Celiac Awareness Month
In March 2008, I stopped eating gluten for medical reasons, and (with a few transgressions) haven’t looked back. OK, I’ve looked back in anger — like the play, not the Oasis song — but for the most part, I am very grateful to have had such a straightforward and relatively easy way to address my myriad health problems. May is Celiac Awareness Month, so here are some related links. I won’t proselytize, I promise. If I didn’t have to give up gluten, I wouldn’t have, believe me. I miss croissants and wake up from intricate croissant-eating dreams. Often. What is Celiac Disease? from the Celiac Disease on the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse. FDA.gov’s Questions and Answers on the Gluten-Free...
Read Morethe state of the gut
Since I am currently struggling with a stomach bug, and quickly approaching my first gluten-free anniversary, a “state of the gut” address seemed appropriate. On 23 March 2008, I began a gluten-free diet to alleviate gluten intolerance, possibly Celiac Disease. (I say “possibly” because I have not yet been able to go back on gluten so I can be formally tested. Ingesting gluten for a month would certainly mean more sick days than I can take right now.) Due to my diet, I have rediscovered my love of cooking, though grocery shopping — while less confusing and overwhelming — is still frustrating. I have lost the taste for cookies and cakes, but still yearn for dishes like biscuits and gravy from Boogaloo’s and focaccia...
Read Moregrateful for health
This morning, I succumbed to the summer cold that’s traipsing around, so it might seem strange to write about being grateful for my health. The fact remains that my health is better than it has been in years, and all because I traced the source of most of my nagging problems to ingesting gluten. (This is why, for those of you who are starting to read my journal now, I am on a gluten-free diet; it is not a fad diet, but a diet required by an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine called Celiac Disease. Read up on this before lecturing me about how diets are bad for me.) Despite making such a huge breakthrough recently, I have much more work to go on my health. I need to find a daily exercise regimen that I will stick to, unlike going to the gym or...
Read Morethree months of salad
After three months of a gluten-free diet, I can safely say that I am tired of this brave new salad-riddled world and want to go home, my fluffy pastry home with the doughnut doorknob. Initially, I was more than happy to give up gluten if it meant feeling good again. There is no question that even my bad days now are better than my best days were back then. I won’t go back to how it was before, no matter how bleak it seems right now. And right now it seems very bleak. I suppose this is merely a slump, an expected one since I jumped into a gluten-free life without real consideration to how my eating habits — ALL of my eating habits — would have to change. Today I am mourning the ability to be the effortless dining companion I once was. Some...
Read Moresick feels me
I awoke to the shaky, bad-gut feeling of my days with gluten: each stretch of intestine its own serpent, stick-poked and salivating and wanting out. Slamming behind my left eyesocket was the quickened tattoo of my blood: dah-duh-tump, dah-duh-tump. “I feel sick” doesn’t cover it on these days, that tepid stain of a phrase. Sick feels me, pinches my larynx, bends back my elbows, kicks my shins. Sick is the subject and I its weakened, palpated object. This is why I must remain humble: just when I think I have beaten it, fooled it, run around the block on it and sneaked into its end-zone, I do the classic horror-film turn and it is closer than ever, my cute little ailment, my snack of a disease. I scream; it gapes its maw. I stumble...
Read MoreRSSless: day 7
This will be brief, because I am extremely ill today due to accidentally ingesting gluten in last night’s dinner. The worst part is that I dread eating the next day so much I tend to avoid it until I can’t anymore, and then scarf something vaguely disgusting down just to have some nutrition. Clearly I am new at managing this disease, and have a lot to learn. My experiment in giving up my RSS reader for a week is complete. I’ve made my point to myself: I don’t need to keep up with 269 RSS feeds to lead a complete, informed, happy life. Also, I prefer getting my news from communities that encourage participation instead of from one-way news blasts. The exception to this is Twitter, which is eminently useful to me as a means to keeping up...
Read Moresymptomatic
The last thing I want to write about is the first thing on my mind these days. For the past couple of years, I have suffered from a ghost illness I self-diagnosed as “stress-related”, with symptoms that include gastrointestinal distress, severe headaches, extreme fatigue, and inexplicable mood-swings. Though my two major sources of stress (my last relationship, and my last job) are no more, my symptoms have recently intensified, sometimes to the point of incapacitation. A researcher by heart, I started reading up on my symptoms, which were compounded a few months ago by a troublesome rash not unlike chicken pox. “Celiac Disease” kept coming up, so I read more and spoke with two friends who have it. With their information, and with my...
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