GPs told me it was all in my head. A naturopath said I was ‘lying’. After a decade of unexplained allergies, a reaction to a bikini wax led me to the 13 foods that were ruining my life

Julie-Ann Wrightson had been seeing the same GP for some time when he gently patted her on the head and suggested that the symptoms she’d been struggling with were all in her mind.

Until then, she’d trusted him. He had listened to her concerns, ordered tests and seemed genuinely interested in finding out why she was so unwell. But after repeated appointments failed to produce an explanation, his attitude appeared to change.

‘I was a little bit mortified,’ Julie-Ann tells the Daily Mail. ‘I think he was kind of my breaking point because I saw him as somebody who listened and cared about what was going on.’

By then, she’d spent years dealing with pain, skin problems, digestive troubles and weight gain she couldn’t explain. She’d tried changing her diet, undergone numerous tests and kept returning to doctors, hoping someone could tell her what was happening.

‘I just lost it with him and I never went back and saw him again,’ she says.

It was a particularly painful experience in a search for answers that would stretch over more than a decade and involve about ten different GPs.

Before everything changed

Growing up in Newcastle, Julie-Ann rarely gave her health a second thought. She loved the beach, going out dancing with friends and spending nights at the local clubs. She worked in her parents’ takeaway shop and enjoyed being young, with few responsibilities beyond work and whatever she had planned for the weekend.

‘I was very much a free spirit and a rebel,’ she recalls.

She married in her mid-20s and welcomed her son a couple of years later. She enjoyed food, ate what she liked, and never had much reason to think about how her body might react to an ordinary meal.

When things began to change

Julie-Ann was living in Canberra with her husband and young son when she first noticed something unusual. She was out walking one day when she began sneezing uncontrollably.

She’d never suffered from hay fever before and couldn’t understand why it had suddenly become a problem.

‘I was sneezing my head off,’ she recalls.

The hay fever continued, eventually becoming so severe that it affected her breathing and she needed Ventolin. Her skin was persistently itchy, psoriasis flared up and her eyes sometimes watered so badly that the tears left painful, burning patches on her face.

Then there were the digestive problems. Julie-Ann experienced uncomfortable bloating and unpredictable bowel habits, swinging between constipation and severe diarrhoea. She was also gaining weight, despite following healthy eating advice and making a conscious effort to manage her diet. She couldn’t understand why doing what she’d been told was good for her seemed to make so little difference.

Over time, aching muscles, stiff joints, muscle spasms and brain fog became part of her life. Some days, she was so tired she struggled to think clearly.

What Julie-Ann didn’t know then was that some of the foods she’d been encouraged to eat contained ingredients or naturally occurring food chemicals she would later identify as triggers for her symptoms.

In her late 30s, she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), but she was still searching for an explanation for the other problems.

Her marriage was under considerable strain, and some doctors suggested stress might be responsible. Julie-Ann knew things at home were difficult, but the symptoms kept coming no matter what was happening in her personal life.

The cost of not being believed

Julie-Ann kept going back to doctors because she was getting sicker and couldn’t understand why. There were blood tests, investigations, diets and more appointments, often ending with little explanation for what she was experiencing.

Some doctors listened and genuinely tried to help, but others focused on her weight or questioned whether she was following their advice.

She remembers being told to go home and diet, or to be more truthful about what she was eating. The accusations were particularly hurtful because she was already trying so hard.

She was following the healthy eating and weight-management advice she’d been given, unaware that some of those very foods might be contributing to her symptoms. With PCOS also complicating her efforts to manage her weight, Julie-Ann was increasingly confused about why nothing seemed to work.

One experience with a naturopath was particularly painful. Julie-Ann and her second husband were trying to have a baby, and both had been following the same eating plan. They prepared and ate identical meals, yet while her husband lost weight, Julie-Ann continued to gain it.

When she returned for a follow-up appointment, she recalls the naturopath asking whether she was lying.

‘It was just humiliating,’ she says.

After appointments, Julie-Ann would return home to her husband, upset and bewildered. She knew how unwell she felt, but the tests weren’t providing the answers she needed. Over time, she began to wonder whether the problem really was her.

‘It’s not my body – it’s me. It’s all in my mind. I’m creating this,’ she recalls thinking.

She experienced anxiety, periods of depression and plenty of tears. She began questioning her own judgement and lost confidence in what her body was telling her.

‘I lost that connection with my body for a very long time,’ she says.

Eventually, she found herself trying to accept that perhaps this was simply how she would have to live.

The bikini wax from hell

Julie-Ann had been having bikini waxes for years without any problems, so there was nothing unusual about her visit to a salon in Penrith that summer. She had a full bikini wax, using a type of wax she’d encountered before, and went home without expecting anything out of the ordinary.

Within 24 hours, she noticed what looked like heat rash. It was summer and the weather was hot, so she initially thought little of it. But by the end of the day, the rash had spread down her legs. Over the following day, her skin began blistering and weeping, leaving her in terrible pain.

Julie-Ann remembers the reaction looking almost like severe burns.

‘The only relief I got was from cool water,’ she recalls.

Alarmed, she booked an appointment with her GP. When she showed him the affected skin, she remembers him being shocked by what he saw. He suspected an allergic reaction to the wax, so Julie-Ann contacted the salon to ask what product had been used and whether there might have been a problem with it. Nothing appeared unusual, leaving Julie-Ann no closer to understanding what had happened.

She was given creams and other treatments, but as the original area began healing, fresh rashes appeared further up her body. Tiny blisters, which she likened to chickenpox, would flare up, settle down and then return. For somewhere between three and five months, Julie-Ann watched the rash spread, sometimes improving with treatment before becoming painful again.

‘My skin was peeling off all over the place,’ she says.

She could cover much of the affected skin with clothing, but the rash kept returning. Around this time, she began noticing that it seemed to worsen when she ate foods containing gluten and settle somewhat when she avoided them.

With the skin problems continuing and no clear explanation, Julie-Ann was eventually referred to the allergy unit at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

The answers she wasn’t ready for

At the hospital, Julie-Ann underwent testing that identified environmental allergies, but no food allergies. She was referred to a dietitian and began a supervised elimination diet to investigate whether certain foods or naturally occurring food chemicals might be contributing to her symptoms.

The diet was strict. Even her choice of fruit was limited, with pears among the few options she could eat. But within about a week, Julie-Ann says the changes were extraordinary. The brain fog lifted, the soreness in her muscles and joints eased, her eyes stopped watering and her skin began to clear.

She then underwent a series of challenges involving foods and tablets, some containing particular food chemicals and others placebos. Each time she had a reaction, she recorded what happened and waited before trying the next challenge.

It was a lengthy, demanding process. Julie-Ann says she eventually identified 13 food and additive sensitivities.

After all those years of appointments and unanswered questions, she might have expected to feel relieved. Instead, she remembers leaving the hospital with books and dietary instructions, struggling to take in what she’d been told.

‘I was numb,’ she recalls. ‘My first thought was, “What the f**k?”‘

Food had always been something she enjoyed. Now she was facing a future of checking ingredients, avoiding familiar favourites and carefully considering almost everything she ate.

‘I’ve had enough things that have changed my life,’ she remembers thinking. ‘Not my food.’

Learning to live with it

Julie-Ann didn’t immediately embrace her new diet. There were tears and anger, and times when she ate things she knew might make her unwell, only to find herself dealing with the symptoms again.

‘I didn’t want to be the special one,’ she says.

She missed the ease of going out for a meal or sharing food with other people without having to ask what was in it. For someone who had always enjoyed eating, the restrictions felt like another loss after years of struggling with her health.

Eventually, she began experimenting in the kitchen, finding substitutes for ingredients she could no longer tolerate and adapting the dishes she missed. She learned through trial and error, gradually building up a collection of meals she could enjoy.

Today, Julie-Ann says her symptoms are generally well controlled when she follows her diet, although she continues to manage her food sensitivities and insulin resistance. Eating out and trying unfamiliar foods still require care.

What she wishes doctors understood

When colleagues at NSW Health began taking an interest in the lunches Julie-Ann brought to work, she started sharing her recipes. They enjoyed the food and encouraged her to put her ideas into a cookbook.

That eventually became Why Can’t I Eat This?, combining her experiences with practical information and recipes for people managing food intolerances. Having spent years following dietary advice that didn’t seem to help, Julie-Ann wanted to make it easier for others to understand how different foods might affect them.

She went on to gain qualifications in nutrition and establish Healthy Living with Julie-Ann, where she now helps women over 40 navigate food sensitivities and digestive concerns. She knows how isolating it can be to feel unwell, struggle for answers and begin questioning your own judgement.

But she hasn’t forgotten what those years of illness and uncertainty cost her.

‘It cost me my mental health. I know that. It cost me my confidence, how I felt about myself,’ she says.

She hopes other women won’t have to spend so long searching for answers, or reach the point where they begin doubting their own experiences. And when she thinks about the doctors who dismissed her concerns, there’s something she wishes they’d understood.

‘I think I’d like those doctors to understand that it’s important to really listen to what people are saying and not assume.