journaling from the heart
For nearly twenty years, I lived with the firm belief that I was allergic to pork.
It all started back around 2007. Every single time I ate pork, especially the fatty dishes, it would trigger some of the most painful moments of my life. At first, I figured it was just bad acid reflux, but this wasn’t the ordinary heartburn people usually complain about.
โThe pain would start in my stomach and chest, then shoot straight through to my back. Sometimes it literally felt like my spinal cord was on fire. It was so intense that I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t lie down, and sleeping or working was completely out of the question. I would get incredibly nauseous and just start vomiting.
I remember pacing around the house, losing my mind because I didn’t know what to do. There were nights I screamed because the pain was so unbearable, and at times I just cried and prayed because I felt so helpless. I honestly thought I was dying. These attacks would last for hours, leaving me completely wiped out. Sometimes, Iโd just pass out from pure exhaustion.
Since it always happened after eating pork, I came to an obvious conclusion: “I must be allergic to pork.”
That became my absolute truth. For years, whenever someone offered me a pork dish, Iโd politely pass. If they asked why, I just said, “I’m allergic.” I never questioned it, and I never looked for another explanation.
Then, this year, everything changed.
โI have been learning a lot from Dr. Salah Snouda about hormones, metabolism, nutrition, and digestion. One day, I decided to share my history with him, and what he told me completely flipped my understanding on its head.
โAccording to Dr. Snouda, I probably never had a pork allergy at all. Instead, it was likely just terrible digestion caused by low stomach acid.
The moment he explained it, the pieces finally fit. Pork is a heavy, dense, and fatty protein. It takes a lot of stomach acid to break it down. If your acid is too low, the food just sits in your stomach way longer than it should. Instead of digesting, it starts to ferment. That fermentation builds up gas, pressure, and bloating, which pushes everything upward. Thatโs where that horrific burning sensation came from.
For two decades, I thought my problem was too much stomach acid. In reality, I didn’t have enough.
โIt was a total shock. Looking back, my lifestyle back then wasn’t doing me any favors either. I was constantly stressed out, and my diet was packed with carbs and sugar. My digestion was clearly drowning long before I realized it.
So, I decided to make some changes. I cut back heavily on sugar and processed carbs, started focusing on real nutrition, and picked up one simple habit: drinking a bit of diluted apple cider vinegar before my meals.
โ(๐ฝ๐ข๐ ๐ก ๐ก๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐ผโ๐ ๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐ โ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐คโ๐๐ก ๐ค๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ โ๐๐๐. ๐โ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐’๐ก ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ข ๐ โ๐๐ข๐๐ ๐๐๐ค๐๐ฆ๐ ๐ก๐๐๐ ๐ก๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ข๐ก ๐ฆ๐๐ข๐ ๐๐ค๐ โ๐๐๐๐กโ.)
But for me? The difference was night and day.
Slowly but surely, my meals started feeling lighter. My digestion got better, and those awful attacks started fading away. Then came the real test: I tried eating pork again.
โAnd nothing happened. No burning, no throwing up, no sleepless nights. Zero attacks.
The more I kept supporting my gut, the more I realized that the fear I carried for twenty years was totally gone. To prove it to myself, I recently went on vacation and ate a ton of pork. Just the other day, I went to a birthday party and had it again. Years ago, that would have landed me in absolute agony. This time, I didn’t have a single symptom.
I wasn’t curing an allergy. I was just fixing my digestion.
It feels incredibly freeing. For almost two decades, I built my entire life around avoiding pork, treating it like the enemy. Now I know my body just needed a little help breaking it down. Today, I can finally enjoy it without that old anxiety hanging over my head.
If this journey taught me anything, it’s that sometimes what we think we know about our health isn’t the whole story. Keep asking questions, keep looking for the actual root cause, and don’t underestimate how much things can change once you understand how your body actually works.
Iโm incredibly grateful to Dr. Salah Snouda for helping me connect the dots I missed for twenty years. What I thought was a lifelong allergy turned out to be a great lesson in digestion, and it completely changed my life.
Chee Chee’s Corner || | ๐ฑ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ || July 8, 2026
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