At The Start Of A Long Road

[writerscramp]

Hello everyone. I am a 42 yr old woman. I have been suffering for about 2 years with symptoms ranging from migraines to chronic diarrhea. I had my gallbladder removed in 06. I have been miserable since. I had been attributing all of my misery to the lack of a gallbladder, when an aquaintance suggested i check with my doctor about celiacs. I am still awaiting the bloodwork, but have been avoiding gluten for a week now. What a tremendous change in how i feel!! I actually have energy, dont need to run to the bathroom several times a day, and havent had a migraine. It is amazing.

I am not sure where my doctor will want to go from here, but I am sure it will involve no gluten for me. It is very comforting to find a place to read what others have learned and have succeeded with. I am a little overwhelmed with the diet and restrictions, since I was a regular fast food eater, but feeling like this is worth anything.

I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself.

[Guest j_mommy]

Hello and welcome!!!!

I'm glad you are feeling better!

I just want to say that I did absolutly NO cooking before going gluten-free....now I cook all the time and I really love it. Not only are my son and I both eating healthier but I enjoy it!!!

At first it can be daughting but it gets easier.

[VioletBlue]

Hi and welcome. I'm glad you're finding help and comfort here. They knew me well at Taco Bell and the local Chinese take out place. I've considered holding a wake for my former lifestyle. I may still do it.

Violet

[ravenwoodglass]

Hi and welcome. I'm glad you're finding help and comfort here. They knew me well at Taco Bell and the local Chinese take out place. I've considered holding a wake for my former lifestyle. I may still do it.

Violet

You could bury an eggroll in your back yard and put a rock with a sheaf of wheat with a red slash through it as a marker. Then plant your favorite flower or bush in the same place to celebrate your return to health.

[ravenwoodglass]

Hello everyone. I am a 42 yr old woman. I have been suffering for about 2 years with symptoms ranging from migraines to chronic diarrhea. I had my gallbladder removed in 06. I have been miserable since. I had been attributing all of my misery to the lack of a gallbladder, when an aquaintance suggested i check with my doctor about celiacs. I am still awaiting the bloodwork, but have been avoiding gluten for a week now. What a tremendous change in how i feel!! I actually have energy, dont need to run to the bathroom several times a day, and havent had a migraine. It is amazing.

I am not sure where my doctor will want to go from here, but I am sure it will involve no gluten for me. It is very comforting to find a place to read what others have learned and have succeeded with. I am a little overwhelmed with the diet and restrictions, since I was a regular fast food eater, but feeling like this is worth anything.

I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself.

Welcome. I am so glad you are feeling better. All your doctor really will need to do is to check your vitamin and mineral levels so you have a baseline. Then you can recheck in 6 months or a year to see how well you are absorbing. He may want to send you to a GI doctor for an endoscopy. If you want to go that route you will need to go back to eating gluten, and you should do it now and not wait. If dietary results are enough for you then forgo the endo unless your problems continue. It is your choice. If you do decide to go back on gluten for more testing be sure to let your doctor know if you have a violent reaction. He may want to stop the challenge.

There is a lot to learn so read as much as you can here. It is a bit of a challenge at first, we often have some ups and downs so be prepared. It is often a good idea to cut dairy out at first IF it is giving you problems. Depending on how damaged your villi are it may take a couple of months to heal enough to digest the lactose.

Again welcome and feel free to post any question you need to, no matter how silly of gross you may think it is.

[writerscramp]

Thanks for the red carpet treatment. Upon reading posts here, I am so amazed to see symptoms I had been having listed throughout the posts. So, the flamethrower behind my face wasnt from the migraines, it was gluten. The days when I could barely think of my own name was gluten. The mad rush to a bathroom after i ate a meal wasnt from my gallbladder being gone, it was gluten. All the htings that have plagued me the past couple of years all appear to be from gluten.

I am still awaiting the blood work results, but even if I dont have celiacs, i surely have a sensativity. I will keep you all posted on what i learn.

thanks again.

[nutralady2001]

Welcome! I was diagnosed about 3 months ago , and believe I was undiagnosed for 47 years. How much misery I could have saved myself if I knew about Coeliac Disease and insist my docs do more than just telling me I had "IBS" and there was nothing they could do.

Finally had an endoscopy/colonoscopy because I was iron deficient and a bowel screening showed blood in both upper and lower GI tract and bingo! I have Coeliac Disease

I eat very simply for now, meat/veg/fruit lol. In time I will get more adventurous. I was never much of a junk food eater but love chocolate . I had been eating it because even though it had glucose syrup in it from wheat here in Australia the Coeliac Society say it has "no detectable gluten" something like 2 parts per million

As an experiment I have cut out those things from wheat considered to have no detectable gluten because of the high processing, glucose syrup/dextrose/maltodextrin and it has made an even further improvement , more alert/energy less brain fog a very subtle difference but it's there

Have also checked all personal care/skin care items and removed anything containing gluten from them as well.