Originally Posted by StacyWms

Rhapsody,

Boy am I glad to find you. What a familiar tale! I am also a 40 year old woman who is allergic to nickel. It doesn't seem to be "contact dermatitis" for me (meaning, I don't have rashes on my skin from jewelry - although I don't think I wear any jewelry with nickel in it - though my wedding ring is 14k gold, so maybe I do).

My problem is that my lips hurt/burn 24/7. It's taken me over a year to identify nickel (in my diet) as the culprit. I'm at day 10 of trying out a nickel-free diet in order to confirm that it's the nickel making my lips hurt. The problem is that, when researching which foods contain nickel online, the lists don't agree. They all agree as to the worst offenders, but then there are some foods on the "ok" list on some sites (corn, beer/wine, lettuce) but the same foods are on the "avoid" list on other sites. Some have trace amounts, and for fruits/vegetables, I think it depends on the soil they're grown in.

The lists all agree that the only foods that are pretty much 100% nickel-free are meat and dairy (including eggs). So 10 days ago, I started eating nothing but meat and dairy (and drinking nothing but distilled water, since tap water has traces of nickel in it). Pretty severe, yes, and don't worry - I don't plan to do it more than 2 weeks.

Results so far (besides losing 7 pounds in 9 days, which was really quite cool after the holidays, albeit alarming at the same time) - my lips feel better than they have since this burning sensation hit in Sept. 05. I'm disappointed, though, that they don't yet feel 100% normal. My plan was to wait until they felt normal and then add back the "low nickel content" foods one by one so I can find out which of them bother me the most/least. I may have to move forward with that even though my lips aren't 100% because I don't know how much longer I can do this severe diet. It can't be good for me.

Today I realized that the couple of days I've worn lipstick during this test, my lips have felt slightly worse, so lipstick may have to go as well. I'm trying to keep really good notes on everything I do.

Rhapsody, I'd love to continue to compare notes so we can learn from each other. I keep searching the web thinking surely someone has already done all this hard work for us!