eleep

Yes, I'm pretty sure the smoking was helping with some of my symptoms. I do know that not-smoking helps me quite a bit with anxiety in the long term (I've been able to quit for months and years at a time), but I don't seem to have hit that point yet -- things seem to be getting worse, in fact.

Okay, quit smoking, recovering from breakup (possible not-breakup) of a long relationship, dealing with celiac, trying to write on a deadline, dealing with a far away family (who do understand my situation, but are busy themselves) and a bunch of friends who don't really understand this food thing at all. My best friend, who is my ex-boyfriend, is someone I can't contact for help right now because we're taking time apart -- although he, of all my friends, has done the most research and is most likely to understand what's going on.

Right now, I think my stomach is still kind of inflamed from a glutening last week -- it is also possible that I may be reacting to soy, although I haven't been eating too much of it and I'm having some kind of episode every time I eat -- no matter what I eat. I get bloated and have intense, tearful anxiety. I take an Immodium which seems to help eventually, but now I need to take one just about every four hours.

I am exercising every day and meditating and taking sublingual B complex, gluten-free multis, St. John's Wort and fish oil capsules. I'm drinking lots of water and getting plenty of sleep. I've actually been putting on weight (very good) since I quit smoking and that's going well. However, the panic is intense right now and I don't know if it's coming up because the smoking was holding it back or what. It is certainly food/stomach related as well.

I have just broken into the Ativan I got about a month back and taken 1/2 of a 1 MG tab. I really don't want to depend on drugs to get me through this because I do believe in building up resilience in one's brain, but I don't know that I can take all this stress right now.

I have no problems with McCann's, I use their regular instant oats.

Erica (eleep) it's good to see you, such a pretty girl you are. It's always so nice to see what people look like!

Thanks -- I really like that picture too! I actually had to do some cropping because my boyfriend snapped it just after I'd gotten out of the shower!

eleep

Oh, so the kissing/cross-contamination thing is real! Wow.

eleep

I actually think my celiac symptoms escalated over the past six or so years when I started to date a guy who was a very huge beer drinker. Prior to dating him, I'd mostly stuck with wine and mixed drinks. However, my father has always been a homebrewer and I'd developed an early appreciation for really good beer -- this guy was a big Guinness fan, and we courted at a local Irish bar where we know the family who owns the place. I began to drink a Guinness/cider combination when we went there (no good wine) and grew accustomed to being more likely to have a decent beer with dinner.

Now, I'm pretty certain that my symptoms go back at least 16 years to college, but I'd had ups and downs with the level of their severity for several years after that -- when I met this guy, I was working pretty closely with a yoga instructor and had cleaned up my diet to the point where I was eating a lot of whole foods and had cut out almost all processed and refined grains -- it was rare for me to eat bread or pasta, although this changed quite a bit over the past few years. When we met, I actually weighed a decent amount and was pretty healthy -- about a year or two into the relationship, the symptoms slowly began to crawl back in and I've been struggling with up and down weight and anxiety/brain fog issues for the past few years. This past year, I cut way back on drinking anything other than water and I'm pretty sure that was one of the things that helped me finally link the symptoms to what I was consuming because I wasn't actually consuming gluten on a day-to-day basis and the ups and downs were more apparent. Of course, I simply thought I was hypoglycemic and had some kind of anxiety-thing going on (I'd dealt with a recent death in the family), but it wasn't until I discovered celiac that I could start to link all of my symptoms together -- including the weird weight fluctuation which seemed to have no connection to how much food I'd been consuming at any given time.

eleep

I drank three very small-sized glasses of wine at a party last night -- over the course of five hours and after a good meal -- and I swear I can't remember the whole evening very clearly. Tonight, at a reception, I took two sips of pinot grigio before I put the glass down (and it's too bad, because it was a very good pinot grigio!). Now I've moved on to water at home and I'm about to go out to hear a friend's band play at a local bar where I'm going to stick with water. I don't care what anyone else thinks, but then, I've been feeling ornery lately!

eleep

The thing is, I used to be so good at "working" events like this even if I hated them. I'm not a big small-talker, but I do know how to draw people out in conversation and get them to tell me interesting things they would otherwise probably not discuss at a superficial meet-and-greet. Tonight, however, I was just so paralyzed by my own stuff that I simply had no energy to focus on anyone else. I also blurted out "oh, I can't have any of that" when someone (who knows about my diagnosis, but can't be expected to keep track of everything going on with every graduate student) suggested that I go have some of the freakin' wood-oven-baked-gourmet pizza on one of the tables -- he's been great and supportive and he meant really well, but I guess I'm just not in a place yet where I've learned how to be gracious AND deal with all this other stuff at the same time.

Sheesh. I'm going to have to start throwing my own dinner parties again, I think. That way I can be social and have food and be in control of the situation!

eleep

Well, I just narrowly escaped from my department's beginning-of-the-year party -- which has always been known for its stodginess and social discomfort, but this is the first year I realized that the food was really the only reason I've ever even remotely enjoyed attending. Not anymore -- there wasn't a thing I could eat and this is the fourth social event of the week I've been to involving food -- I had one relatively mild cc episode early on, got lucky at two other events and just ate at home before heading out for the past few nights.

On top of all this, there's the "Erica's recovering from some weird and rare illness" factor -- gossip gets around and it was something I really didn't want to talk about, although I got plenty of comments about how I look "well". The people I care about most in the department weren't there -- my advisor decided to avoid the thing -- I honestly went in, grabbed a glass of pinot grigio, made one circuit around the room, put the glass down by the door and left.

I'm so ready to graduate and move on to a place where people meet me as a celiac!

Bit of a rant:

I really hate to hear that you're going through this still -- it makes me so frustrated right now that we all can't just recover smoothly and at the same rate!

eleep

Well, I appear to have hit the "anger" stage with celiac.

Wow, it is so much easier to get decent writing done when your mind can move in linear fashion from point A to point B without taking a hundred detours along the way! Of course, there's something to be said for the detours as well, however -- I think I've had the opportunity to explore just about every angle of my topic by thinking about it through the fog.

Just saying......

(back to work)

eleep

I had to cut out cardio for a while as well. What helped quite a bit was substituting more Ashtanga yoga than usual -- although I stuck with doing it at home because I wanted to stick to the pace that was best for my body and not have to worry about keeping up with a class.

eleep

That's great! Your topic heading has me rolling on the floor right now!

eleep

The only problems I've had were actually in situations where I was vague with my communication or brought things up in ways that prolonged any focus on the subject. "I'm allergic to wheat and barley, so can't have beer" goes over a whole lot better than "I don't drink beer". Actually, I love beer and would drink it if I could -- however, I'm also tired of having conversations about how much I miss real beer and how much the guy in question can't imagine going without it, so I generally follow the allergy statement with "I'd love some cider/wine/tequila drinks" and change the subject.

Actually, the one exception was a guy who, when I said I was allergic to beer asked me questions in detail so I finally confessed to recovering from an autoimmune disease, whereupon he lifted his shirt, showed me a humongous scar running across his belly and said: "I'm recovering from a shark attack -- I got bitten by a shark named cancer". He was all of about 30, very cute and turned out to be a really good guy, but I'm not operating with a whole enough heart and body these days to take on someone like that. However, he has since been spending a lot of time with a friend of mine who's two years out of a marriage and totally in a position to be dating seriously again. I feel pretty good for having helped them make that connection nonetheless.

eleep

Yep, it's distilled. I think I must be drinking too much at once -- the word "glug" comes to mind.....

eleep

You know I may have, I didn't even think about pans and spoons. Well I know enough not to cross use them at the time I'm cooking, but it may have been the pan. My hubby will make a grilled cheese for the boys and put it in the oven just wiped out, so its a deffinate possibility. Jeez I guess I have to get my own julie pan, nice Okay so apparently I've been glutened, mostly I have a very foggy head, any suggestions on how to get rid of it? I know my attitude stinks, but I'm not feeling well, and eating is such a pain in the butt these days, I better get used to it huh?

Welcome to the club! You will get used to it.

My basic remedies for my own "bad attitude" have been lots of water and sublingual B-complex, Immodium (I find it helps my moods as well) and whatever exercise I can get (preferably outside). It's better for me to keep eating, so I generally stick with blander stuff. However, I do try to eat fruits, veggies and fibrous stuff.

I have headed what looked to be one very bad insomnia-provoking glutening off at the pass with activated charcoal, but still felt foggy for a few days afterwards. The activated charcoal will absorb nutrients as well as toxins, so don't take it within four hours or so of taking supplements or anything like that (sublingual vitamins, of course, won't be affected).

eleep

The "where does all that food go?" issue was a big joke in my family for years, but now I think we're all having second thoughts about it!

eleep

I've been finding that my mornings like that happen about 36-48 hours after any likely source of gluten (usually cross-contamination), so could this be a more delayed reaction? I also had mornings like that after a day when I'd eaten dairy.

eleep

I had a bit of a cross-contamination issue earlier in the week and I've slowly been recovering. On mornings when I've felt particularly as though I had a raw stomach, I've been drinking a little aloe vera juice to try and calm things down. However, I notice that this tends to make me slightly nauseous within about 1/2 hour -- nothing serious, but I'm wondering whether anyone else has this issue? I've been assuming that it does help with the inflammation and such, but now I wonder whether I've been making the wrong assumption.

eleep

I'm just chiming in to agree with the suggestions above -- I've also had to struggle with this issue of needing to be more in control of things and trying to reconcile it with what used to be my "laid-back" approach towards food and such. I'm learning that being in control doesn't necessarily have to mean being nervous or controlling (very different things). As I'm getting used to knowing what I need to do to be sure that I'm fed and protected on a day-to-day basis, it's getting a whole lot easier to be laid back about it all!

eleep

You know, I didn't even realize I had ongoing abdominal pain until after I stopped eating gluten -- the first time I got glutened after that, I felt these shooting pains deep in my stomach that were incredibly familiar and made me realize how acclimated to feeling crappy I had been for years!

eleep

You know, it never occured to me that they might not be, but I haven't confirmed. I have made chili with them recently, however, and didn't have a reaction. Someone else might have a more reliable answer though!

eleep

Wait -- two beers -- are those gluten-free beers? That could be your culprit right there. You need to eliminate anything with barley in it -- and any beer that isn't clearly labeled gluten-free (read -- almost all beer) will have barley malt or wheat in it.

The brain fog and stressy/irritable symptoms could very well be indicative of B vitamin deficiency -- which is a celiac problem, but is also a problem with alcohol -- one of the reasons for irritability/hangovers the morning after a few too many drinks is that drinking significantly depletes B vitamins (as does smoking, which I quit recently).

If you are healing, you may also find that your tolerance has decreased because your body is absorbing alcohol more quickly. I actually quit drinking at all for a while to let my body recover. It took less than a glass of wine at dinner to make me feel as though I shouldn't be driving. Now that I'm a lot stronger, I don't need to be as careful (I'm going to a wine-tasting tonight if I get enough writing done!) and my body is a lot happier for having had the chance to heal. Actually, my entire sense of well-being and happiness is a lot better in general.

eleep

My experience going off of gluten was horrific -- more mood swings and stress than ever and a complete inability to cope. I've since realized that it was like an extended drug withdrawal. I've recently quit smoking, so I can confirm that the experience was much the same (ironically, quitting smoking was like a walk in the park compared to the gluten withdrawal).

What helped me significantly was to be sure to supplement, eat right get lots of rest and treat myself and my body very carefully. B-complex and fish-oil do help your brain recover faster -- exercise (even if you're just going for a walk) also helps quite a bit. If I'd been able to not-smoke through that experience, I'm pretty sure that my recovery would have gone much faster, but I think I would have lost my mind if I'd tried to do both things at once. Since quitting smoking, I've had one accidental glutening from cross-contamination (actually, earlier this week), and it took me three days to realize that I'd been glutened -- the reaction was still noticeable, but much less dramatic and life-draining than any reactions I've had before.

I think the bottom line is that withdrawal will be hard and have a sapping effect on your brain and your moods and your body, but it will pass -- and it will also help to think of this as a time when you need to rest and build up strength -- the healthier your body and habits are, the better it will deal with what life (or a well-meaning friend at a potluck who hasn't been as careful with her pots and pans as you'd like her to be) has to throw at you.

eleep

I can second the TMJ/food intolerance link -- I incessantly clench my jaw when I've been glutened. I also have a history of tight neck problems that I've done a lot of work on with yoga and pilates.

eleep