GF Week 6

Nov 9-16

Time to start gearing up for Thanksgiving! That will be quite a trip, I'm sure. I'm heading to San Diego to visit some family, and we're staying in a hotel for several days. I've been advised to bring some of my own food and also research gluten-free friendly restaurants in the area by contacting local support groups and other organizations. I need to start planning for that. My husband's cousin, who's hosting Thanksgiving, is very eager to help cook things I can have, but I worry about cross-contamination. It's weird to want to trust people, but not make them responsible for me getting sick either. I'd hate for someone to feel guilty about my health. So I sent her some resources and I'm hoping we'll talk more in the coming week to figure out what she's going to try to make gluten-free and what might not be possible.

In other news, my health is officially random. I'm told it's just part of healing, and that you'll often have weird symptoms without knowing why. I'll literally have an hour or two of feeling super ill, and then feel on top of the world the rest of the day. It's definitely practice in mental self-control to not spend all my time preoccupied about what I might have done to cause any of it. I've reached a point where I sort of just have to go along day by day and try not to worry about why I'm feeling however I'm feeling. I'm not the best at it yet, but I'm sure I'll learn.

This week I'm going to prioritize setting up an appointment with a nutritionist. I could use all the help I can get to find things to eat. I had a bone density scan yesterday, so they'll know whether I'm calcium deficient. Vitamins, here I come!

GF Week 5

Nov 1-8

This was a roller coaster week. In retrospect, I'm definitely feeling very good on average. Even on my bad days, they're definitely worth the good days. And I can only believe the good days will become more and more plentiful as I progress. The three most dramatic changes I've noticed, aside from the obvious digestive stuff, are feeling hydrated, well-rested, and more mentally alert. I was guzzling water all the time before my diagnosis, which I think had to do digestive issues... totally unexpected though. I'm also sleeping about 7-8 hours a night, rather than 9-10 hours, which was my norm whenever I could have that much. My need for coffee has gone way down. All good things! I need to keep these in mind when I have my bad days.

At the beginning of the week, I felt sick for several days without really knowing the source. I've started to get sick of the guessing game, which I'll call "Find That Gluten!". It has all the workings of making a person go crazy and very paranoid (which seems to be common on some of the celiac message forums). So I'm trying to keep my sanity intact. Regardless of why, my week started with mini vertigo attacks in which I'd turn my head quickly and the room would spin momentarily. Also felt some pretty significant fatigue. Ended up cancelling several commitments and going home to sleep on Tuesday. Very frustrating and depressing.

I went to my first Celiac support group meeting on Wednesday. Avi drove me because I was feeling too dizzy to drive-- bizarre, huh? I never really had that kind of feeling in the past, but maybe I was but it was hidden behind other symptoms. Anyway, it was good to have gone, although I still felt under the weather. I did meet some very nice people who were definitely sympathetic to my very recent diagnosis. They also sent us home with some good resources on recipes for the holidays.

Tried Udi's bread, which has come very highly recommended by nearly any gluten-free person I've talked to. It's not bad! Definitely not exactly the consistency of bread I'd typically eat, but it still seemed like bread to me, which is nice!

By Friday, I finally recovered and started to feel normal again. I ate every meal ravenously and snacked all day. It was literally a high to feel normal again, and it made the misery from the rest of the week fade away a little bit.

Last night, we did a bunch of cooking, which helped my anxiety over what to eat for the week. It was a cooking bonanza! Pulled BBQ chicken, steak, rice, stir-fried veggies, and potatoes. We also talked to our relatives which we're visiting for Thanksgiving and gave them a heads up on my situation. They were very receptive and wanted as much info about cooking safely for me as possible. Now I just have to decide how much to trust other people's food... it's not that I don't trust the people, but their gluten-contaminated kitchen is the big problem.

I bought some all-purpose baking flour that has a strange assortment of gluten substitutes (rice flour, potato flour, xantham gum, etc). I'm thinking of trying to make cranberry muffins or something... Might be a disaster, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

GF Week 4-- Baking: Attempt #1

Oct 25-Nov 1

I decided to make some cookies to bring to a Halloween party on Saturday so I'd have more goodies to enjoy. I found a very highly-rated recipe and carefully checked people's reviews & suggestions. I thought I did it perfectly, but for whatever reason the texture of the batter was strangely gooey. After 5 minutes in the oven, I peeked inside only to discover that the cookies had expanded into one giant cookie bar in the baking pan!

Nonetheless, I let them finish baking and figured I would cut them like brownies. Took my first bite and they melted into sugar and stuck to my teeth like taffy. Still tasted good, but definitely not quite right. Oh well. You have to start somewhere, right?

Talked to my aunt with Celiac yesterday. She told me she thinks it's fanatical to replace all my plastic storage containers and segregate them from gluten. She lives in a shared gluten household and said she has managed to get her antibodies from 800 to 3 and still uses shared cutting boards, utensils and storage containers (after they are run through the dishwasher). Even more exciting, she says she is super sensitive to gluten, but still doesn't have any issue with food that says it's made in "shared facilities" with wheat. I'm still trying to be strict for now, but it gives me hope that I'll be able to expand my foods after a while to include stuff like that.

It's still difficult stocking my kitchen with enough food to feel like I can have a substantial meal. Last night, I had a little meltdown because I was stressing about what to cook for the coming week. I spent an hour wandering the supermarket for stuff to buy and ended up making a huge salad with a big variety of ingredients, but then ate a bunch of it for dinner. So much for leftovers. Plus all that roughage is giving me stomachaches. Maybe more potatoes are in my future, at least till my gut heals more. The trouble is, I don't want to be too repetitive with my diet or I could develop food allergies. Oh gluten...such a journey. An adventure, right?