Gained Massive Weight In A Short Period Of Time!

[Mesadora]

Hello my name is Anne. I have officially been diagnosed with celiac disease.

It all started when I became so tired that I could barely move. I had my thyroid tested and of course it was horrible. My doctor said that everything would get better when I started my medication. Umm... He was wrong. We then decided to take some blood tests and my liver scores were elevated. My weight also had shot up around 6 pounds in a month. The doc decided to watch my liver scores and directed me to come back in a month, hoping they would decrease below the "high 35" mark on the blood test. As I dragged myself around doing my normal routines. I went to another dr who thought I had possibly cystic fibrosis and wanted me to have a colonoscopy. Boy was I mad! I really didn't want to do that! Nope!! It actually took me eventually 5 office visits to my endo dr before he talked me into doing this horrible thing! Anyways back to the liver.... As I kept going the liver tests kept increasing. Doubling in fact and so did the weight. In 6 months my liver went from 98 to a whopping 867 and I gained a total of 45 pounds. I was a mess. The doctor hadn't a clue. He was at a loss. I finally made my appt to have my colonoscopy to find out what was causing such pain in my stomach. As I laid tense and nervous. He assured me all would be well. Umm... I awoke to some news I really didn't ever expect!!! This doctor has been doing colonoscopies for 20 years and never in his life has he ever seen a small intestine in such disrepair. He said it was awful and without a doubt I had celiac disease and probably have had it for years, if not my whole life.

As I left and started investigating my new life. I realized that my entire existence had been fighting weight gain. I would blow up and shrink. Blow up and shrink. I became a vegetarian in 2004 and started eating only cereal due to a massive car accident. I lost so much weight and finally felt wonderful again. It happened to be rice Krispy's. Knowing now that they r not gluten free... Due to contamination, I think they were enough to just get my body close to where it needed to be.... I however didn't know this and started gaining the weight again just by changing cereal.

When I went back to check my liver scores after eating NOTHING with gluten. I found that my normal 25 year doctor did not believe I had celiac disease. He basically said that I weighed entirely to much to have something like this and usually people diagnosed with this are skinny, nearly starving and they have IBS constantly. Well I didn't. I gained weight. I didn't have IBS. if anything I was the exact opposite and couldn't go at all.... I was exactly everything against the rule book. I was a big girl with a bad liver in his eyes, until my liver test came back completely normal. 100% normal. A score of 27. In one month it had gone right back down.

Now it has been three months and I have had many ups and downs over having celiac. I was raised in the south. I cooked southern. I loved to cook and I she a huge skinny family that loves to eat. It's been hard and on many days I find that I just don't eat much or anything at all. I work too long and too hard and I am petrified I will eat something contaminated. I also cannot seem to get my gluten level below a 4 which is where my endo doctor prefers it to be.... I am sitting strong at 8. But hey.... It's better then 98 where it was previous.

I guess I just need some support from people and some help knowing what to eat. I love in my car Monday-Friday. I work on the go and I don't know how to change my house into a gluten diet without changing my children and husbands lives too.

I also wanted to let people know that u don't have to be skinny as a rail or have emergency trips to the bathroom to have celiac. It could be simply an unexpected weight gain with massive exhaustion like myself.

Any thoughts would be sincerely appreciated. I just need some advice and support on what to eat and what products to use. I have been doing this completely alone and it's beginning to get nerve wracking. I miss my old food and sometimes I just want to pretend like it never happened. However it isn't worth the feeling of dragging myself around.

Thanks so much

Anne

[surviormom]

Pretty much the same here, but I am dealing with the damage of years of not knowing what I was doing to myself.  I knew something was wrong, but could not understand what, doctors would say eat more fiber, eat more yogurt, count your calories, etc.  Now we know.  We know better we do better.

[nvsmom]

(hugs) Yep, me too. I was diagnosed as a celiac and hypothyroid at about the same time. Doctors give you the impression that if you take your magic synthroid pill, and stop gluten, that you will feel better within a couple of weeks.... They have no clue!

 

It has taken me 16 months to get my diagnostic blood tests (tTG IgA) to an ALMOST normal level, and I have been strictly gluten-free without an obvious accidental glutening for 9 months. My doctor implies that he doesn't believe I have been gluten-free but I KNOW that I have and that it takes time, months or even years, to convince your body to stop damaging itself. I don't think he realizes that thyroiditis can cause a positive tTG either. 

 

As for the thyroid, many doctors seem to think that synthetic T4 (synthroid) will work for everyone - it doesn't. Many people do great on it but others need different brands, or to add synthetic T3, or to try natural desiccated thyroid. It took me almost a year to finally find a thyroid med that worked well for me, and to find a doctor that knew labs should show a free T3 and FreeT4 in the 50-75% range of the lab's normal reference range, and that a TSH should (for many with thyroid issues) be near a 1.

 

Hang in there and keep educating yourself. It gets easier when you know more. The same goes for cooking. I can make almost anything gluten-free now and have found many gluten-free recipes that my whole family (of picky eaters) enjoys.

[bartfull]

First, you should read the Newbie 101 thread.You will learn a LOT about how to stay TRULY gluten-free. It sounds to me like you are getting cross-contaminated - easy to do in a shared household. If you are using the same butter or mayo as the rest of the family, that could be it right there. One dip of a knife that has touched regular bread will contaminate the whole jar/stick/tub. Even something as simple as a bag of potato chips can be contaminated if a sandiwch eater reaches into the bag.

 

You really should keep all of your food separate. Have your own cupboard, your own section in the fridge and your own section of countertop. You need your own pots and pans if you use teflon or cast iron. You can't use a previously glutened strainer. Once you get your kitchen set up, I'll bet things improve for you.