Healing Through Food - Part II (The Later Years)

Last summer, all hell broke loose.  My hair starting falling out by the handful, my blood pressure was so low that nurses would joke that I was just about to head into a coma (real funny), and my digestive issues ruled my life.  I felt as though my mental capacity had gone down the toilet.  Students would ask a question and for the life of me, I could not come up with an answer even on the simplest of subjects.  I would look at a word and just stare at it thinking that I knew that word but it looked so wrongly spelled and I couldn't figure out what spelling was correct (and we are talking words like "water" - very simple for most people).  My fingers and toes would tingle constantly and I was always light headed.  My balance was off, my skin was breaking out, I would retain water and then spend all day in the bathroom resulting in weight losses and gains on the order of 10 pounds a DAY...you name it, it was going wrong!

When I finally got to the doctor, they tested me for everything under the sun and everything came back normal.  I had an ultrasound of my gall bladder and internal organs and everything looked good.  My doc gave me a bunch of different prescriptions and called it IBS.  The problem was that all those meds made everything worse!  It was not IBS or heart burn or anything else they could come up with.  At this point, you can bet that I was starting to feel a little crazy.  I mean, if every test always comes back normal, it must be in my head.

Except for one thing.   I was blood-tested for Celiac Disease and the tests came back showing that my body was producing antibodies but I didn't meet the requirements to say that I had Celiac.  From what I've read, blood tests for Celiac are notoriously inaccurate and you really need to have a biopsy of your small intestine to be positive.  If you have Celiac, the biopsy will show damage to your villi. 

My doctor told me I was fine, I could eat gluten without harming my body and to go make an appointment with a GI doc.  The soonest I could get in to see a GI was 2-3 months away and the guy was an 1.5 hour drive away.  All these tests took the majority of June and July and I was told this about a week before I was leaving to teach a 3-week field course out west.  This field course meant pit toilets, long hikes, sleeping in tents, and pretty much living in a van.  I couldn't imagine going on that trip the way I was feeling.

I made the decision that since I was producing some antibodies, something was going on.  I mean, your body isn't just suddenly going to start producing antibodies for no reason.  Think of it this way: if you aren't infected with chicken pox, you won't produce antibodies to fight it.  Since the GI doc appointment was so far away, I decided to try the only treatment for Celiac:  going gluten free.  I figure it would be no harm done if I didn't have Celiac and if I did, then maybe I'd make it through the field course in one piece.

Within a couple of days after going gluten free, I was already feeling better!  I wasn't feeling perfect and many of the symptoms persisted but it was the first thing that had ever helped.  I have stuck with the gluten-free lifestyle for nearly 11 months now and here is how my life has changed:

• Blood pressure is back to the normal range
• Digestive issues have resolved for the most part, I no longer worry about teaching a 2+ hour class or doing such things like long hikes because of the worry that I would have to run out to the bathroom 1/2 way through
• The tingling in my hands and feet is mostly gone
• My hair is growing back and is much healthier and thicker
• I can build muscle with ease  :)
• I no longer take 2+ naps a day
• I'm not as irritable with my students
• My brain fog is starting to lift.  I noticed a huge difference in how I was able to respond to my students this past year.  I still have issues with slow thinking and not able to think of the right words here and there though.
• I don't retain water unless I go overboard on salt or I don't drink enough water
• I don't get sick after I eat!
• I don't catch all of the latest colds
• I had one sinus infection in the past year, compared to four during the 8 months before I stopped eating gluten
• My food allergies and lactose intolerance have lessened in severity.  I eat eggs nearly every morning now and I never get sick.
• The amount of headaches I get have gone down significantly

All this stuff has changed in 11 months...from one simple(?) dietary change.  I still get sick if I eat gluten or if I eat contaminated foods too many times in a row and the effects can last anywhere from a few days to a month.  I never got a confirmation biopsy or saw the GI doc - there were some issues with doctor changes, etc.  At this point, since my body has had time to heal, a biopsy would likely show up as normal-ish and I would have to go back to eating gluten for a while before I could have the biopsy done.  No thanks!  I do NOT want to go back to that!  I feel like the proof is in the pudding at this point. 

Maybe I have Celiac.  Maybe I have non-Celiac gluten sensitivity.  I don't really care what you really call it.  Because I had antibodies and because I obviously had vitamin deficiencies and neurological problems that resolved on a gluten free diet, I know there is something major going on.  

I realize that you are likely thinking, "Wow.  Longest.  Post.  Ever." and that's fine.  I haven't shared the whole story with many people beyond a few select in my life and now I have.  Now you know how I got here.  It wasn't a shot in the dark saying, "hmmm...gluten free is the latest diet trend, let's try it!"  It was me being proactive about my health and figuring things out when all my doctors told me for years that I was absolutely fine and looked at me like I was making everything up.

I really do think that we all need to stand up and take charge of our own health.  There are some absolutely wonderfully fabulous doctors out there, but they are human.  They can make mistakes.  Test results are never 100% accurate and how results are read aren't always accurate.  We know how our bodies feel, we know what's normal and what isn't.  There are too many doctors that just want to tell you how you feel and that everything is in your head.  The problem is that...sometimes it isn't.

The photo below was taken last August in the Tetons, three weeks after going gluten free.  I had just hiked a considerable distance straight up just to see the view.  I never would have been able to do this had I not taken control of my own health.  I was feeling so much healthier and stronger!