Monday, January 31, 2011

The 3 Month Mark

January 9th was my 3 month mark of being Gluten Free!

It has felt more like a year. It's been an emotional roller-coaster, and a more intense coping process than I expected. I had to mourn the loss of a simple food lifestyle for the rest of my life (or until they invent an enzyme to allow me to digest gluten, which my doc says is likely to develop in my lifetime). Still, in order to accept my current status, I had to deal with the likelihood that I will never eat certain things again-- at least not in their original form.

Right around that point, though, I suddenly noticed feeling dramatically better. My digestion is just, well, normal. Better than normal, I think. Granted, I'm still avoiding dairy, soy milk, eggs and most coffee and tea. Still, it's nice to just be able to eat and run and know I'll be feeling good. The anxiety about food is going down, and as it does, I feel care-free again. It's a feeling I haven't felt in a long time.

I had my follow-up bloodwork and guess what? I'm officially gluten-free as far as my Celiac is concerned. I had 54 antibodies in my original test. Know how many antibodies I have now? Three. Just three little guys. That is a completely negative test. As far as my body is concerned, I'm not sick anymore. What a strange little disease.

My other nutritional bloodwork came back totally normal too, which is a shocking but great surprise. All the fatigue and dizziness turned out to be allergies. Once I started taking the right medicine, it helped a lot. And I'm getting started on allergy "drops", which is a new alternative to shots I take on my own every day.

Since seeing the nutritionist and eating a ton more protein, combined with cutting out difficult foods, it's been a rapid change. We've been getting more creative... we sort of had to, and I think I'm eating more well-rounded and diversely than I ever have before. I discovered almond cheese, which sounds nasty but is actually a pretty decent substitute for real cheese, especially shredded and melted into stuff like pasta.

So overall, things are stabilizing. Maybe the next step is getting foods back that I didn't have before. I thought I couldn't digest peppers at all, and this week I've had peppers three times with no issues whatsoever. I also had given up nearly all raw veggies for the same reason, but now I feel great after having salad. Amazing! It's like I'm re-learning how to eat. I've even had Chipotle twice... FYI, all their food is gluten free except the wheat tortillas. Both times I've gone and told them about having a wheat "allergy", and they've gone to impressive measures to make sure my food isn't contaminated at all. I'm actually becoming a bit less afraid of being contaminated, which is liberating.  I'm drinking about a 1/4 cup of coffee on weekends successfully, so hopefully I'll build up to tolerating occasional coffee when I have a long day. I don't really know how much better I can feel past this point, but I look forward to whatever comes of continuing to be gluten free!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Gluten Free for the Holidays

We took it easy this holiday season and opted out from visiting family back on the east coast. We Skyped in for Christmas and opened presents we had mailed to each other, which was nice. It was 75 and not a cloud in the sky here, so we were okay with just taking it easy here. I also made GF cranberry cornbread using a Pamela's brand mix and some fresh cranberries. Not too shabby! To be honest, it felt sort of weird to be eating bread though.

I used the break to really pursue the health oddities that have popped up lately. I started off by going to a new doctor, who is an osteopathic doctor. I'd never seen one before and looked up what a DO rather than MD means. My understanding is that their medical training is slightly different than MDs in that they view the body as more of a system rather than a series of functions and symptoms. He came highly recommended by my nutritionist, so gave it a try.

The doctor suspects anemia and maybe Thyroid issues, which are common in Celiac suffers early in their diagnosis. Once he mentioned those possibilities, it seemed like a big possibility I've been getting dizzy spells and easily fatigue from exercising. I'm coming up on my 3 month follow up with my GI, so the new primary care doc added some blood tests to the antibody and nutrient tests that were already ordered. I'm actually sitting in the lab waiting to get that done as we speak. Hopefully, I'll have some answers soon. They never told mr that my health would likely feel worse before it gets better!