I can`t eat gluten. Can you?

Many people ask me "what happens if you eat gluten?". My answer is that it makes me very sick - fever, muscular ache on top of puking for hours. Some of you think to yourself, "pjeh, I cant possibly have celiacs, cause that never happens to me....". Well, let me tell you this: it never happened to me either, until I went strictly gluten free.  Back in the day, what happened if I had gluten was a different story.

While having a conversation with a close friend last night, I went down memory lane - to the time before I knew I had celiacs, and I remembered how challenging many things in life were.  Constantly worrying about having a achy stomach or being bloated, I would often wear big hoodies or loose sweaters.

The symptoms to having celiac disease are so many, and can vary from person to person. If you suspect that something is wrong with your digestive track, I suggest you go to the doctor. The common signs like constipation/diarrhea, fatigue and so on are related to many different ailments.

Celiac disease is an auto immune disease, where your body attacks itself every time you eat gluten. Sound violent? It kind of is.  You may think you are just eating, but when that pizza hits your stomach, your stomach freaks out and damage takes place. Since you don`t know what`s going on, you keep eating and your stomach keeps getting more and more destroyed. At this point, your very crucial "willies" are gone, and the food you just ate passed right through without "feeding" you the important nutrition that your body needed - which is the reason why we eat in the first place. Then the discomfort sets in: growling noises are coming from your belly, and other special not-so-fun things are taking place in the next few hours, resulting in a person who is very very sick at this point! (similar to an intense 24 hour stomach flu)

One reason why it`s hard to detect celiac disease is because most people feel like it`s not just when they eat wheat that their stomach acts up. For example, you eat a piece of fruit and 10 minutes later you feel bloated and gross. Obviously that makes you think it had something to do with the fruit.
However, this is a common side affect of a stomach that`s been fighting gluten.  When your stomach is "destroyed" - it`s extremely sensitive to foods.  This is especially true with fruit (unless eaten on an empty stomach), sugary foods, foods that create mucus like dairy products, or even simply overeating.  Lastly, the body`s rejection of gluten can have the after-affect of low levels of iron and vitamin B which can often result in depression and overall energy loss.

There is much more to say about celiacs, but I will stop right there. Please believe me when I say that I did not write this to scare you, or to make you think you have any kind of disease. I simply want to share a little insider info on what it can look like. It can feel very lonely and discouraging dealing with an upset stomach for seemingly no reason. If you have any questions or just want to talk about some of these things, e-mail me at mrsjkunde@gmail.com.

Happy Thursday!