Food Aversion

[Robinbird]

In December it will be two years since my diagnosis and I am still struggling to get back to a normal weight. There are a few problems which I recognize but am having trouble addressing.

1.) First I know I am not eating enough. When I get glutened I will expel food out of every end usually completely undigested. THis has cause me major aversions to the foods I eat as gluten-free foods are expensive and hard to obtain. I cook everything from scratch and eat the same stuff all the time to avoid accidents and to make my life easy. The problem being that I no longer want to eat anything I normally eat. Most foods I eat regularly have come to disgust me after vomiting them out so many times. The food themselves did not make me sick I just ate them after gluten and was still sick so eating them hurt my digestive system and led to vomiting and bad BM's. Has this happened to anyone else? How do I get my appetite back and learn to enjoy the foods I used to love? Like broccoli I know it is gluten-free but I cannot eat it anymore. I am a REALLY picky eater and I don't like to try new things which compounds the problem.

2.) How I get glutened. Over the last few months I have become confined to my house. Every time I go out I tend to get contaminated. In addition, I see no point in going out. I am so skinny I hate the way I look it undermines my confidence and I see no point in showing myself to people when I am so uncomfortable with my body. Specially since most people don't look at me and think Celiac they think Anorexic (I live in Santa Barbara where girls think skinny is good and would "love" to have celiac?? I'm from the Bay and I want my big butt back!). Besides not eating enough I also do get glutened when I go out drinking so I have stopped going out. I always drink Patron silver shots or with cranberry juice. I don't know if it is the hose that spurts out water, juice and all other gluten filled liquids that is contaminating me I know it is not the tequila. Either way I have stopped going out and when I do I take a flask and drink straight tequila for fear of contamination. Yea I am 10-15 pounds under weight 4'11'' have a damaged intestine and drinking straight tequila great. I really wish bars would start carrying gluten-free BEER! I know I am extremely sensitive but does anyone else have any good ideas for drinking out at bars? Or how to gain weight or regain a lost appetite?

[jenngolightly]

I have a little suggestion from when I had similar issues with food repulsion. My doctor made me promise that I'd drink one ensure a day, just to keep getting nutrition since my food intake was spotty. Like you, it wasn't that I didn't want to eat, I couldn't eat - my body had shut off the food desire button. So to this day - several years later (and I can eat again), I still drink one ensure a day.

Good luck. It was an uphill battle and took an enormous amount of work for me to regain my desire to eat.