Gluten-free, it’s how it has to be.

Ok guys, so as I stated in my last post, I strongly believe I had celiac disease which is basically an intolerance to gluten.  I have been gluten-free for a week today and I feel so much better than I did a week ago.  The only thing is that going gluten-free has been a challenge and it’s not easy.  I am so thankful for General Mills because a lot of their products are gluten-free.  And I can have all veggies and fruits, but I am thinking corn may have to go off that list.  I had a reaction tonight to something and the only thing different I had was corn in a soup that was made last night.  And when I eat corn Chex I think I have a reaction.  So I may need to get rid of corn.  I am going to try a test tomorrow and see if I have a reaction to corn.  If so then I won’t be having corn any more.  That will be so weird since I love corn and have always had it.  But for my health I will do it.

I had a LONG post typed out and decided that I really didn’t want to get into statistics about this and all that I have been going through.  Celiac disease is not a nice thing and I have all the horrid symptoms that go with it.  I will try to get tested for it next year, but until then I will be cutting gluten out of my life.  I have a long way to go on this, but I think I finally found out what was wrong with me.  Fingers crossed for me that I have.  I used to think gluten was a man-made chemical put into food to make it taste better like Red No. 40, so I was shocked to find out it’s a protein found in plants such as wheat, barely, and rye that is basically used to help food stick together.  Foods that I thought were healthy for me were potentially slowly killing me.   I’m still testing the waters, but so far so good.

How I came to thinking I had celiac disease is because last week after two days of eating a lot of bready products I felt horribly sick.  One night as I laid in bed feel retched I researched gluten allergy and found out so much information like this disease is genetic, 2 million Americans have it and most people don’t know, and just because you may not have it now does not mean you won’t get it later.  So much info out there.  But once I found out about this I started researching and so many people have talked about what they went through and I could relate to all of them.  It was so weird.  It was like someone opened a window in an extremely dark room that I was in and shined some light in.  Now while the room is still dark, I can now see a little bit and I’m not bumping into things all the time.  I will keep researching until I am able to open a  few more windows and turn on the light switch.  So I will keep you updated on my progress.

But I can already tell my personality is slowly changing back to the way it was with a slight change.  I can tell I am a different person.  I think this will affect my relationships with people.  It will make me braver to create new friendships as well as letting go of old ones that don’t benefit me.  That sounds kind of bad, but what I mean is if I am not getting a giving and receiving friendship out of the situation then one of two things are going to happen.  I will either pull away completely or limit the person’s access to me.  Many of my relationships have changed due to me being sick and not leaving the house much and that has just changed me.  I look forward to exploring this new me and hopefully new life.  But in trying not to put the cart before the horse, I will focus on healing and getting better and learning how to cook for myself and becoming better acquainted with my new lifestyle.  One good thing at least came from giving up my beloved breads and such.  I have lost some weight and I feel that number will continue to go down as I cut back on the sweets, salts, fats, etc.  I will be tracking my progress on that here as well with a weight loss ticker and maybe some weekly updates.  If anything I will have the ticker.

And well, I guess that’s it.  I’m starting my slow climb back to the top of the ladder and I so thankful to you who come to my blog to see what I am up to.  Thank you so much for being there.  I plan to bring more to this blog.  I want to start showing you more about myself.  I want to start posting more personal pictures…not like that people get your mind out of the gutter, I just want to make this a more about me since it is a blog after all.  I want to share more of my doll hobby, my crafting, my writing, and eventually cooking side.  I’m sure that if I make a gluten-free recipe that works that someone will want to snatch it since gluten-free cooking is not easy.  At least not now.  One thing I learned about myself, while I can bake the hell out of anything that comes out of a box and has directions, I can’t cook to save my life…not even if there are directions.  Let me just say that microwave cooking is not my friend.  After you eat a cardboard sausage and gummy fish fillet you kind of figure that out.  I guess I will have to do it completely the old fashion way. *sigh*  And I’m not that good at that either.  Oh well…let the journey begin.

Loves ya,
Mouse