Ugh. What a week!! And the worst part? I’ve been going through probably the best stretch I’ve had since my celiac diagnosis in 2007. So what happened? I have no idea but let’s go through my week.
Saturday
Ate a loaf of wonder bread and downed it with a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Just kidding. Went out with my crew of friends to a restaurant I’ve been to a dozen times before. High-end food. They understand celiac. Have never gotten sick. The chef that is always there is not there tonight. Bummer.
For an appetizer I ordered fried calamari and mozzarella sticks. (Ok…I’ll stop doing that.) For appies, I order grilled scallops. Simple. Delish.
For dinner, a simple piece of halibut over pureed cauliflower. Amazing.
Dessert time. I NEVER order dessert when I’m out. One because I don’t like leaving a restaurant feeling stuffed and two because there is usually nothing close that I can have. But for some reason I order the bread pudding (sorry… really the last time I do that). Actually, I split a piece of flour-less chocolate cake with my sis-in-law. I’m 99% sure I’ve had this before and was fine. But my bad for not asking more questions. Just a rookie mistake. I ate it, was thankful for a fun evening and we departed.
Sunday
All good.
Monday
Exhausted. Absolutely exhausted. Couldn’t get anything done. No concern at this point (though I DETEST the days of no energy).
Tuesday
Since I lost so much work time on Monday, I woke up at 5 and had a good productive day. Not the best energy-wise. Still off. But not as bad as Monday.
Wednesday
Shoot me. Just put me out of my misery. Angry and tired all day and then around 6:00 my stomach started KILLING me. And I mean killing me. If you put a pin in me, I swear I would have popped. How bad was it? Take a look. You may want to hide the kids:
Pretty attractive, huh? No, I’m not pregnant. No, I normally don’t have that gut. And no, I’m not pushing anything out. That was me in all my glory. Went to bed unbelievably pissed about my disease, which I never do. It wasn’t “why me?”. It was simply “I’m sick of this shit.”
Thursday
Set my alarm for 5:00 again hoping I could make up again for lost time. Hell no. Did not make it out of bed until 9 and the day didn’t get any better from there. Barely ate all day, except a bowl of cheerios and a can of Old Milwaukee (last time I promise). I had a protein shake and some watermelon. Hit the sack by 7:30. Set my alarm for 5 again. Fun day!
Friday
Got up at 5 and had a bowl of Wheat Chex (I know I promised….couldn’t resist). It’s now 8:20 and I feel awesome. It’s gonna be a good day.
So what do I make of all of this?
1) I’m frustrated. I’m not sure if I got glutened at the restaurant or if it’s just the nature of having an autoimmune disease that rears its ugly head once in a while. Either way, it got to me like it hasn’t in a long time.
2) I’m not alone. On Wednesday night, I tweeted the following: I f***ing hate celiac disease. That is all. So far, the tweet has been liked 210 times and retweeted 32 times. So yeah…lots in the same boat. I got some saying “hang in there”. I got some offering helpful advice. And I got one that saying it could be worse. I replied that I am fine with celiac 99% of the time, but this time it just hit me hard for some reason. I’m allowed that.
3) I’m moving on. I had my tantrum. It’s done. I have celiac disease. I’ll always have celiac disease. And the cycle of feeling great to getting hit to feeling great (rinse, lather, repeat) is part of the deal.
This is the life of a celiac.
Right now my stomach is killing me and I feel your pain. I also have the joy of endocrine pancreatic insufficiency, scarring of the pancreas brought on by decades of undetected inflammation from celiac. Have to take RX digestive enzymes forever, and have lost 15 pounds due to malnutrition. I could lose another 40 pounds, but doctor is not happy with unhealthy weight loss. The thing I hate the most (besides pain and gastro symptoms), is that I look good! Hard to explain why I can’t eat out or socialize safely. Research shows celiacs are three fold as likely to have EPI, but specialist at Penn State Hershey never thought to test for it. My small town doctor was the one to order the appropriate test and prescribe the outrageously, yet life saving, drugs. Have you ever heard from anyone with celiac and EPI?
Wait, GD (or any educated Celiac). Are you saying that you can get the “crash” and symptoms without the gluten??!?
I was never Dx bcuz I went to a Naturopathic Clinic and they said, “We don’t believe in diagnosis, only solutions.” They gave me a bajillion test, supplements, and an overload of information, but I was sooo sick and brain fogged the only. I still can’t figure out what test they ran to tell me gluten was the culprit.
All that said…trying to figure out if you’re saying gluten doesn’t have to be the culprit behind the crash for Celiacs (including ones without a Dx).
I can’t answer that with complete confidence. I think having an autoimmune disease means your body is in fighting mode much of the time.
Basically having an autoimmune disease means your body will spontaneously attack itself, sometimes for no apparent reason. It sucks.
You may not have been glutened at all! I have been biopsy confirmed, diagnosed celiac since 2013. I did as I was told and went strict gluten free, ate out sparingly at restaurants and when I did they got the whole speil, and even go so far as to use gluten free lipstick! After two years, 2 more gastroscopies and a colonoscopy, and little to no relief of the gastro symptoms (bloating, gas and pain being the worst), I was told that after the latest tests the damage from the celiac was healing and that I was doing everything right, and the GE dr said my celiac was basically in remission…..but, I also have IBS on top of that, which is not surprising with how much damage was done over the years with undiagnosed celiac. So, I was told the next step was to start incorporating the low-FODMAP diet in as well. This diet eliminates foods that are high in fermentable sugars, which are very hard for people with IBS / Celiac to digest. Once I started doing that, I FINALLY got some relief to the point now that I feel normal 90% of the time, and when I don’t it’s because I ate to many high-FODMAP foods that day. Being gluten free and low-FODMAP sucks, but it makes the difference for me. I noticed three of the foods you mentioned you ate were cauliflower, watermelon and dessert. All of these are extremly high FODMAP foods…I’d be doubled over after eating that! LOL. One of the best sites I use to determine what foods are safe and which are not is the Monash University low-FODMAP list: http://www.med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/fodmap/ . I’m sure you’ve probably done all your research and maybe have found this doesn’t help you, but I just though I’d mentioned it in case you haven’t tried it yet 🙂
You’ve been a valuable resource for me since my celiac diagnosis, so thank you 🙂
Thank YOU Christa.
Just went through a few days of the same and I had not eaten anything out of the ordinary. Seems like with AI, you have to be ready for anything at any time.
All other auto immune disease have periods of waving and waning. It makes sense that ours does too.
Got glutened from a salad Wednesday. *face palm* still suffering but mine normally comes with crazy headaches and immediate sickness 3 hours after consumption. Good luck, we’ll all make it through.
Unfortunately, this definitely IS the life of a Celiac. Sometimes I have days where I am so tired and achy like I am coming down with the flu but it’s Celiac stuff and I know it.. but why???? At times I can’t figure it out like I have been doing everything I a supposed to do , making sure I am safe and still I feel like death warmed over with very little warning or explanation. I think not only it just the nature of this disease,but there are so many variables. Cross contamination is EVERYWHERE. Things that should be safe sometimes just aren’t. Example..green beans are safe that you buy at the farmer’s market right?
Oh wait, those particular ones you just purchased, unsuspectingly, aren’t because the person had a big ole sammie for lunch before picking them and forgot to wash their hands first and now their contaminated .. or that fresh zucchini brought to from a friend of a friend’s garden because they had a bumper crop and were just giving them away.. They made you so sick that you might as have well had a big plate of spaghetti.. Why? zucchini is gluten free right??..well it is because they sat them on their crumb laden counter before they were brought to you..( yes this has happened to me before) Oh OOPS!!! Sorry. But you don’t know that. How could you and wham you are hit! Then you start back tracking to figure where you went wrong and deduce it HAD to be those stinking green beans or that zucchini BECAUSE it is the only thing in your routine that was different. Sigh. it’s frustrating!
I have the same cross contamination sensivity… but if you tell to someone that you fell sick because of something like your zucchini episode… they say that you are exagerating and crazy… At the same time you fell impossible to think, you brain crash (my normal gluten reaction), is difficult to speak… you tonge makes you speak as a drunk person… you are so so tired and with so much pain everyhere… where can you have mind clarity to explain anything… and people don’t really understand… frustration is the really word..
You didn’t really eat cheerios did you??
Ha. No…it was a running joke throughout my post (eating foods I shouldn’t).
Ha ha. Yeah I thought I knew you better than that😊 My celiac journey has been odd. Diagnosed 2 years ago and kept getting sicker no matter how careful I was. I ended up finding out I have some immune deficiencies and mast cell activation syndrome. Honestly I rarely think about being celiac as the mast cell issues have effected me so much. I can’t believe how many celiacs are on the mast cell support groups- makes me think there’s a link somehow…
My geneticist believes my mast cell disorder is secondary to celiac. I’m convinced because of being undiagnosed with celiac for so many years.
Guess my point to readers is – sometimes your symptoms can be something else in addition to celiac- and PLEASE please take celiac seriously and be gluten free- because stuff like this mast cell disorder or cancer is a nightmare!
I have a wheat allergy and thought for a long time I had undiagnosed celiac. I had issues with getting enough nutrients, and iron would now and then show up on tests as on the low end of normal or even below normal. I thought that going gluten-free would resolve those issues, but it didn’t. Over time, I began having more and more trouble with iron, and taking additional supplements and doubling up on my multivitamin didn’t help. It turned out my diet was extremely unbalanced. I was taking in a lot of high-copper foods and not countering them with enough zinc. I’d been conditioned to think that food from animals wasn’t healthy and should be limited or even avoided. When I started balancing copper and zinc in my diet, I had to come off all my vitamin/mineral supplements (except for vitamin D, which I take 400 IU daily), and I gained 10 pounds of needed weight. I think the imbalance was causing some malnutrition. Over time, I also realized I needed to pay attention to vitamin E and iron in my diet, that these needed to be balanced as well. I had thought that celiac or some other intestinal disease may have been causing my issues with vitamins and minerals over the years, but now I wonder. A lot of problems tend to present with the same or similar symptoms, which can make things really hard to figure out.
Hope you never get DH…. still recovering from it…. glutened from something 2 months ago.
I done eating out….and I now know why they call it the “suicide rash”.
I have DH too and celiac disease. The worst rash ever! Never heard it called the suicide rash but I understand why it may have earned the name!
Had DH “longtime” ago was over seas Eastern Europe was still undiagnosed as celiac. The only thing that helped my rash was Dead Sea salt I soaked in for 10 mins. and than applied Dead Sea mud, let it dry and rinsed-off. My DH was mis-diagnosed by a skin specialist 30 years ago and at that time he just said it was eczema and pumped my hand up with cortisone shots. So here I was 10 years later in the middle of nowhere and this kind person who just returned from Israel gave me the “Dead” sea salts and mud and I tell you after a week it started healing. Only sharing the knowledge as to what worked for me perhaps someone else with DH can benefit. Finally Diagnosed January 2008 haven’t had DH since.
I’ve heard it’s just hell. Wrote about it here: https://glutendude.com/celiac-awareness/dermatitis-herpetiformis-the-celiac-rash-from-hell/
My husband is so excited for the Goo Goo dolls concert tonight , it is outside by the lake and there will be many many food trucks, and tons of beer …. I have researched every food truck and even reached out to a few there is nothing I can eat barring a wedge of lettuce, I am luck however, cider will be provided by one vendor for $13.50 … so at the end of the evening I will be drunk, hangry and poor ! I am usually well prepared and bring snacks and eat before we leave however we are at a serious time crunch today … having a shitty celiac week as well hang in there Gluten D
I ALWAYS use my “celiac”/”special diet” cards whenever I go anywhere as to why I need to bring my own food. Then I quote to them that I am covered under ADA that I can lawfully bring in my own food because they cannot guarantee that my health will be protected with the food choices offered.
I highly recommend using that when you stop at the store on the way to the concert and bring in a bag of kettle chips and/or a complete loaf of Gf bread with apple sauce or baby food squeeze pouches.
Enjoy the show!
This is why I have a very small selection of trusted food that I eat… and nothing else, period. Restaurant, never. Eating at a friend’s — never (unless I bring my own food and utensils, picnic style). The pain — and cost of miseed work — is *never* work the fleeting indulgence of my tastebuds or carefree time with friends. There is no carefree (carelessness) with celiac. None.
I honestly believe it’s just the nature of celiac disease. The older I get, I have more bad days than good ones. I’m actually very fussy about what I eat so I know it’s not contamination. Has anyone besides me ever thought that the gluten free diet doesn’t fully fix celiac disease? Sometimes I think it’s just a band aid and nothing more 😢
Hi Denise, the GD diet is definitely a treatment, not a cure, so I agree with you.
This brings up a good point. We know there is no cure for celiac disease. It affects the body in a myriad of ways- none of which are good. It is called the body-wide disease as it affects the entire body from the enamel on your teeth, your hair, skin, brain cells, heart, lungs, entire digestive system and on – ad nauseum. The “diet” life style- whatever, is a band-aid of sorts- true. All it does is identify the foods you cannot have, what you can have and what to watch out for. Beyond that you must see your primary doctor at least once a year to see how your body is functioning plus pick up if there are any problems. Yes it sucks, yes it gets better but it’s never good- It is only human nature to miss what you can’t ever have. These day it is a whole lot better than it ever was to enjoy pizza, bread and other good stuff, it just isn’t ideal. So rant on these pages as everyone understands!
I hate that sometimes you don’t know. I’m pretty sure my husband doesn’t believe me half the time, because it seems so random to him. I just have my probiotics & try not to talk about it with him…
AMEN. So glad to know I’m not the only one!! There are sometimes that I feel so AWFUL but I sit there forever going through everything I’ve eaten in my head.. and often times there is nothing out of the ordinary! So I can never figure it out! Honestly it’s comforting to know that maybe it is just effects of the disease and doesn’t have to necessarily mean I was glutened.. also, I do the exact same thing with my husband. I could tell that talking about my stomach was driving him crazy, and that I talked about it so much it seems unrealistic.. eventually I just told him that if I ever comment on my stomach NOT hurting is the only time I feel normal… (which is more rare than I wish it was).
Wow, I feel a little relieved that I’m not alone in how I’ve been feeling. I have been so tired and achy for a few weeks now, which can really do a number on one’s mental state. My nurse friend reminded me that I have an auto-immune disease (actually two if I stop denying that I have fibromyalgia) and my body could be in a “flare up.” I agree with Gluten Dude that it’s just the nature of having an autoimmune disease that rears its ugly head once in a while. I also think that as I get older, it seems to get a little harder to bounce back from a flare up. Self care and advocacy are so important. Very thankful to Gluten Dude for sharing and I hope you are feeling better soon.
I go back and forth between wanting to stop eating altogether and wanting to eat adventurously, albeit carefully.
My daily routine involves at least one RUN to a bathroom, so I often feel like food is just something I’d rather do without. Then I get hungry.
Looking through facebook or a magazine or watching TV or a movie, there’s food everywhere. I joke that looking at a (GF) cooking magazine or (GF) food site is porn for me. I think, “oh I could make that and it would be good,” and I do, and it is good, and then I get sick again.
I’m so tired of being tired, and sick of being sick. As for the bloating, clothes that fit in the morning, don’t fit by the afternoon. I can’t make decisions, and can’t concentrate, and I just F-ing hate this.
Yeah, sometimes this damn disease just does what it’s gonna do. We can’t figure out what we did wrong. Maybe nothing. I’m sorry for your bad week. That’s just so miserable. Glad you have people you can unload in front of. I call it ‘playing the little violins’ or ‘1 minute pity party’. If I can just do that in front of one person when I’m feeling really miserable AND feeling miserable because I’m miserable, it does make me feel a little better, if only in my head, if not in my gut. Ugh. Here’s to a better week for you next week.
We ate out at a high end restaurant that is very helpful and is good about being gluten aware. We have eaten at this restaurant several times. My Celiac husband and I ate different items and yet both of us felt bloated and distressed the next day. Not gluten but obviously something in the food. We limit the places we eat out because of Celiac but sometimes it is just the food preparation that day.
I watch my poor husband having to question the server every single time we go out. It get exhausting.
Well, GD, obviously it was the wonder bread, everyone knows that WHEAT bread is so much better for you (hahahaha) seriously, I have had a week like that as well, only thing I could come up with was chocolate covered peanuts, which I haven’t had in ages…probably just a flare up..so much fun!
I’ve had a bad week too. Super stressful at work! I gave in to cravings for comfort food like GF bagels, GF pizza, and cheese and crackers (although I know I feel better when I skip processed foods and dairy) and today I am paying the price. I need to start over! I’m proud of myself for one thing though… my office always has beers in the fridge, and I came close to drinking a Mike’s hard lemonade when I was still working on a deadline after a 14-hr day. I had it at my desk, in a can coozie …. and I recovered from temporary insanity and put it back. Patting myself on the back.
Sorry to hear you had such a crappy week. You said you split the dessert with your sister-in-law. Did you both eat from the same plate so her fork could have transferred a crumb of gluten from whatever she ate before (that was still in her mouth)? Just a thought. It doesn’t matter how it happened when you are feeling like crap. Sometimes we try to figure out what happened when my husband is glutened, and sometimes we decide it’s not worth trying to figure out and just deal with the symptoms.
But now it’s the weekend, and you can enjoy a nice cold GF beer with some Cheerios 😉 Cheers! (get it?)
I am fairly newly diagnosed (5 months) and I am not sure if I find these comments comforting or disheartening. I have been doing research like crazy (because of course all my doc said was “don’t eat gluten”) and trying to be very strict. But for the last 2 months have felt like crap more days than not, with lots of bloated stomachs. I keep telling myself that if I keep at it, and do all the right things, at some point I will feel better. But I get the sense from these posts that I’m going to feel like a yoyo anyway?? I kept trying to figure out how I got gluten because I feel so crappy, even though i never had the tell-tale stomach ache after a meal. It sounds like even when I am confident of no CC, hidden gluten, etc, I’m still going to feel like this?? Honestly I feel worse now in a lot of ways than before diagnosis, when it was mostly the occasional god awful gut ache. And I think my husband is starting to think I’m nuts that I’m so militant and still don’t feel good. But I feel a bit of relief reading these, that I’m not the only one. My good friends are tired of my real answer when they ask how I’m doing, assuming I must feel better now that I’m off gluten.
But I’m so glad for your website!
It takes time, sometimes A LOT of time!! I felt like I was going nuts, that I wasn’t feeling better after the diagnosis and despite my background medical knowledge and strict adherance to the gluten free diet, still feeling like crap! My GI doc said the magic words when I needed to hear them the most…” Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out, I promise you, you won’t have to feel like this forever”. I just about cried when he said that, and even though it took more than two years to straighten our, he was right, we figured it out (turns out celiac plus IBS), and I don’t feel like like crap everyday anymore! Stay militant and your body WILL heal and you will feel better…. It just may take longer than you’d like. I know I did!!
You may want to look into potential cross-reactors! There are some other foods that, when you get exposed, your body will *think* it’s getting exposed to gluten because they happen to trigger the same immune cells. As long as you keep getting exposed, it’s like being glutened even if you’re strictly GF *and* properly avoiding cross-contamination! (Same with other immune issues!)
Dairy and soy are common ones for gluten. I personally cross-react to rice (and yeast/sugar), my best friend to corn, soy, dairy, potatoes, and a grain called ‘teff’. These are things we have to avoid in addition to being gluten-free, specifically because they set off ‘gluten’ immune-proteins.
iirc the blood panels we had done were through a place called Cyrex Labs, and among other things, they tested for eight different immune proteins that form in response to gluten specifically, with a list of other things that are similar enough at that level to also trigger a given response once it’s formed. One of those eight is the standard one that will prompt further testing for celiac specifically.
My bloodwork testing for immune response showed two (one that rice will also trigger, the other that yeast will; I also had a separate one formed specifically to yeast that gluten and sugar will trigger), her bloodwork showed others but not either of the ones that showed on mine, and neither of us had the specific protein that prompts a biopsy to confirm/rule out celiac. (Something like 90% correlation between ‘this protein present’ and ‘celiac’ – it’s not always present with celiac, and having it doesn’t automatically indicate celiac, but usually if you have either you have both.)
She’s fine with rice and some sugar, both of which will make me feel super sick to get exposed to. (I have to be *really* careful with fruit at all, and I avoid processed and soy anything because there’s almost nothing that has neither gluten *or* rice *or* something else that triggers non-gluten immune reactions from me in it.) Bloating/stomach issues for days, mood swings, and I would assume pain if I didn’t have issues with being able to feel my body to begin with. (Treating things like ‘oh this is probably pain, let’s do things that I’m told help with pain’ usually levels off moods, though.)
I’m generally okay with some dairy (I do sheep/goat milk, haven’t tried anything with cow’s milk again yet), while she gets sick from that shortly after she reintroduces it to her system – and has every time she’s tried having it again for years now.
(I haven’t tried reintroducing any of the other things I know she has trouble with, as they’re mostly high-starch or are going to have rice when they don’t have gluten, as I have trouble with starches anyways. Around when we had bloodwork done we both went on a full-on autoimmune diet that drops out *all* of the known frequent offenders at once, which includes ‘grains in general’, ‘soy’, ‘nightshades’, ‘dairy’, and a few other things, so that you can get to a ‘normal’ without those things and add them back in one at a time so you can tell which specific things give you trouble. Look up AIP or ‘repairvite protocol’ if you’re interested.)
That said, it took almost a year for me to heal enough for me to *start* reintroducing any foods – when we were only expecting me to need to be that strict for a month tops. Healing does take time.
We all have those moments where we’ve had it up to here with the disease. It’s good to speak truthfully about it and get some support to get through the hard times.
I’ve had the same kind of week! Bummer. Glad to know it’s not just me though.🙃 Sending good vibes your way.🙏🏻
I’m feel fairly good about celiac disease, it’s the damn microscopic colitis that frustrates the crap 💩 out of me!! Went to Mayo Clinic and probably will have to go on a autoimmune surpresant to control it. So tired of running to the bathroom!!!!
The life of *some* people with celiac – we’re not all the same
I’m sorry! If it helps, I was at the beach on Vaca last week and my rash is off the hook, but only on one hand….tired, tired, tired…..bloated and gassy and all that great stomach stuff. I don’t know what it was but I think it had to be either cross contamination in the kitchen I shared with 15 other non Celiac’s….or something in my well meaning mom or aunt’s cooking. However, they ran all ingredients past me and they seemed fine. 😑
Years ago, my symptoms of “glutening” were mainly gastro – but I’ve learned (the hard way) that my symptoms now are mainly neurologic (exhaustion, brain fog), with muscle and joint pain. However, periodically I experience a stretch (typically for a year or two) where I have unexplained rashes, with swollen and peeling eyelids (super-fun), and have occasional bouts of gastric distress, usually lasting a few weeks to a month. I am quite strict about avoiding gluten, haven’t had dairy in 30 yrs, no soy, corn or coconut. I do feel better when I’m on a whole30 type of regimen, but honestly I swear sometimes even veggies kill me (my poor hubby). I’m SO, SO sick of all this. I just had an all-day job interview and my stress about what/where I was going to eat just about equaled that for the interview itself. I just want to feel/be normal again. And…while I’m complaining…A FB friend recently posted a meme “5000 years of eating bread and now in the last 10 years, everyone is allergic to gluten” Basically saying that we’re all making this up. I nicely tried to explain Celiac and why this type of post hurts us, especially when chefs or wait staff don’t take us seriously. While a few agreed, the majority (I have to say, they were all men) beat me up about “not having a sense of humor” or “being offended about everything”. One guy even compared his being bald to having Celiac and how I should just “laugh it off” like he does. I just thanked everyone for their kindness and compassion and stepped away. We already have SO much to deal with…all of this hatred against us just makes me sad.
You got glutened, dude
. You know all it takes is a crumb. Eating out is so tough. I can’t eat anywhere gluten is present. Even at my moms. I get sick, bloated, itchy and bitchy everytime.
I always end up feeling like crap again too. I don’t even get excited when I feel decent anymore because I know the next downturn is right around the corner. I never “feel great” like you. My best days aren’t that good after four years. I’ve about decided the best cure is an early death and I’m ready for it.
Fortunately not all of us get hit quite so hard. My doctor’s preliminary diagnosis of celiac disease was confirmed by biopsy on 9/11/2013. I’ve gotten glutened fairly hard a couple of times since, and gotten minor, probably gluten-related, problems another few times. I’m retired, rarely eat out, do mostly cruises by way of vacation, and both my wife and I are fairly good cooks, so avoiding gluten while getting good food isn’t that complicated for me. So most of the time I feel pretty good, and certainly a lot better than most of the time in the two or three years immediately pre-diagnosis.
Each of us is different, and some certainly aren’t helped enough by a gluten-free diet. But if you’re a newly diagnosed celiac reading this, get real serious about staying gluten free (including avoiding cross-contamination), identify other problem foods and avoid them, and don’t give up hope. You may be one of the relatively lucky ones (if anyone beset with celiac disease can be said to be lucky). My heart goes out to the Dude and all the others who aren’t doing so well.
Thank you for sharing this. I am currently in bed with such bad pains. I made a stupid mistake and didn’t realize it. We order food from a Mexican restaurant that only uses corn tortillas. I have always had good experiences with them. Well we moved last week and I placed an order on Saturday. I didn’t realize t came from another location. After feeling horrible all day yesterday I discovered that location uses flour tortillas. I feel so stupid that I didn’t notice the difference. And now my endometriosis is acting up as well. So I am miserable. its amazing how when this happens, I feel like I have been set back for years. I was feeling so good before this… and then it hits me like a truck. I have been sleeping most of the day. I don’t want to take anything for the endometriosis because I don’t want to harm my stomach at all. Ugh. My point is… thank you for sharing when this happens to you. I don’t feel so alone.
I agree with Christa-I also have the bloating, abdominal pain related to IBS. Watermelon and cauliflower are high FODMAP foods and the low FODMAP diet helps to recognize which foods you may have a reaction to-it is a elimination diet of fermentable carbohydrates and it is important to do the reintroduction phase to figure out your triggers. Unlike Celiac-you can tolerate triggers to a certain degree/amount it is the totality of the day that can be the issue. FODMAP has been very helpful for people who also have IBS.
Like you I can look 9 month pregnant at the end of the day but this has helped my symptoms.