Musings of a Celiac

So the doctor has diagnosed me with Celiac disease, though I have yet to have a colonoscopy or biopsy to see how bad it is... So far I have visited Vitamin Cottage and recieved a list of all their products that are gluten-free. Wow, what service! Whenever I shop there, I always get a feeling that they care. Rare nowadays.

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I have a couple of cookbooks for gluten free cooking. Good ones, too. I also had to clean out my cabinets and fridge. My poor cabinets looked so bare when I was done. I gave the forbidden food away and then went to the store to get a few items. (Slowly my cabinets are building back up.) I also found out there are at least 4 other people in my Kingdom Hall who have some level of gluten intolerance, three of whom are a family and two members of that family have Celiac disease like myself.

What else did I do? Oh, I've had to take Miralax every night, trying to clean myself out, along with a generic form of Reglan for the same reason. It doesn't appear to be working very quickly, but it is working. The doctor insists that I also have IBS, though I wonder if they aren't in fact the same thing in my case. On top of having Fibromyalgia, which is triggered by a gluten reaction, I am my own early warning system when I've eaten something that has gluten in it. Funny too, considering I've come across some things which are labeled gluten free that, after consuming and reacting to hidden glutens, then found (on some occasions) a small blurb on the packaging saying the product had gluten at a rate of less than .002% or .001% And then on other occasions I came across items which didn't have a gluten free label on them but which are in fact gluten free.

So, to avoid finding out the hard way that something has gluten in it, I have started emailing companies of products that I love to see if they have gluten in them. Some of them have the information on their website. I take nothing for granted, I email them asking for a list of their products that are gluten free and then saving the lists they send me. My idea is to put them in a three ring binder to take with me when I go shopping. This way I have a list of my favorite foods to choose from when I want something different to eat. I went to my favorite potato chip's website (that would be Lay's "Classic" Potato chips) and found a 2 page list of gluten-free products in their questions page. Way cool. And my favorite BBQ (Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ) sauce is gluten-free! Yay! Now I can keep on dipping my chips into the BBQ sauce (one of my favorite foods) Yeah, I know it's not healthy, but I love it. We all have our comfort foods, one of my favorite's is Lays dipped in SBR BBQ sauce. Yum.

I also found out Diet Coke is gluten-free. Including Lime flavored. The perfect compliment to my chips and dip. Diet Coke is one of those things that grows on you. Once you get used to it you love it. I do anyways. I still have a long ways to go, I have to get cleaned out and who knows how long it will take for my villi to heal. (Considering I don't even know how much damage has been done in the first place)

I tried to tell my mom and sister and brother of my diagnosis and to encourage them to get tested, but I don't think they took it as seriously as I wanted them to... My mom was convinced that only skinny people could have Celiac Disease, but I tried to explain to her that it reacts differently within different people. Me, I have this big ole pot belly but the rest of me doesn't look too bad.

I'm trying as hard as I can to deal with this stupid disease, but the truth is, I'm very frustrated and saddened. I mean, food is such an important part of our lives, and I know that I'll adjust to the point where I won't even miss the forbidden foods (hereafter referred to as "FF") but it is still quite frustrating. Eating out will never be the same. Picnics will never be the same.

I am thrilled to have found this community, though. Here there are many MORE people who know how I feel, who know what I'm talking about when I say "Eating out will never be the same" That makes it much easier to deal with....