I turned 24 in November, 2011, and by the time I was sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner I knew something was up. My stomach hurt constantly. I was having major GI problems that completely freaked me out. I was breaking out in a rash, and the migraines that I’d been dealing with chronically throughout all of my 20s were completely out of control.
Statistically, 24 is about the time when adult onset allergies are going to set in.
I have several cousins with autoimmune diseases–Crohn’s disease to be exact. So when I started experiencing major (disturbing) digestive issues, I was worried. I’ve been visiting doctors for years about my migraines, always being prescribed one medication or another. Topamax works great for migraines, except the side effects are brutal. I saw a dermatologist about my rash and received antibiotics that didn’t work. I was really skeptic about seeing a doctor about my stomach. I knew that both time and money would go into attempted treatments, and I wasn’t sure if anything was going to work.
I was happy when it was first recommended to me that I start a food journal. I started it just three weeks after turning 24 and found quickly that I was experiencing migraines most severely after eating my PB&J sandwich. Peanut butter? A likely culprit, so it’s cut out. My migraines lessened, but never went away. I noticed that I was still uncomfortable morning, day and night. There was more to cut.
It took five months of daily journaling until I could start drawing the real conclusion. When I saw my nutritionist it all became clear. Gluten.
Since cutting out gluten in April I’ve experienced major improvements to my health. Unfortunately, like most gluten intolerant people & Celiac’s, gluten isn’t my only problem. The day my nutritionist talked to me about Gluten she warned me to go easy on the dairy, but said to give it a few weeks of being only gluten free to see how that goes. It went better, not great. By the end of April I was gluten free & dairy free. My health was at about 95%. I was still getting migraines and upset stomachs a few times a week, but nothing as bad as it was.
In four months, I lost 30 pounds! After the weight loss, my migraines were almost completely gone, but the rash still lingered.
Of course, like most people with gluten intolerance I blamed the few upset stomachs I was experiencing on contamination issues–a term my husband has endearingly named “gluten bombed.” This was the case most of the time, though after breaking out in hives after eating a salad I prepared myself with no dressing I knew something else was up.
It wasn’t until September that I discovered there was even such a thing as a nightshade allergy. Now I follow an incredibly strict diet of being Gluten Free, Dairy Free and Nightshade vegetable free.
I only share my long story because I know it is so similar to so many others out there–and I know that while I was going through the process I was trying to read as many people’s stories as I could find to see if mine was similar. From what I found, my story was almost identical to so many others. Hopefully my information will help someone else, too!
My Gluten Free Life 