Journey of a Gluten Free LIfe-The Bean is Gluten Free!

So there you have it folks.

The long, sickly process of my  Celiac diagnosis. Eatin' Gluten free {happily}ever since. At this point, I no longer miss those glutenous foods, although, I do sometimes miss the convenience of them-I know the horror that is an accidental ingestion {I'll tell you about that business sometime:) } and have no temptation to eat anything not g-free. Being gluten free, has come to be much more than just not eating gluten; it has helped to eliminate a lot of other unhealthy things from my diet as well. Over the coarse of being gluten free, I have also removed dairy, corn, soy, and now refined sugar from my diet, in addition.

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Fortunetly, these days the medical community is much more up to date on this disease. One of my doctors told me awhile back that in medical school, Celiac disease was only explained in one small paragraph in a med book. They were told that they would never see a patient who had it--but because it was such a small tidbit, they (or at least this doctor) had to learn it only for potential testing reasons.
Yup, Celiac as a trick question. Hence why nobody ever thought of it as a possibility, or even thought of it for that matter.

Anyway...because of this new awareness, hopefully nobody else will have to go on such a {long} journey as I did.

Maybe someday I'll tell you about how my prolonged diagnosis caused this damage and resulted in this here.


So lets get back to business, shall we? I got some tasty recipes a brewin' and new products to test for you.
See you on the other side! {of the weekend, that is}

Journey of a Gluten Free LIfe-Diagnosis, Maybe?

The first time going to the grocery store looking for gluten free items, was kind of an adventure. We perused through all of the crowded aisles of the health food store on the lookout for anything labeled gluten free, which would than be tossed into the cart. It was my own little treasure hunt, with a more significant prize hidden beneath the x. The adventurous feeling didn't last long though, as I would discover new things that contained gluten in them, more and more things piling up that I could not have anymore.

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Right after I had pulled out my old medical files and made the discovery that I did, I made an appointment with a new primary care physician.

I walked into my appointment, about three weeks gluten free* with a cartload of medical records from all my former doctors and a hope for future wellness.

When I talked to this doctor about Celiac, he recommended that I be tested again so he could see for himself. When I asked if my results would be effected since I was not eating gluten, he said it wouldn't matter--that once the antibodies were there, they would stay for good. Even though the research I had done claimed different, I went and got the test done while still gluten free.

The tests came back fine.

Glutens not the problem, he told me. 

Go back to eating wheat.

So I did. 

and I went to Disneyland.

and I ate whatever I wanted for a couple weeks, 

and I started to fell lousy again.

and than said doctor called me.

and told me he had read through all of my records.

and that he was wrong.

and I needed to be off gluten.

*It is not a good idea to go gluten free without first seeking medical attention. It changes your test results, and makes diagnosis that much more difficult.

Journey of a Gluten Free Life-A New Way

When I discovered my unnoticed blood result, I was irked. {to say the least}

Six years.

For six years this test lay amongst dozens of other pages without a second glance.
Six years I lived in misery because a certain medical professional didn't bother to take a closer look.
Six horrible years, that did not need to be so horrid.

Right after I made this discovery, I officially went of gluten. In just a couple days, I felt so much better. That rock I had lived under for so many years, had started to move away. My headaches were lessened, my stomach felt better than I ever new it could, my emotions were more easily controlled, and the cap finally flew off my energy bottle. One big change = made all the difference.
I researched what little there was about gluten intolerances at that time, and bought what few gluten free products they had on the market. At this time, there were only one or two gf brands that were just starting up, with a very few items that could only be found at on health-food store in town. A gluten free diet was not yet the hip thing to do, no celebrities were doing it yet and most doctors still didn't know to test for it.

This medical unawareness is what prolonged my official diagnosis not once, but twice.

Journey of a Gluten Free Life-After the Aftermath

For the first week or so after my realization, I eliminated everything from my diet. I drank tons of water, and only ate fruits/veggies and plain rice and chicken. I tried to clean out my body and remnants of disease it had left in it.
Around this time, I received my entire pediatric file -a novel of medical records. I was eighteen now, and it was time for me to find a new primary doctor. As I was reading through my file, I came across my allergy test results from a few years prior, and on these results, besides the reaffirmation of my allergy to cats, grass and birds, the wheat allergy was negative, but there were some test abbreviations that I did not recognize.
So off to google I went.


One of these abnormal results was to the IgA/IgG antibodies, aka the celiac test.


I had a positive diagnosis to Celiac at age twelve, yet it wasn't noticed until six years later.

Journey of a Gluten Free Life-Aftermath

After I returned home from our family reunion, I couldn't get rid of my sickness. A couple weeks went by, full of headaches and nausea and covered with fatigue and cold sweats. Due to the anger my stomach was feeling, I stuck to eating bland foods-such as toast, and saltine crackers with the occasional grilled cheese or chicken noodle soup. I was not getting any better, if anything-I was feeling worse with each new day, so the whole month of September was wasted away between my bed and the couch.
Once again, my mother suggested that I try to go off wheat. She now knew another person, besides my great aunt who had such a problem, and thought that going off of gluten would cure me.
I didn't want to do it, and I tried my darndest to prove her wrong. (when will I learn that moms are always right?)

So what did I do? I ate. a lot.

I ate a pizza. I ate a bag of cookies. I ate a box of crackers. I ate toast. I ate sandwiches. I ate everything I could think of that had wheat in it, I even specifically picked a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread that had gluten listed as the first ingredient.
 I ate until my body wanted to let it all back out. I ate until I couldn't possible image eating anything ever again. I ate until I felt my entire body give up on itself, and all I could do was curl up in a ball and let the tears flow out.

But then, then I knew.

I finally realized for myself, that the food I was eating, the foods that I loved so much; were slowly poisoning me.

and I had to stop it.

Journey to a Gluten Free Life-Family Vacation

The summer after I graduated high school, I took part in a extended-family reunion. With our snacks and tunes in hand, we headed from our small beach town to a small lake town in Oregon. We made a quick pit stop in northern Cali, and picked up a few more car guests for the drive. It was a pretty long drive, which involved a couple movies, countless things to munch on, and some oldies music to rock out to. After a long day, we arrived to a cabin where we would be residing for the weekend along with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a few cousins.

The next morning we ventured over to the campsite where the reunion was to take place. Staying at this camp, there was a hundred or so of my distant relative, whom I had never met before. 

As I explained in my last segment, this was a time when I never felt good. I was quiet and withdrawn, and had a severe paranoia over food prepared by other people. Because of this food germophobia,  I ate very little during this trip. I did not know these people, I did not know how the food was prepared, I did not know what ingredients were used and the whole kitchen situation was a little to rustic for me. (as were the bathrooms, which I refused to use) So what I ate was bread. and chips. SunChips and rolls. I think I may have eaten a pancake once, and maybe some Doritos. I did not eat the freshly caught fish, or the scrambled eggs (I am very particular about my eggs) or whatever foods I deemed too exotic and unworthy for me to eat.(remember this was a period where I only ate very bland, simple foods) I drank very little water--trying to avoid using the bathroom all day--and spent lots of time in the sun.

After living on this diet for a couple days, it was time to head home. The morning we were to leave, I felt especially sick. It had been creeping up on me for the last few days, but I was trying hard to make it back home before it hit me too hard. My cousin had also been sick, he had began the trip with some sort of illness that was in full force by the time we left for home. I figured I probably had caught whatever he had, and would be feeling better in seventy-two hours or so as he had. 

As we drove back into my home state, I rapidly began to feel sicker and sicker. My head hurt, I wanted to throw up, I wanted to sleep, I wanted it to not be a hundred degrees outside and I wanted to not be feeling all of this in a car full of people, twelve hours away from home.

* Only a couple more posts to go, until a diagnosis is made!

Journey to a Gluten Free Life-Symptoms of a Sick Girl

Years 12-18; I like to pretend they didn't happen.

Anyhoo....

During these ghastly years, I learned to deal with several health complaints in my day to day life. Due to my constant absences from school, I began to study through my high school years independently. Pushing through my school work-and eventually a job, with my "normal", which I was sure was far worse than the rest of the worlds idea of a good day.

Aside from the clumps of days were I would have symptoms that would feel as if a cold or flu was looming over me, my "good" days were still involved with a few unfriendly guests.
Generally speaking, I was always tired. Not so much in a desire to go to sleep kind of way, but instead in a I don't want to move or think or talk, because it just takes to much energy kind of way. Migraines arrived often, and stomach pain came in a steady stream. Bowel movements-we gotta talk about that right?-were irregular, and came alternating as hard to come and too easy to go (if you catch my drift). Weight was an issue, an issue which I tried hard to resolve through eating whole wheat and up to three or four times the daily fiber requirement, as was recommended, with no results. (or bowel changes)
I was eating healthy, drinking platy of water, getting rest, exercising and still, I felt lousy.

So once again, I threw in the towel; the healthier I tried to be, the worse I felt-so why try?




P.S. Yesterday was National doughnut day. Did anyone enjoy one of these puppies?

Kinnikinnick Gluten free donuts. Flavors that I've tried in the past; maple, cinnamon sugar and chocolate. Delicious!

I sure didn't, but I wish I did! 

I did however eat one of these guys:

This gluten, dairy, nut, sugar free lemon cookie. All I can say about it is that it really needed some dairy, nuts and sugar. Not my fave, fur sures. 

They do have a chocolate chip variety that I may have to try in the future-it was sold out yesterday, so...does that mean its good? Maybe some ice cream would make it taste better, ice cream makes everything better. Speaking of that frozen deliciousness-I discovered a new kind! Also gluten, dairy, nut, and sugar free. Corn and soy free too, woohoo! I'll tell you all about it sometime. 'Cause I'm nice like that.

*Read on for more of my favorite foods and to see how this story develops!

Journey to a Gluten Free Life-The Origination

I spent many of my childhood days laying in my bed or on the couch, usually counting done the minutes until I would find myself in a doctors waiting room, yet again. My pediatric records read like an encyclopedia, with my 18 years of life cast out over hundreds of pages of doctors notes and lab results.
Yet in these 18 years, with countless tests and visits, no explaination was ever found.

In the early days, my complaints were of earaches or sinus pain leading each time to a trip to the doctor and ending with a sticker and a prescription. As I was too young to really recall the conversation extent of these visits, I don't really know how the physicians felt about these frequency's. However, no further tests were done, and I assume they chalked up my illnesses to the five school age siblings that were constantly sharing germs.

As I got into my early teen years, my trips to the doctors office became about the fatigue, nausea and stomach pain that were a constant in my life . Each time, the doctor would take my vitals, feel around my stomach, and proclaim everything just fine. He then would go on to discuss with my mother that I was probably just faking it, and the real issue was going on somewhere else.Nonetheless, I kept being sick, and she continued to take me to the doctor. Most of the time, my symptoms were written off as "girly problems." Meaning, after my hormones all leveled out, surely I would feel fine.

Over the course of a few years, I was in for a visit almost every week. Given unofficial diagnoses of gallstones, acid reflux, anxiety, and of course--irritable bowl. At one point, to the request of my mother, my blood was allergy tested. Her 70+ year old aunt had just been diagnosed with a wheat problem, and she wanted me to be checked too. The doctor proclaimed it negative, and decided allergies were surely not the issue.

Eventually, I was sent to a endocrinologist, who loaded me up on numerous medications to treat diagnoses of asthma, seasonal allergies, polycystic ovarian syndrome and hypothyroid. I became extremely overloaded with so many medications,  and I became more exhausted than ever and rapidly entered into a depression. Which of coarse, meant I needed to take a drug for that as well.

After about a year or so of forcing myself to swallow hand-fulls of pills everyday, I couldn't take it anymore. The medications that were supposed to be making me feel better, were doing the exact opposite. Steroids and chemicals were not making me energized and healthy, and "happy" pills were causing me to be less happy then ever before.

So I quit.

I quit going to the doctor. I quit shoving pills down my throat, and I quit thinking I would ever not feel sick.




*Next up: a few of my favorite things.

Journey to a Gluten Free LIfe-Prelude

I was born premature. Just by a couple weeks, not enough to drastically effect my size or weight (I was 6lb something-imagine how big I'd be if I was born on time!) but early enough to prevent the cord, which had positioned itself around my neck to cause any damage. I was a quiet baby, lost in the shuffle of a busy household, and a sound sleeper-so much so, my mother had to often check that I was still breathing in the night.

As my early years developed, my fair skin appeared almost translucent and was covered in eczema and bruises that came too easy. My bright blue eyes were enveloped in sleepy dark circles, and I was thin, compared to my tall frame, surely due to the fact that I was too picky to eat any real food. As it were, the diet of my toddler self primarily consisted of an array of goldfish crackers and string cheese, which were the only things I was willing to put into my small mouth. (Even my goldfish I was picky about-it could be original, parmesan or pretzel, but never would I eat those cheddar fish)

I still remained a very particular eater throughout my young life, relying heavily on "safe" foods, such as breads and crackers, when feeling sick or eating away from home.

It was because of these habits, that my intolerance to gluten was discovered. Since then, my idea of a "safe" food has changed drastically.



Plus- Stay tuned tomorrow for my favorite salad recipe, which derives from the happiest place on earth!