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So I went back to see my GI doctor recently to update her on my attempt at going gluten free since being diagnosed with coeliac disease, informed her I couldn't do it because it was too expensive and broke our bank (literally), and was basically prepared to just be stubborn and insist I was going to be fine if I cheat on a few things and simply minimize my gluten intake (I've been happily cheating since October) -- until she got (surprisingly) visibly anxious, her tone almost frightened, and told me that even though things looked OK now that if I keep this up I could end up getting CANCER at any time, without warning. Now I'm not usually one to buy into cancer scares... Nowadays just about EVERYTHING supposedly causes cancer, but my grandfather on my mother's side DIED of colon cancer so when you tell me that if I keep eating gluten I might die the same way I have to listen. I am NOT lucky. I am anything BUT. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and it will go wrong for me. Cancer, obviously, runs in my mother's side of the family, and guess what? All that bad stuff is passed down through the female line in her family. I'm female. If this is going to happen to anyone, it will happen to me. I HATE going gluten free. It's expensive and most of it tastes like crap or cardboard. I got VERY sick of only having salad as my only option any time I wanted to eat out with friends very quickly. Going gluten free is not easy, cheap, OR practical... But if I don't want to die the way my grandfather did of colon cancer in my mid-forties/early fifties then I guess I'd better start behaving and avoid the gluten. But I like a cookie...
The good news is I've lost nine pounds! So silver linings, I guess! Going to find those cupcakes and rainbows somehow!
And yes, it might not be obvious in this image but I'm trying out new tunic colors for Fizzy: yellow with magenta trim! As a fan of both the Home film AND Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday books, I like the idea of keeping her tunic colors more in line with those Adam Rex had developed for his books, and that means yellow for science!
Created using Photoshop CS5 and a WACOM Bamboo tablet.
Boov species © Adam Rex (original design) and DreamWorks Animation SKG (updated design).
Fizzy and all artwork are © me,
menei. Do not copy, reproduce, re-upload, or use in any way.
So I went back to see my GI doctor recently to update her on my attempt at going gluten free since being diagnosed with coeliac disease, informed her I couldn't do it because it was too expensive and broke our bank (literally), and was basically prepared to just be stubborn and insist I was going to be fine if I cheat on a few things and simply minimize my gluten intake (I've been happily cheating since October) -- until she got (surprisingly) visibly anxious, her tone almost frightened, and told me that even though things looked OK now that if I keep this up I could end up getting CANCER at any time, without warning. Now I'm not usually one to buy into cancer scares... Nowadays just about EVERYTHING supposedly causes cancer, but my grandfather on my mother's side DIED of colon cancer so when you tell me that if I keep eating gluten I might die the same way I have to listen. I am NOT lucky. I am anything BUT. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and it will go wrong for me. Cancer, obviously, runs in my mother's side of the family, and guess what? All that bad stuff is passed down through the female line in her family. I'm female. If this is going to happen to anyone, it will happen to me. I HATE going gluten free. It's expensive and most of it tastes like crap or cardboard. I got VERY sick of only having salad as my only option any time I wanted to eat out with friends very quickly. Going gluten free is not easy, cheap, OR practical... But if I don't want to die the way my grandfather did of colon cancer in my mid-forties/early fifties then I guess I'd better start behaving and avoid the gluten. But I like a cookie...
The good news is I've lost nine pounds! So silver linings, I guess! Going to find those cupcakes and rainbows somehow!
And yes, it might not be obvious in this image but I'm trying out new tunic colors for Fizzy: yellow with magenta trim! As a fan of both the Home film AND Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday books, I like the idea of keeping her tunic colors more in line with those Adam Rex had developed for his books, and that means yellow for science!
Created using Photoshop CS5 and a WACOM Bamboo tablet.
Boov species © Adam Rex (original design) and DreamWorks Animation SKG (updated design).
Fizzy and all artwork are © me,
menei. Do not copy, reproduce, re-upload, or use in any way.
Category Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Alien (Other)
Size 1280 x 1224px
File Size 652.3 kB
It's not easy, and is really rather a pain. I managed to go gluten free for nearly three months when I was first diagnosed and I'm not kidding when I tell you that eating became less a joy and more a chore. I didn't enjoy my meals again until I finally gave up on it and started eating what I wanted again... And now I have to go back to it. UGH! XD
hey there...
(I know this post is old but I'm just now going thru my notifications)
I have celiac disease, too. I was diagnosed in 2011. It really sucks; not gonna lie. It took me a while to get used to eating gluten-free, but my symptoms were so awful that cheating was never an option for me--I've never willingly/purposefully ingested gluten since my diagnosis.
Ultimately, in order to heal, I had to give up all grains, even gluten-free ones. (I'm probably an unusual case, though; most celiacs don't have to do this.) When I started this more extreme diet, I went through about... oh, I dunno, a year where every time I went grocery shopping I wanted to cry, and every event with food make me sad and/or angry, and I basically wanted to skip Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings because they were so food-oriented, etc.
But after that year of getting used to the diet, it became my new normal. My tastes changed, and I completely lost any cravings for grain-based foods. Even looking at some of the stuff I used to scarf down daily makes me kinda nauseated, lol. I also lowered the amount of sugar I was eating and lost some weight, too, without even trying.
My diet is expensive because I buy a lot of expensive paleo-friendly snack foods and pasta made from lentils/peas, but if I just bought, y'know, bags of dry lentils instead of that, and made my own snacks from whole foods, it wouldn't be so bad. I spend a lot of money on food because I can afford it and I want to, but if I had to survive on less I could do that, too. I would just need to plan ahead, buy less processed ingredients, and cook more stuff in advance.
Instead of simply replacing the bread and pasta in your diet with gluten-free versions--which is, yes, terribly expensive--you should try more recipes that are naturally gluten free... like lentil soups, shepherd's pie (w/o crust), steak 'n' peas 'n' potatoes, roast chicken and vegetables, etc. There's a lot of great stuff out there to explore that's a lot tastier and a lot more fun than just making rice pasta or throwing sandwich stuff on gluten-free bread.
Good luck with your diet. It may take time, but when you settle into your new normal and resolve your remaining gastro symptoms (I'm assuming you had some kind of symptoms, otherwise you wouldn't have gotten the diagnosis in the first place), you'll be really glad that you stuck with it. Plus, keep thinking about being cancer-free...!
Feel free to PM me if you ever want to talk about having celiac or vent or anything! I'm also TicaSloth on telegram :)
(I know this post is old but I'm just now going thru my notifications)
I have celiac disease, too. I was diagnosed in 2011. It really sucks; not gonna lie. It took me a while to get used to eating gluten-free, but my symptoms were so awful that cheating was never an option for me--I've never willingly/purposefully ingested gluten since my diagnosis.
Ultimately, in order to heal, I had to give up all grains, even gluten-free ones. (I'm probably an unusual case, though; most celiacs don't have to do this.) When I started this more extreme diet, I went through about... oh, I dunno, a year where every time I went grocery shopping I wanted to cry, and every event with food make me sad and/or angry, and I basically wanted to skip Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings because they were so food-oriented, etc.
But after that year of getting used to the diet, it became my new normal. My tastes changed, and I completely lost any cravings for grain-based foods. Even looking at some of the stuff I used to scarf down daily makes me kinda nauseated, lol. I also lowered the amount of sugar I was eating and lost some weight, too, without even trying.
My diet is expensive because I buy a lot of expensive paleo-friendly snack foods and pasta made from lentils/peas, but if I just bought, y'know, bags of dry lentils instead of that, and made my own snacks from whole foods, it wouldn't be so bad. I spend a lot of money on food because I can afford it and I want to, but if I had to survive on less I could do that, too. I would just need to plan ahead, buy less processed ingredients, and cook more stuff in advance.
Instead of simply replacing the bread and pasta in your diet with gluten-free versions--which is, yes, terribly expensive--you should try more recipes that are naturally gluten free... like lentil soups, shepherd's pie (w/o crust), steak 'n' peas 'n' potatoes, roast chicken and vegetables, etc. There's a lot of great stuff out there to explore that's a lot tastier and a lot more fun than just making rice pasta or throwing sandwich stuff on gluten-free bread.
Good luck with your diet. It may take time, but when you settle into your new normal and resolve your remaining gastro symptoms (I'm assuming you had some kind of symptoms, otherwise you wouldn't have gotten the diagnosis in the first place), you'll be really glad that you stuck with it. Plus, keep thinking about being cancer-free...!
Feel free to PM me if you ever want to talk about having celiac or vent or anything! I'm also TicaSloth on telegram :)
LOL, it's OK! As the saying goes, better late than never, right? Thank you so much for taking the time to comment though! I really appreciate it!
Thankfully, as it turns out (and you can read in my follow up post to this here) -- as I thought all along -- I don't have celiac disease but simply irritable bowel syndrome. XP The specialist I was seeing was stubborn as heck and wouldn't LISTEN to me when I tried to tell her what was going on and was trying to diagnose me based on slightly elevated levels in only three of SIX blood tests; it wasn't until I got lucky and saw her on a day their systems were down and could finally make her pay attention to what I was saying rather than looking at her computer screen that I could finally get her to admit it wasn't celiac disease at all. I have irritable bowel syndrome -- which is a nightmare all its own and has no treatment other than avoiding the foods that trigger it -- something I've become VERY used to, sadly. But gluten isn't the trigger. It never has been and never will be. Yes, I have problems with foods, but they aren't the ones that contain gluten. You're going to see in about 3 seconds why a gluten free diet simply cannot work for me when I tell you what triggers my gut.
You ready for this?
VEGETABLES. XD
Yep, that's right -- vegetables are my nemesis. XD Almost ALL of them. Can't eat them. I get severely sick if I do, and my body flushes everything out INSTANTANEOUSLY... It's not fun having to run to the bathroom with emergencies... I can't have ANY cooked vegetable without getting seriously ill, onions give me severe stomach pain and I can't eat anything that's even TOUCHED one... The only veggies I can have make up literally your most basic garden salad -- (raw) lettuce, carrots, spinach, tomatoes, and sometimes cucumber (but I hate cucumber LOL). That's it. But veggies aren't the only triggers either... I can't have heavy spices, NOTHING hot... No chocolate either, no citrus juices of any kind, or grape juice... NO soy!!! And the list goes on and on and on...
I'm never kidding when I say it's actually shorter for me to list what I CAN have rather than what I CAN'T. -_-
Any restaurant I go to that has more than one item on the menu I can eat is a good one for me. It's that sad to begin with. My diet is already severely limited. NOW cut the gluten out of it.
No. Just no.
It didn't work, and it can't. The gluten free alternatives most people can turn to so they won't cry as much aren't available to me. So essentially my already limited diet was simply cut down even further until I really had next to NOTHING left to eat. I tend to be on the run a LOT so I had no options to me but a garden salad -- and you get SICK of those FAST. Trying to go out with friends became a chore; I mean it wasn't like I could actually ENJOY anything any more so my response any time they asked where I wanted to go HAD to boil down to basically saying I didn't care because all I'd be able to eat is a stupid salad anyway... The same thing, EVERY TIME. And at home it became impossible too... I either ate the gluten free cardboard and made my poor husband suffer through that with me so I wouldn't need to cook two separate meals or oh look! A salad AGAIN.
No. Not gonna work.
I managed to suffer through that for four months and it didn't help ANYTHING. I still couldn't eat anything I couldn't before -- which was the whole reason I'd gone to the doctor in the first place (and for the associated acid reflux I suffer as a result of the IBS). I didn't feel any better. All it did was run our grocery bills through the roof and make it impossible for me to enjoy a meal at all. Gluten free is simply not a diet I can do.
Thankfully I don't need to go gluten free any more. Phew!
When I finally got the specialist to listen to what was really going on she admitted it was IBS and not celiac's disease. My family practitioner agrees and I thank my lucky stars for that every day because there is NO way I'm going back to that misery ever again. I simply can't. My diet is already limited -- I am NOT cutting anything more out of it or I may as well not have any options to eat at all! XD
So yeah, my attempt to go gluten free didn't work and can't, but it isn't necessary for me anyway, thank goodness! XD I'm glad to hear you're doing well on it though! Definitely feel free to note me if you ever need to rant about any of it LOL! I hear ya about the holidays -- I recall I was so PISSED at the thought I couldn't have stuffing at Thanksgiving LOL!
I'm FizzyBoov on Telegram, by the way! But I'm not on there much... XP I'll try to get on soon though, I promise!
Thankfully, as it turns out (and you can read in my follow up post to this here) -- as I thought all along -- I don't have celiac disease but simply irritable bowel syndrome. XP The specialist I was seeing was stubborn as heck and wouldn't LISTEN to me when I tried to tell her what was going on and was trying to diagnose me based on slightly elevated levels in only three of SIX blood tests; it wasn't until I got lucky and saw her on a day their systems were down and could finally make her pay attention to what I was saying rather than looking at her computer screen that I could finally get her to admit it wasn't celiac disease at all. I have irritable bowel syndrome -- which is a nightmare all its own and has no treatment other than avoiding the foods that trigger it -- something I've become VERY used to, sadly. But gluten isn't the trigger. It never has been and never will be. Yes, I have problems with foods, but they aren't the ones that contain gluten. You're going to see in about 3 seconds why a gluten free diet simply cannot work for me when I tell you what triggers my gut.
You ready for this?
VEGETABLES. XD
Yep, that's right -- vegetables are my nemesis. XD Almost ALL of them. Can't eat them. I get severely sick if I do, and my body flushes everything out INSTANTANEOUSLY... It's not fun having to run to the bathroom with emergencies... I can't have ANY cooked vegetable without getting seriously ill, onions give me severe stomach pain and I can't eat anything that's even TOUCHED one... The only veggies I can have make up literally your most basic garden salad -- (raw) lettuce, carrots, spinach, tomatoes, and sometimes cucumber (but I hate cucumber LOL). That's it. But veggies aren't the only triggers either... I can't have heavy spices, NOTHING hot... No chocolate either, no citrus juices of any kind, or grape juice... NO soy!!! And the list goes on and on and on...
I'm never kidding when I say it's actually shorter for me to list what I CAN have rather than what I CAN'T. -_-
Any restaurant I go to that has more than one item on the menu I can eat is a good one for me. It's that sad to begin with. My diet is already severely limited. NOW cut the gluten out of it.
No. Just no.
It didn't work, and it can't. The gluten free alternatives most people can turn to so they won't cry as much aren't available to me. So essentially my already limited diet was simply cut down even further until I really had next to NOTHING left to eat. I tend to be on the run a LOT so I had no options to me but a garden salad -- and you get SICK of those FAST. Trying to go out with friends became a chore; I mean it wasn't like I could actually ENJOY anything any more so my response any time they asked where I wanted to go HAD to boil down to basically saying I didn't care because all I'd be able to eat is a stupid salad anyway... The same thing, EVERY TIME. And at home it became impossible too... I either ate the gluten free cardboard and made my poor husband suffer through that with me so I wouldn't need to cook two separate meals or oh look! A salad AGAIN.
No. Not gonna work.
I managed to suffer through that for four months and it didn't help ANYTHING. I still couldn't eat anything I couldn't before -- which was the whole reason I'd gone to the doctor in the first place (and for the associated acid reflux I suffer as a result of the IBS). I didn't feel any better. All it did was run our grocery bills through the roof and make it impossible for me to enjoy a meal at all. Gluten free is simply not a diet I can do.
Thankfully I don't need to go gluten free any more. Phew!
When I finally got the specialist to listen to what was really going on she admitted it was IBS and not celiac's disease. My family practitioner agrees and I thank my lucky stars for that every day because there is NO way I'm going back to that misery ever again. I simply can't. My diet is already limited -- I am NOT cutting anything more out of it or I may as well not have any options to eat at all! XD
So yeah, my attempt to go gluten free didn't work and can't, but it isn't necessary for me anyway, thank goodness! XD I'm glad to hear you're doing well on it though! Definitely feel free to note me if you ever need to rant about any of it LOL! I hear ya about the holidays -- I recall I was so PISSED at the thought I couldn't have stuffing at Thanksgiving LOL!
I'm FizzyBoov on Telegram, by the way! But I'm not on there much... XP I'll try to get on soon though, I promise!
I'll hit you up on telegram--I'm not on much, but I do check it about once a day (since a lot of people like to commission me through there) so it's a good way to reach me.
I'm really glad that you didn't turn out to be celiac after all. It might be worth getting the blood test again in the future if you start having specifically celiac symptoms (anemia, fat in the stool, etc), but fingers crossed you'll never need it, because a truly gluten-free and cross-contaminiation-free celiac diet is really hard to do!
Especially if you can't eat vegetables! My whole diet right now is meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, pretty much. I'm really not surprised that you can't tolerate veggies, though, because they can be really hard to digest. A lot of people don't realize that, since they're supposed to be healthy, and healthy food can't be hard to digest, right? But just like how the gluten-free diet isn't an option for you, a vegetarian or vegan diet wouldn't be an option for me, since, like, the easiest foods to digest are chicken and broths and stuff like that. So I eat a lot of meat, and I don't think I could get by without it.
If you can't eat veggies, though, it's probably a good idea to invest in a good one-a-day multivitamin if you haven't already. Honestly, anyone with a limited diet should probably supplement at least some vitamins, since it can be hard to get all your daily requirements if you're excluding whole food groups.
IBS really sucks. Did you do an elimination diet to figure out all your triggers? It was doing an elimination diet that helped me figure out I had to go completely grain free and also cut out soy protein as well. I also avoid foods with high starch content, for the most part, although I'll splurge a little if I'm exercising and need a healthy source of carbs like sweet potato.
I'm really glad that you didn't turn out to be celiac after all. It might be worth getting the blood test again in the future if you start having specifically celiac symptoms (anemia, fat in the stool, etc), but fingers crossed you'll never need it, because a truly gluten-free and cross-contaminiation-free celiac diet is really hard to do!
Especially if you can't eat vegetables! My whole diet right now is meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, pretty much. I'm really not surprised that you can't tolerate veggies, though, because they can be really hard to digest. A lot of people don't realize that, since they're supposed to be healthy, and healthy food can't be hard to digest, right? But just like how the gluten-free diet isn't an option for you, a vegetarian or vegan diet wouldn't be an option for me, since, like, the easiest foods to digest are chicken and broths and stuff like that. So I eat a lot of meat, and I don't think I could get by without it.
If you can't eat veggies, though, it's probably a good idea to invest in a good one-a-day multivitamin if you haven't already. Honestly, anyone with a limited diet should probably supplement at least some vitamins, since it can be hard to get all your daily requirements if you're excluding whole food groups.
IBS really sucks. Did you do an elimination diet to figure out all your triggers? It was doing an elimination diet that helped me figure out I had to go completely grain free and also cut out soy protein as well. I also avoid foods with high starch content, for the most part, although I'll splurge a little if I'm exercising and need a healthy source of carbs like sweet potato.
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