Health & Fitness- Going Gluten Free

When my sister called to tell me she had been diagnosed with Celiac's Disease and then recommended I go gluten free for a while to see if it helped with the chronic pain I've been dealing with, I decided it wouldn't hurt to try. And it didn't hurt. In fact, after the first week I felt better than I had in several years. By the second week I felt better than I had since I was 12 years old when the first symptoms of my PCOS started showing up.

Not only had the constant daily pain reduced to almost nothing but that huge, thick cloud of mental fogginess that had been looming around my head for years, finally cleared away.  In just 2 weeks.

I started my gluten free trial with the intention of breaking the fast on Thanksgiving which was two weeks later. I won't lie, I was looking forward to everything gluten filled at that meal. But the day after my feast I was sick as a dog. Not just sick to my stomach, but sick with pain. The pain was in every part of my body, the inflammation obvious in my bright red, cheeks. I immediately knew that it wasn't just a fluke, I was at the very least, allergic to gluten.

I immediately contacted my doctor to get tested for Celiac's Disease. The tricky thing about Celiac's Disease is that it doesn't always show up in your blood work the first time around. Or the second or third of fourth. In fact, I believe my sister was test 5-6 times before they found confirmation in her blood.

So when my first test came back negative my doctor and I both agreed it didn't mean anything and she diagnosed me with Celiac's Disease based on my many other symptoms and scheduled me for a stomach biopsy just to have the confirmation for my medical file. I never ended up having the stomach biopsy done. By that point I had been gluten free for a few months with only a few accidental exposures. Those accidental exposures continued to confirm that they chronic pain I had been living with for so many years was all thanks to gluten. My husband was over seas when I was in the middle of testing and the pain of exposure made me so out of it that when my doctor told me that I had to start eating gluten again before my stomach biopsy to get the most accurate results, I told her I couldn't do it.

I'm not entirely sure how I managed to live with my pain for so many years. I know that during those years I didn't do much moving. Since every meal was followed by pain and exhaustion and almost all meals contained gluten, I was always sedentary. Going gluten free relieved me of that pain so well that the thought of experiencing it again, being that mentally and physically disconnected and uncomfortable again, made me fear ever going back to that place. Especially while my husband was away and I had my son to care for alone.

In addition to feeling so much better, my husband and I were finally able to conceive baby number 2 after 3 years of trying. While reading up on Celiac's Disease I discovered that many women who suffered from it also dealt with infertility. I also deal with PCOS but since we were able to conceive our first son after just 3 weeks, I suspected my PCOS wasn't the real problem with trying to conceive baby number 2.  I was hopeful that when my husband came home that we would be able to try again with successful results and I was right. Just one year after going Gluten Free, and one month after my husband came home from his deployment we got that positive pregnancy test.

Is going gluten free difficult? It was at first. I really missed the foods I was used to eating. Especially sandwiches. But after a few months and thanks to several fantastic gluten free products out there, I find that it is a rare occasion that I miss gluten filled foods. Not only does going gluten free make me feel better but it also helps reduce the amount of grains and sugars I eat which is important for dealing with my insulin resistance and PCOS. There are so many pro's verses the 1 con of missing out on certain foods, that there is really little reason to complain.

If you are questioning whether or not going gluten free is right for you, definitely give it a try. Just 2 weeks. You don't have to go low fat or low calorie or low carb or even low sugar.  It's not about participating in some silly diet fad. It's about reducing or eliminating a food that you may have a severe intolerance or allergy to. It was once thought that Celiac's Disease was rare. Now a growing number of people are discovering  that their health has been compromised do to gluten allergies and Celiac's Disease.

Next week I'll talk about living with PCOS and how to relieve some of those symptoms.