With Italian blood flowing in my veins, I naturally ate a lot of delicious pasta dishes growing up. We drank milk with every meal (because that is the go-to beverage to eat with pasta), and most definitely had the garlic bread on the side; usually with cheese on it. I wasn't ever really a breakfast person, but I forced myself to have a bowl of Cheerios every morning to get rid of the nagging from my mother. We always had Cabot cheese around because it is so tasty and also because my grandfather had ties to the creamery. We were eating well my friends! That was only at home. I also played a few sports growing up. Before each basketball game or soccer game, my team had team pasta dinner night to carb-load up for the game the next day. Pasta and bread were fixtures in my diet at least a few nights a week. When I wasn't eating pasta, I was usually grabbing something quick because i had to get off to practice, or get to another game. Sandwiches were my go-to fast food choice. Lots and lots of carbs; and lots and lots of grains!
Being a broke college kid didn't change the dynamic of carb and grain loading. Of course as a college student you are flat broke. You are on a steady diet of ramen noodles, Easy Mac, pasta, vodka and beer. Sugars, carbs and grains ruled the diet because it was the cheapest way to survive! Not to mention the amazing selection in the dining common where the freshman 15 was easy to gain in the first couple days!
After college, I made the big move from New Hampshire to Florida with my sister and our two best friends. Naturally, none of us had jobs right away and we were still on a steady college kid diet of pizza, subs, and cocktails. It was great! I assumed that feeling bloated and running to the bathroom a lot was just a natural thing; i simply didn't know any different.
About a year after I had moved to Florida, my weight started going a little haywire. I gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time, was exhausted all of the time, and just all around felt sick. I had never really been a skinny girl, and that was a reality I had accepted, however this weight gain put me into the 200lb+ category and I was getting concerned about my health. I went to the doctor to try to figure out what was happening. Oh that first doctor. He shall remain nameless. Long story short with this man: he told me I wasn't eating right (after I had changed a lot about my diet) and that I didn't exercise enough ( I was going to the gym daily) and that I just didn't care about my health. His solution? Thyroid meds and diet pills. Looking back, what a dummy I was taking those things. He didn't have the knowledge or the tools to help me get to the root of my problems. My thyroid was just the beginning. On to the next doctor!
My new doctor was amazing. She knew so much about the thyroid and how to help it. She was the one who initially realized that it was highly possible that my thyroid issues were actually being caused by gluten. WHAT?! I didn't even know what that meant. She told me that I was basically poisoning myself every time I was eating something with gluten in it. I was so devastated. No more bread, cereal, processed foods in general. I had been trying to eat much better, but was still concerned that this transition was going to be very difficult. She was the only doctor to date that has associated my problems with grains somehow. Unfortunately for me, she moved away, and took my hope of a normal doctor with her.
I took gluten out of my diet. It wasn't easy at first, but slowly I got the hang of it. I subscribed to a gluten free magazine, got onto some blogs and websites; did my research. I was feeling confident in this new change, and was eating in what I thought, was a new and better way. At first I felt better. For a couple months I was feeling almost great. My thyroid issues didn't change, but I did feel better. In that time frame I had to have my gallbladder removed, and dropped a bit of the weight that had stacked on years before. I was feeling better. I was excited! Maybe my bum gallbladder was the root of my problems! The feeling of greatness only lasted about 6 months. I was realizing that I was still bloated, and having reactions to foods I hadn't had reactions to before. Milk and dairy were definitely out of the picture at this point. I started to notice that grapes and apples didn't make me feel very good either. Why was I going backwards? Taking gluten out was supposed to make me feel better! I was so confused. I was also back to being exhausted again. When I say exhausted, I literally mean to the point where I fell asleep driving and hit a trash can, causing damage to my car, shattering the side mirror with the glass shattering through the window and onto my passed out face. During this time I had also developed a sharp knife-like pain right where my gallbladder used to be...an unexplained, mystery pain that I think doctors were starting to think I was making up.....This was not the path I should have been heading down! I needed a new doctor, witha new perspective on my health!
I was so excited when my doctor immediately referred me to a gastroenterologist! Oh my goodness! I'll get some real answers from a real professional in this field! I was pumped! Of course, I had never been tested for celiac disease, (the one normal doctor I had had left before we did that), so that was the first thing he wanted to do. The prerequisite? Eat 2 slices of bread a day for two weeks. UMM NO! I will die! Now that I was a couple years into this gluten free thing, any trace of gluten made me very sick. I will have to take two weeks off from work to sit in the bathroom! This task was not possible. Well, I bargained with him and got the least amount of gluten possible needed to be ingested to do this test and went with that. I realized during those 2 weeks that "regular bread" is rubbery and weird. I didn't like it. It felt good knowing I really wasn't missing anything without gluten. After my endoscopy showed I did not have celiac the train halted on the tracks. His next brilliant idea was that I could possibly have "something like" IBS (but he was almost certain that I did NOT have IBS). He was so excited at this revelation. As he handed me the paper with the elimination diet I was to try, he made the comment, "this will be life changing! You'll lose so much weight on this! You'll be eating so different!" Ouch. Before I had left the office, I asked him what the next step would be after this diet if it didn't prove successful. The response was babbling, stuttering, and basically admitting there was not really a next step mapped out....so basically, there was no plan B...so this hail mary better connect! I took the papers and left the office, feeling a bit sad about all of these still unanswered stomach issues. When I got home, I sat and looked at this diet he wanted me to do. I couldn't believe my eyes. There were only 2 things on this entire 5 page list of foods NOT to eat that I currently ate! Some miracle this was going to be! I had again adjusted my eating to be more of a clean eating approach months before I went to this "specialist" and was rarely eating anything but meat, veggies and fruit I could tolerate as it was! It was that day that I realized I was on my own on this journey. All these doctors were unhelpful and not on my team.
2015 rang in a new, welcomed chapter in my life. I was still struggling daily to feel good. I was eating a lot of veggies, lots of meat, rice, and gluten free foods, but I was still bloated, exhausted, and overall not feeling as good as I figured I should by this point. Enter old acquaintance from high school. She had struggled with the same things I had. Our stories were very similar! She had me do a test for candida. I didn't even know what this was. She said it sounded as though I also had leaky gut as she had. She had gone to great lengths to get answers on her health, spending thousands of dollars. How did I get so lucky to hit the jackpot of knowledge? Not only had she been though this personally, she is a certified health and wellness coach! Along her journey, she was told to take grain out of her diet. Not just gluten, but all grains; especially corn (more on all of this food stuff later).She was introduced to an awesome wellness company called Isagenix that helped her intestines and her body heal from the damage she had done to it. This was some much needed clarity! With the help of some of these Isagenix products, and understanding my triggers, and the reasons behind them better, I am happy to say that my body is finally starting to feel like what I can only assume normal human beings feel like on a daily basis! I have dramatically altered my food intake again (more on this in a later post) and have been feeling so much better. This journey has been 31 years long. It has been frustrating, confusing, and horribly terrible, but I am finally at a place where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am running as fast as I can for it. Things are finally looking up for my gastrointestinal system!
Hopefully someone somewhere relates to my story. I am taking the time to tell it because as alone as i felt in that journey, there are others feeling the same way. We am not alone in the struggle. There is much more to my story, but this is the basic version. Through knowledge, you have the tools to make changes that will make your life better.
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