1 Year Later

A year and a day ago, I went to a family party and ate loads of pasta salad, beer brats, meat and tons of buns. The next day, I felt awful and need a change - right away. Two weeks earlier, I had a colonscopy and upper endoscopy and learned that I was negative for Celiac Disease. I had two weeks before my follow up appointment with my gastro and the probiotics and antibiotics were not changing a thing. In my panicked research to figure out what Celiac Disease was, I came across a few articles about people testing negative for Celiac but still responded badly when eating gluten. I had nothing to lose. The day after the party, I started a gluten free one week trial. The goal was to do one week off gluten and one week on gluten and then see the doctor. My experimental diet started on a Monday evening. By Friday evening, all my symptoms that were plaguing me since I had my appendectomy in October 2008 (and greatly worsened around the holiday season in 2009) disappeared. I felt so wonderful being off gluten. For the sake of research, I needed to go back on wheat. I barely made it one meal before becoming so sick.

At my follow up appointment, there was a different Michelle in the room. A well-informed patient with a list of questions, comparisons between life on and off gluten, as well as a game plan for continuing to go gluten free.

Originally, I was embarrassed because I did not have Celiac disease. Was this all in my head? I didn't have a signle test show any intolerance to gluten (skin test, blood work, stool samples, and biopsy). I thankfully had a few symptoms that resulted with physical changes in my body (besides "not feeling well", brain fog, low energy, no appetite, headaches) and every time I slipped up or didn't pay attention to cross-contamination, the symptoms returned in a rush.

Over the past year, I learned a lot more about NCGI (non-Celiac gluten intolerance). It's real and studies suggest that about 1% of the population has Celiac disease and up to 10% are gluten intolerant. CNN recently ran a story on it and NBC Chicago had a segment on their health watch (including my story!)

For me, life after gluten is wonderful. Just over a year ago, I signed power of attorney and living will documents since my health was dramatically declining by the week. Only days off gluten, my health did a total 180. I feel better, have energy to keep up with myself, and enjoy food like never before. Ironically, following a gluten free diet has exposed me to many more foods. The range of food I'm eating has increased at least twenty times over. Yes, I still can cave in for an ice cream sandwich, but now the ice cream is rice based and my straight-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies are made with a gf flour mix and dark chocolate chips. I'm eating my veggies, baking bread, and throwing together some pretty impressive dinners and hostessing dinner parties. I started this blog mainly to prove to my mom that I was still eating. My first few entries are embarrassingly simple, although it is comical and rewarding to see the growth in my cooking skills over the course of only one year. I'm at over 135 posts, have strangers following my blog, hits from around the world, and even business cards with my blog address.

Life is good.

Hungry

I'm hungry.

After being glutenized a month ago from oats used as a filler in a hamburger, I was sick for three days and lost about two pounds. And then I never bounced back with the weight or the appetite. I lost four pounds over probably a teaspoon worth of oats. Yesterday afternoon, it was like a light switch was flipped on and I was being blinded from the intensity. I was starving! My daily food intake over doubled and instead of eating two or three times a day, I began eating about 6 or 7 times. Today, I had Honey Nut Chex cereal, leftover frozen sweet potato shepherd's pie, an energy bar, a bowl of (corn) noodles, half a pint of sorbet, and am now snacking on a bowl of potato chips. Any other day? Choose two or three of those items and that's it. I had to remind myself to eat. Today, I had the food I brought for dinner at 3pm. Yesterday, by the time I got home I was starving again, so made myself corn pasta. The problem with gf noodles is they take FOREVER to cook. And then I started getting hungry. I chopped an onion at my fastest ever speed (the cut sizes probably left something to be desired) and threw them in a pan of oil and sauteed them. I diced a tomato and mixed that together with the noodles that just finished cooking. I only had one shot of taking a picture of this meal: my camera was in one hand and the fork in the other. I have never enjoyed a meal so much! My body found its voice again and was demanding to be fed!

Back in February, Eliot drew me this picture. It had a simple purpose: remind me to eat. When on gluten, I was never hungry. I literally had to remember to eat. (And he thought taping a picture of an orange creature would help me - it did - I remembered but didn't feel like going through the motions of eating.) There were days when I only had one meal because I completly forgot about eating. When I first went off gluten and my appetite came back, it was such a wonderful feeling! There's a saying to never trust a skinny cook. Well, I'm one skinny cook who can make some pretty awesome food. But without an appetite, I am not enjoying my food past the first two bites. Now every flavor and bite sings to me and my body feels more alive than ever.

Plus, it never hurts to regain those lost pounds! ;-)