celiac attack.

Love this!
Taken from a celiac support group.

I have known that I have celiac disease for almost four years now, but I have been suffering with the symptoms for about six. At first I thought it was stress, then I thought it was diabetes, then I thought I was just dying for no reason. I know that sounds dramatic, but when everything you eat makes you sick and you don't know why, you can jump to some rather drastic conclusions. I went from perfect health to weekly migraines, chronic fatigue, mild depression, and a host of GI issues that made me never want to eat again. Yes, it was that bad.

[Fun fact: Celiac can cause mild to moderate depression... So if you randomly start crying at the way Peter treats Meg on Family Guy, maybe take an allergy test. Really. This happened.]

After going on an elimination diet, my doctor and I realized what the problem was and I started getting better. Unfortunately, this was before being gluten-free became the new thing, so everything tasted rather terrible. I remember biting into a cereal bar in my coworker's office, and bursting into tears because it was just so disgusting. It tasted like a tree, and the thought of having to eat like that forever was just too much. (I'm not a very emotional lady, but I feel some type of way about food!) Since then, I have found bread that tastes like bread, and can generally tell what is safe and what will make me feel like dying. At least, I thought I could...

Over the last six months, my symptoms came back. Just like pre-diagnosis, I first chalked it up to stress. Spring semester kicked my ass start to finish, so it was a logical conclusion. But even when the stress went away, I still felt kinda bad. I functioned in society and hung out with people and acted fine, but the recovery time of every outing grew longer and longer. Then I started feeling really bad. It is difficult to put into words how scary it is to not know why you physically can't get out of bed. Or to know that you have to go out and not be sure if you'll have the energy to walk up the two flights of stairs to your apartment when you get back. Or to be afraid to eat the food in your own kitchen. To put it mildly, it sucks really bad.

Clearly, I was missing something, so I went to my phone. A while back, I downloaded a UPC scanner app that reads labels and tells people with food allergies if the item is safe or not. This thing is a godsend, and it has saved me from hidden gluten many times before. I scanned everything in my cabinets but found no gluten. Fridge - nothing. Freezer... boom. Mystery solved. My popsicles weren't gluten free. Wait, what? Let me repeat that: my POPSICLES (which claim to be an all natural, no sugar added, healthy dessert) were not gluten free. Dude, seriously? WTF...

In short, the culprit was maltodextrin, a food additive that is commonly made of wheat. Since this scare, I have gotten into the habit of scanning everything that doesn't explicitly state "gluten free" on the label but also doesn't list "wheat" in its allergy disclosure. And you know what? Wheat has been in ~85% of food! And, in ~97% of these instances, it was in an additive. Caramel coloring is the main one, and is found in everything from ginger ale to salad dressing. (I literally went through five brands of Italian dressing before I could find a safe one.) This is crazy to me. This is why I was so sick... and I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

Me being Polly Positive and all, I have searched for a silver lining in all of this, and here it is: Being gluten-free has reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to afford real food. I've never had a lot of money (and since I work in education, I probably never will), but I've never been too broke to not be able to keep myself healthy. I've also never been too far from a Whole Foods to be able to find things that won't kill me, and have an iPhone app that keeps me safe. If I were on food stamps or had a limited amount of money with which to buy food, I don't know what I would do. I wonder how poor people deal with this disease. I mean, how can you deal with something that requires so much money and effort to manage? My bread alone costs $7, and I can only find it at Whole Foods. (Truth be told, there is GF bread at the grocery store in my hood, but it tastes sand. No bueno.)

And sure, I can eat as many fruits and vegetables as I want... but how many poor families have access to that? In the late night hours, when I'm hungry from [studying], I have scoured my local bodegas for anything remotely okay for me to eat. All that is available for someone with a gluten issue are salty snacks and canned beans. Definitely not the healthiest options. There has been so much talk about food deserts lately, and whenever I hear that I always think about my celiacs. How do they survive? Food policy and politics are just as tricky as the education stuff I study, and there is no quick fix that either.

I would never choose to be gluten free, and I really hope I don't pass this thing on to my kids. It's really hard to stay 100% healthy, and every time I make dinner plans with friends I feel like I'm inconveniencing them since my diet is so limiting. (Good thing I'm not a vegetarian, or else I'd be extra screwed!) Not sure why people willingly eat like this, but word to those who do: There are better ways to lose weight than cutting out 75% of your diet... Like exercise and eating real food. Just saying...