gluten free living

There is a strong possibility that I have Celiac's.

A few months ago, I started having pain in my lower abdomen. It gradually got to the point where it just never went away. Of course, this would happen right after we moved to a foreign country, onto a base that has little in the way of medical care.

We went through all the tests.

For months, I waited as we did more tests, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I felt like once I knew, the anxiety would go away. I was stressed, not because of the pain, but because I didn't know what was causing it.

The problem was that the tests all came back normal.

Then my doctor suggested that it might be a gluten issue.

Honestly, I hadn't thought of this. It's funny how we all know someone who has Celiac's but we really don't know much about it. I didn't realize that Celiac's can affect anyone. Yes, there are predispositions toward it, but it can start affecting you as an adult. They don't really know the cause, but there are a million things that can increase your chances of developing the disease.

Stress.

Apparently those who have a lot of stress often develop Celiac's out of the blue. Those who have lost family members or, say, those who move to foreign countries (and had to deal with Fort Bragg incompetencies???). The doctor isn't positive that it really is Celiac's, but we're both pretty darned sure and the symptoms all match up.

So I've gone gluten free. Not only that, but lactose free as well. (Did you know that a huge number of Celiac's also develop lactose-intolerence?) From the research I've done, most Celiacs have started to feel better around the two-month mark. I've got that date marked on the calendar, but I don't think I'll need to wait that long.

Not even two days into my gluten-free diet I felt a change. It's not completely better by any means, but it's amazing what a change I have felt already. We are two weeks in and I have few doubts left that it's a gluten issue.

We'll continue to march on and see, but hopefully this is the end of the search!

All this has served to warn you that there will most likely be several oncoming posts about living gluten-free and recipes I'm messing around with. :)