Hello, I'm New Here

[nyssou]

hello,

i've been lurking these boards for about a month now so i thought i'd join up and participate. i really feel the need for some kind of "support group" right now, so it's great that this is here.

i'll tell you all about my gluten related illness(s):

i am lactose & gluten intolerant and, i think, very likely celiac, though i have not been tested for celiac. the reason for this is because i dont want to eat gluten in order to have the tests done.

i haven't felt completely well since i started developing lactose intolerance 3 years ago. it began with not being able to drink milk or cream, which was not a big deal because i dont really like the taste of milk and usually always drank soymilk anyways. i simply came to like the taste of black coffee. very quickly, i was able to eat fewer and fewer dairy products without becoming ill, and was only able to eat certain brands of yogurt and types of cheeses. now i am strickly non-dairy.

im september i moved to a very very small community to go to a very very small arts college for four months. my only transportation was by bike, and everything was very far apart. incidentally, this changed my food choices - i was often very hungry from all the exercise, but could only grocery shop via backpack & bike. so i often ate meals of rice, vegetable, and cheeses that i could still eat at that time. i cut bread out of my diet because it got smooshed in my backpack. and i wasnt really eating any other sources of gluten - i dont like processed food and have never been able to digest it well, so quite by accident i was on a gluten free diet. it was the closest i had felt in three years to being fully well.

when i returned to "the city" and was in civilization again, and easy access to gluteny foods, my diet changed drastically. i drank beer 3x a week, ate oatmeal all the time, bread, etc etc etc. and i got horribly horribly ill. i got a terribly bloated belly, "demon gut", as i call it (your typical 6 month pregger belly), lost 20 pounds in 2-3 weeks, alternated between extreme d and extreme constipation - it literally looked like i had chewed food and spat it into the toilet, or i would sit on the toilet and just cry for hours. i was incredibly hungry but felt like i couldnt eat enough, in part because i was so bloated and sometimes constipated, i simply couldnt put anything in my belly without extreme pain. i had extremely bad joint pain and was incredibley fatigued.

i cut gluten out of my diet because a friend suggested the possibility of celiac disease, and my doc encouraged that move and gave me an order for blood tests. i never got the blood tests (not sure why - fatigue? it was hard to do ANYTHING) and now it is too late. but i feel 100% amazing when i eat a very low-processed, gluten/dairy free diet. if i eat gluten, i dont always get bloated and d/c, but i always get super fatigued, joint paint, depressed / cry easily, and become (for some reason?) socially awkward and anxious.

anyways,

i will end this post now because it is getting VERY long. my apologies. it is very nice to vent about all my dietary troubles to an (assumably) receptive audience. i like eating gluten free because it is very healthy and makes me feel great. but socially, it is very difficult, sometimes i feel like a huge pain in the ass to my friends. sometimes i feel like i talk too much about my gluten intolerance and related woes, so maybe posting in this forum will help me regain control of that aspect of my life - i want to be able to talk tk my friends about things other than gluten.

thanks to anyone who made it through all that.

[sb2178]

Welcome. We probably all talked about it too much in the beginning. Took me about 8 months to shut up/teach everyone who I needed to about it. It's challenging because in the beginning you think about it ALL the time, because food is such an integral part of life.

You'll get used to it, and your friends will adapt somewhat if they are nice people. Most of my friends defer to me in terms of restaurants and/or ask me to join them for drinks/non-food activities instead. I'm sure I don't get asked to something once in a while due to food; but honestly, I don't want to go sit in the new pizza place and drink coke.