Avoiding Nightshade Vegetables

Most effective remedy for me Nightshades are the family of

plants that include potato, tomato, peppers, eggplant and paprika (not to mention the severely poisonous nightshade vine that grows in your back yard, but that's not at issue here). They all contain a toxin that most people can properly handle, but some of us are unable to properly process, the result being lots of pain from fibromyalgia, arthritis, etc. It is not to be confused with a conventional "food allergy"; my doctor explains that there's not an actual allergic reaction to the toxin, just that it isn't being filtered out like it should perhaps for some genetic reason. The toxin causes muscle failure. Farm animals that accidentally eat those nightshade vines lose strength in their muscles, collapse on the ground and die after a while. The FM muscle weakening is not all that unlike what happens to those poisoned animals (just much less severe).

This remedy is very challenging, because one must perfectly avoid all nightshades in every form they may appear. 3 months is the expected length of time to have a good chance of seeing benefits. One slip-up and you're back where you started. For example, processed foods often list "spices" as an ingredient, without being any more precise; this usually includes the forbidden paprika. So, you have to avoid all foods that list "spices" unless you can otherwise confirm that it really does not include paprika. Even genetically modified soybeans are suspect, because they have been modified with petunia (yep! the flowers!) genes which are also in the nightshade family. If you slip up, you won't notice any negative reaction for 1-2 days later, then the flair-up can last days or weeks.

Dr. Shelly Roger's book "Pain Free in 6 Weeks" contains the best description I've found of this particular remedy; she claims about a 75% success rate with this, which may very well be true but I have no idea, only having my own experience which I describe here. Not everyo