for special occasions and that was that.  With a little research; however, we discovered that the wires used with braces are often a 50/50 titanium-nickel alloy.  The most common item in earrings that causes an allergic reaction like mine is nickel.  And with that, it all fell into place.

The dentist laughed when I came in to get fitted for the new plastic trays.  He exclaimed, “You’ve gained weight!”, and then got a little embarrassed when he realized what he had said.  He immediately marked my chart to avoid all nickel products.    

That is how I discovered my nickel allergy - with over two years of pain and misery and bad, bad stuff.  However, even with the great amount of evidence, this was still only an assumption.  I wanted and needed a definitive diagnosis.  Next stop: the allergy department, to get officially tested.