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eleep

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  • murfsgirl

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  • Interests
    Backpacking, Yoga, Cello-playing and -- right now, my dissertation
  • Location
    Gainesville, FL

eleep's Achievements

  1. I'm not sure whether anyone's mentioned this, but have you checked all of your shampoos, conditioners, toiletries, etc....? That was something I needed to do at the 1 month mark.

    I also found that feeling better was a progressive thing -- there were a lot of ups and downs at first. The stress of worrying about your scholarship may be putting you under a lot of pressure as well. I was under quite a bit of stress in the months after my diagnosis, which really magnified my frustration and feelings of exhaustion and ill-health. Try to find ways to take that pressure off of your body and mind if you can -- gentle yoga and walking for a few weeks might help (I had to stop running for a short while, myself). Healing does take energy and time and might make you feel extra-tired for a while. As difficult and frustrating as it might be to lay off activities you love, it may help speed up the healing process and get you further faster!

    I'm also finding right now that acupuncture is setting my mind and body right in all sorts of ways!

    eleep

  2. I found that my shampoos and conditioners were pretty clearly labeled with "wheat" or "barley" based ingredients when I was sorting through them. However, I did spend an afternoon on the board and then another one calling individual companies to check the other products. My experience was that this worked better for me as a way of figuring out what to keep and what to toss!

    Somewhere, however, I recall seeing a thread about Aveda products which listed ingredients to watch out for -- I'm running a little late to find it right now, but a search might turn something useful up!

  3. Since you're experiencing this stuff on your left side, it sounds like a misalignment problem or a problem with form to me -- you might consider seeing a physical therapist about this. Moreover, since you're having back pain, I'd recommend working on strengthening your core muscles if you aren't already -- I'm not an expert, though -- just speaking from my own experience with these things!

  4. Has anyone had acupuncture after going gluten-free -- did you find it helped with the healing process? I know that it's generally recommended for inflammation issues (like those involved in autoimmune reactions). Has anyone found it helpful for stress and anxiety as well? I'd love to hear about people's experiences because I'm probably about to go in for some treatment.

    FYI -- for anyone who's been following the saga of the most stressful era of my life thus far, I'm doing well and off the ativan for the most part -- I'm still having weird anxiety, bloating and mild panic attacks in the mornings about 1/2 hour after I eat breakfast (no matter what I eat). However, the rest of the nastiness has subsided. Phew!

  5. I was glutened through CC about two weeks ago -- I'd been using the patch for a few weeks after quitting smoking. After about a week of clear gastro-aftermath from the glutening (surprisingly, not much anxiety), I stepped down to the next lower patch -- that was when the panic attacks started to hit (because I was going through withdrawal). I think the bloating was leftover from the earlier glutening -- I was just linking it more clearly to the anxiety because my anxiety levels were way up in general from withdrawal.

    The bloating went away after a couple of days -- the panic attacks did not. The panic has been coming from nicotine withdrawal -- which was prolonged because I didn't just do it all at once. Since the weekend, however, I've been a whole lot better and I think my brain chemistry is starting to normalize and settle down -- I'm still taking Ativan in the morning, but generally don't need the other two doses during the rest of the day.

    One of the problems was just that I was uneducated and unprepared for the intensity of the withdrawal -- the first couple of days I really just had to gut things out in the house by myself since many of my non-smoking friends were unavailable and my family technically doesn't know that I smoke, so I didn't want to call them for support.

    Also, some really nasty news hit over the weekend (it made the nationals -- there's an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education) about cuts they're making to my department (the entire College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, in fact), and I was dealing with some colleagues who were freaking out as well as trying not to panic about my own situation. So -- my available friends this weekend were either 1) smokers who wanted to party or 2) nonsmokers who wanted to obsess about the end of professorships as a viable job option. Hence the fact that I was kind of, um, alone for a while. Things got a lot better on Sunday when I went for a hike with a friend who's in neither of those camps -- then I went to a party where a bunch of grownups got silly over "Dance, Dance Revolution" and a bunch of card and trivia games -- which made everything a whole lot better. I'm still a mean competitor even when I'm in withdrawal!

    I should add that a lot of hiking, running, yoga and water have helped as well.

  6. Just a quick update because I finally had to call a doctor (and my therapist) on this one -- they think I have been having prolonged anxiety because of using the patch to quit smoking -- essentially, each time I've "stepped down" a patch, I've gone into another bout of withdrawal -- which includes anxiety irritability and crying jags -- was made worse by that glutening two weeks ago. Essentially, I ripped off the patch for good on Thursday night and I'm only just now starting to feel normal -- apparently nicotine cessation also can make people extremely sensitive to caffeine.

    This past weekend has been pretty ugly, actually -- the doctor told me to give it 72 hours with _no_ nicotine and see what happens. Just got back from a party with some good friends and I'm feeling fine.

    I have honestly never experienced anything like this when quitting smoking -- I can think of a lot of reasons why this experience has been so intense, but perhaps it also has to do with the fact that I'm a lot more aware of stuff in my body now that I'm gluten-free -- my therapist also points out that this is a bit of delayed grief -- as he thinks I'd have experienced had I reacted to the breakup by going on drinking binges or something like that -- any numbing activity doesn't really take care of the grief, but just suppresses it for a while making it more surprising and intense when it does pop up.

  7. Whoops -- Kombucha is a fermented Chinese health tea drink thing. I really think that stuff along the lines of t'ai chi, yoga, possibly pilates and more meditative stuff is where you want to go. Meditation, in particular, helped me actually learn how it feels when my blood pressure does rise and my stress levels go up -- and how to gently coax them back down -- in a very nuanced way -- after learning what a calm, meditative state feels like, I've actually been better able to pace myself when I go jogging so that it's more of a mindfulness exercise than anything else -- I used to really wipe myself out too much when I was running. Hiking is also a useful way for me to practice mindfulness -- which is essentially being in the "flow" of a meditative state.

  8. I don't have hard facts at my fingertips, but my instinct would be to say that lifting weights -- if done gently and in moderation -- should be okay. You should actually produce more testosterone which can help with cortisol levels (I think, but again, I don't have access to my research on this stuff right here). I'm going to get back on what my ex called my "Ashtanga yoga is good for everything" bandwagon, however and suggest that you consider something more sustained like that which combines some weight-bearing stuff with some cardio-based motion.

    Maybe off-topic, maybe not -- my brother's been yakking about Kombucha for months now and I finally tried it the other day -- it seems to have very energizing effects.

  9. That's exactly what I was about to say -- everyone I know reacts that way to fresh beets -- I've been in a room full of people sharing beet-toilet-scare stories and I'm fairly confident that they weren't all celiacs. I also don't have that reaction to canned ones from the salad bar -- perhaps because a lot of the juice has been drained out of them? Dunno.

    eleep

  10. Hey Carla,

    Is not getting enough sunshine and outside-time something that can contribute to adrenal fatigue? This just occured to me because, in April, I was actually under orders by a doctor to spend as much time in nature as I could for a while when they were concerned that I was going to collapse from fatigue.

    I wonder if too much celiac.com might be a contributing factor for this sort of thing :unsure:

    Time to take the laptop outside? B)

  11. I always feel extra-tired after massage or any kind of energy-clearing bodywork, so I'm not surprised you feel that way after acupuncture. If I go home and nap and drink lots of water I always feel like I'm walking about a foot above the ground for a good week or so afterwards!

    The only thing I've got brewing right now is trying to get comfortable with writing as a slow marathon-like process! Oh, and I'm trying to talk a very shy male friend into taking latin dance classes with me -- he's having trouble asking out a girl he really likes, and I'm trying to get him used to just being out with a woman.

  12. I actually doubt I'm going to start smoking again -- it's been my dearest wish for years to quit smoking for good and the major celiac-related symptoms were part of what kept pulling me back in every time I quit. I was also spending a lot of time among people who do smoke and I honestly don't feel that will be an issue any longer either.

    I was less of a social smoker than an anxiety-related smoker -- and, despite these panic attacks right now, the anxiety had a lot to do with gluten. Now that I know this, it's just a lot easier to control and deal with things overall.

    I'm actually looking into getting acupuncture as well -- have been getting recommendations from friends. I think it's time to get my body back into balance and I've been doing as much as I can on my own. I kind of feel like I've got a new start brewing and I'd like to do as much as I can to begin with a clear and healthy body.

  13. Okay -- caffeine definitely sets the panic attacks off right now -- I only drink about a cup of coffee a day, but even that seems to have become too much since I quit smoking. I'm just getting more and more sensitive, I guess -- I don't really crave cigarettes, but I just get rather wreck-like.

    I'm not eating any sugar outside of what's in the fruit I eat, so I think that's probably not an issue.

    oceangirl -- thank you.

  14. Had a couple of tough days and, on impulse, bought a really good, hard, aged, extra-sharp Cheddar which can sit for a few months in my fridge before I open it, if need be.

    I'm able to eat yogurt, butter and buttermilk with no problem (although, they don't generally have lactose anyway!). Any estimates on how many months gluten-free I should go before trying a slice of this stuff on a cracker?

    eleep

  15. Well, I'm not consuming any sugar and I've cut my coffee consumption down to 1/2 mug a day -- none this morning. The two psych. people I consulted with today said that this is probably most clearly related to the nicotine withdrawal -- particularly because I'd amped myself up to about a pack a day habit for a couple of months there and then just quit. The ativan dosage is so mild that I don't feel remotely zombie-like -- I actually still feel the impulse to cry sometimes, I just don't have an uncontrollable fit.

    Mostly, I just feel like myself today, which is good -- that is, kind of going through a tough time, but still able to relax and have a sense of humor.

    In regard to your earlier question UTDan -- no, I've never experienced anything like this before. Of course, the other times I've quit, I was using Wellbutrin -- so that really took care of all the psychological stuff -- and I definitely still have underlying emotional stuff going on right now -- relationship grieving, emotions about attending all these social functions with food lately, feelings about not having had a chance to travel to see my folks for a long time, anxiety about getting all my goals accomplished and not getting waylaid again by a food reaction, etc....

    I am thinking about getting acupuncture for the anxiety and stress, however, because I imagine that my body's pretty tuckered from all this stuff -- has anyone else had success taking this approach?

    And -- for anyone who's gotten a divorce or gone through the breakup of a long-term relationship (5 or so years), how long did it take to mourn and get through stuff finally? Did it come in waves? Do you think it's different for men and women?

  16. Funny you should mention bio-feedback -- before I went into a meditation class, I'd spent about six months playing with a biofeedback meditation "game" called Wild Divine -- that's what taught me that I should really get into a meditation class to take things any further.

    Meditation was how I became able to isolate the fact that there was something going on that wasn't a generalized anxiety disorder or anything like that -- there was something going on at inexplicable times for inexplicable reasons. Times when I should have been most stressed out, I wasn't -- times when I shouldn't be stressed, I was. It wasn't consistent with anything I could understand and it was always recognizable anxiety -- not just free-floating -- there were real things I'd get obsessive over, but not necessarily all things anyone would get obsessive over -- and not every day.

    Anyway -- back to writing -- I'm doing much better on the Ativan!

  17. I have had crying-jag anxiety fits in the midst of brain fog/celiac symptoms that were clearly reactions before I knew they were reactions -- usually, I dealt with them through exercise -- they also usually came during times of extreme stress -- like my mother's funeral -- and were accompanied by insomnia. I also had quite a bit of this in the first month or so after I went gluten-free -- again, probably withdrawal symptoms.

    Now, I don't have insomnia, I'm exercising and mediating daily and getting things done and structure in my life -- the only thing that's changed is that I've quit smoking. This doesn't seem to be a generalized anxiety disorder so much as a reaction to a lot of physical and psychological stress. I have actually been getting significantly healthier, it just seems that my body's releasing a lot of the tension it's been holding in. This is just a gradual process -- I think some of my panic came from feeling as though I was taking steps backwards when I've been moving forwards so steadily.

    This isn't a very large dose after all and it does kind of help take the edge off -- the majority of my panic seems to come in the morning when I've been without a nicotine patch all night. I'll see what happens in a couple of weeks or so.

  18. I'd checked about gluten already, but I checked again with the company and it does contain lactose monohydrate -- I am lactose intolerant right now, but I suspect that I can head problems off by taking two lactaid with the 1/2 Ativan.

    Spoke with my psychiatrist today and he said that, indeed, this is probably coming up because of the quitting smoking -- he suggested that I stick to the Ativan for a month at very small levels. Since it doesn't make me a zombie, I'm going to do this and keep doing all the other stuff as well.

    Grrrr......I hate change.

  19. Yeah, it's .5 MG that I'm taking -- not a lot, although I did take the other .5 half of the pill about three hours later and I now feel kind of yawny and draggy, so that may have been too much. I'm tiny, so a little may go a long way with this stuff. The prescription is for 1/2 to 1 tablet as needed for anxiety -- kind of vague, but the doctor who wrote it was giving it to me for the odd food reaction -- not a day-to-day thing.

    Good to know that about the St. John's Wort -- it also shouldn't be taken with Immodium, apparently.

    Edit: Now that I read more closely, it looks like there are a bunch of food restrictions as well -- maybe I'll drop the stuff for a while and see what happens:

    Answer: Shouldn't be a problem. The only obvious interaction is with certain foods - at least theoretically: chicken liver, pickled herring, yogurt, beer, wine (especially red, sherry and chianti), bananas, avocados, raisins, chocolate, sour cream, soy sauce. This is because St. John's Wort is a mild MAO inhibitor.

  20. Does anyone know how best to take the Ativan so I don't overdo it and risk becoming dependant? I've kind of been under-estimating what I needed because I'm concerned about that -- today I finally took the 1/2 tablet after two earlier panic attacks which I dealt with by napping/meditating and going for a run. I knuckled under because I just HAD to get some work done!

    Should I continue with the 1/2 dose? How long do these last?

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