After the intense health battle I've had over the last six months, I've done something somewhat drastic to my diet.I've eliminated gluten.
You may be wondering why changing my diet would have such a direct effect on my health. Let me explain.
Once I caught whooping cough from a friend's child, my closest lady friends raised the alarm. This was the 4th infection requiring antibiotics and the 6th major illness since getting laid off in January.
The illnesses went as follows:
1- Flu in February
2- Cold in February
3- Throat infection in March
4- UTI in April
5- Throat infection in June
6- Whooping Cough in July
It's not like I went around licking door handles or eating on public toilets after I was laid off. Aside from some stress, most everything else was normal. Now, when you put all my illnesses in a list like that it's pretty depressing, right? Even if you weren't a doctor you'd have to stop and think...maybe there's something going on here to make a seemingly healthy 29-year-old so prone to infections?
I took matters into my own hands and played Dr. Mayo. I may not be related to anyone who founded the Mayo Clinic, but that doesn't mean I can't use my crack research skills and pretend. I've seen enough "Mystery Diagnosis" and been to enough doctors in my life to know how to do this!
My research started with a condition I already have: Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. It's not just hypothyroidism, where the thyroid gland fails to produce the proper hormones to keep your body working. It's an autoimmune condition, where my body literally attacks my thyroid thinking it's a foreign object that must be destroyed. I can't tell if that means my body is self-hating or racist.
In the past, I'd read that many people were having trouble on synthetic thyroid replacements, specifically levothyroxine, the only pill I'd been on since being diagnosed in 2004. I asked my doctor to put me on a natural thyroid pill, known as Armour Thyroid, and at a higher dosage. It's made from powdered pig thyroid, which is kind of gross, but if it works I'm AOK with it. Thankfully, my doc made the switch quickly and I started about two weeks after coming down with the whoop.
I kept digging deeper and found a site that said a very high number of Hashimoto's patients tend to have underlying Celiac's Disease (a genetic condition that prohibits your body from digesting gluten, the protein in wheat that makes your pasta chewy) or gluten intolerance (when your body, over time, can't properly digest gluten). Then I focused my research on this Hashimoto-gluten connection and as I read the symptoms, I realized that I'd found a possible answer to my immune dysfunction.
The argument goes that one is likely a precursor of the other, and each can trigger an autoimmune reaction in the body. So if my body is too busy fighting my thyroid and any wheat/gluten particle in my diet, then it doesn't have any firepower left to protect me from things like whooping cough, throat infections or the dreaded swine flu that is expected to blow up this fall.
Now afraid that any slice of bread, cookie or pasta could literally kill me, I've elimiated it from my diet in the hopes of noticing a difference.
It's been about 10 days on a gluten-free (GF) diet, and there are a few things I've noticed so far:
1- I have really random cravings for wheat items. I'm assuming this is part of the withdrawal process. Three days into the GF diet, I had a wicked migraine that led to vomiting. And as it was happening, my body kept telling me "you need crackers." WTF? I just puked and you want me to eat the thing that could be killing me? I could only guess that my body was freaking out at the lack of wheat in my body. Then the other day, I had a really bad craving for donuts after seeing a Dunkin' commercial. Like, a violent, I'll-tip-cars-and-punch-old-ladies-for-a-bite craving. Now I know how heroin addicts feel in rehab. I had to stay strong.
2-*WARNING THIS IS GOING TO GET GROSS*
I have no gas. Pre-GF diet, I could rival ANYONE in a farting contest. Like, killing plants and choking babies fart contest. It got to the point that I thought my husband was ready to ask for a separation. Since going on the GF diet, my gas has almost been reduced to zero. That's enough of a change for me to keep going. And my husband is thrilled.
3- I have more energy for the first time in months, if not years, and my insomnia is waning. I'm not back to normal, but I'm definitely able to stay awake longer during the day and sleep longer during the night. This could be due to the fact that I changed my thyroid medicine, but I'm also guessing it's because my body isn't so tired having to fight off the gluten all day. I remember noticing that everytime I had pasta or a sandwich for lunch at work, I would want to pass out right afterwards. Now I have a meal and I feel the same energy level before as I do after.
4- I've lost some weight. In this short period of time, I've lost about 5 lbs. Even the old soccer player guy living across the street stopped me the other day to say he's noticed I've lost weight. Major plus.
It is early on in the process and my symptoms aren't gone, but this is an interesting start. I'm not saying I have Celiac's, but I'm pretty certain I do have gluten intolerance. And though many sites suggest getting checked out by doctors before starting a GF diet, I'm not going to be doing that. I don't have insurance right now, and the last thing I want is to have a "disease" listed on my medical chart for health insurance companies to pounce on once I do have coverage again. Plus, if the only treatment is to go on a GF diet, then why am I going to be hundreds of dollars for testing?
All this research has been very interesting, I must say. It seems that possibly millions of people around world have a problem with wheat and gluten, and many don't know about it. A recent Reuters report said that cases of Celiacs are up dramatically, according to Mayo Clinic research (HA! Mayo's know their stuff). Even more interesting is that this increase in gluten sensitivity isn't just happening in the U.S.—it's going on around the world, regardless of income level or race.
If you want my opinion (you're on my blog so you're going to get it), I think gluten intolerance is WAY more widespread than people think, and it may be an underlying cause of the obesity epidemic. Researchers are finding that many people with Celiacs or gluten intolerance are overweight, where previously it was thought that weight loss and malnutrition were the only indicators. All this "you're eating for emotional reasons" bullcrap is really masking that our bodies have a chemical dependence on these highly processed foods (even though it's killing us) and turning them down is really difficult. Once you realize how many foods have wheat and gluten—from salad dressings to beer to barbecue sauce to cookies to vitamins—this theory might not sound so crazy.
If you want to read more about living gluten free, gluten intolerance or Celiac's, here are some sites you can visit.
www.gluten.net
glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com
holdthegluten.net
And please share your thoughts! Do you think you have gluten intolerance? Do you think my theory is full o poop?
2 comments:
Hey there!
I certainly think it's awesome that you're doing all this research, and taking charge of your own health! That's great! More people should do their own research and not be so quick to leave it just to the doctors.
However, I'd be careful in being so quick to ascribe everything to gluten intake, or dismissing other causes of obesity as "bullcrap."
For starters, it DOES seem like all of a sudden, EVERYONE is intolerant of gluten. Within the past year, it seems like a good chunk of people I know are gluten-free, and I'm always wary of dietary fads. It often seems like this is one more in a long list of extreme dietary quick-fixes for things that wouldn't be problems if Americans were capable of doing ANYTHING in moderation.
And yes, I'm specifying Americans - because while Celiac's might be increasing worldwide, it's likely due to the fact that American food chains and products are spreading. And I can practically guarantee that the obesity problem is worse here than it is anywhere else, because we've become less used to eating natural foods, and more used to enormous portions. We're fast-paced and make less time for slow cooking with good, natural ingredients. We've become more gluten intolerant because we've OVERDOSED on it, not because it's completely bad for us. But instead of taking stock and working toward a more sustainable, healthier lifestyle, we (myself included) would rather look for quick, extreme fixes that feel like they're working - and FAST.
Also, I have to say it bothers me when people discount the emotional ties to eating, because I feel like that's a symptom of the last acceptable intolerance in American society - bias against people who are overweight. Now, I'm not about to wave a Fat Pride flag or anything...it's unhealthy to be overweight. That's why it's called OVERweight. BUT, no one seems particularly interested in addressing overeating as an eating disorder, and it sucks that alcoholics and anorexics get so much sympathy, whereas fat people get told to just suck it up and go on a diet. Suddenly, solutions are much more practical when you're fat, because fat people are of course just lazy and stupid and all they need is a good firm talking to to wise up. But anorexics have "control issues", and "insecurity" and need to be helped to take care of themselves. Very few eating disorder clinics have overweight people in them, and those that do cater primarily to the anorexics and the bulimics, and so none of the patients can relate to the one or two who AREN'T allowed to eat as much.
It seems, even in the world of eating disorders, skinny girls get preferential treatment.
Lastly, as someone who has very DEFINITELY stuffed herself to the point of bursting, to the point of pain, KNOWING she's not hungry but wanting desperately to numb whatever pain is at the pit of my stomach from emotional upheaval or stress; as someone who, the first thing she does when she comes into money is buy a big meal, because she CAN keep herself fed (sign of control and of power), I KNOW that emotional eating is a problem. Food IS like drugs, but not in the way you're saying...
I found that place that makes great gluten-free cookies. I bought a box a couple of weeks ago and ate the whole thing on the way home because I was feeling sad. It's just as easy to pig out on gluten-free food, and it's just as unhealthy. Both physically and emotionally.
Sorry T I just saw your post. Dang I have to get better at looking at this thing.
Yeah, I didn't want to get on the gravy train (that has gluten, p.s.) and follow a trend but now 2 months in I've found that it has made a serious and significant difference. I have not been sick at all since July's whooping cough incident, and aside from the crazy incident last week I've been feeling great. And I've tried consciously eating foods with gluten and I don't feel well at all. I've read that doctors typically prescribe a gluten/celiac test once you're diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and my doc never did. I'm not saying he screwed up, but maybe he didn't realize the strong connection. I'm just glad I was able to choose this diet on my own instead of it being enforced.
As for the emotional eating thing, I find it curious that it's become much more of a problem in the last 5 decades or so. I don't know that people really had emotional eating issues back, say, in 1920. People just ate. And unfortunately I think it's become an easy label (like the law of attraction bullshit) to blame people instead of blaming food manufacturers. These foods are incredibly addicting and are gradually being super engineered to make us crave it more and more. It's actually pretty easy to make fast food that is healthier, but that wouldn't make you buy larger and larger quantities, would it?
I totally fit in that emotional eating category, because if I'm bored I would finish a pint of Hagen Daaz, and if I'm happy I'd eat nutella smeared on crazy things, and if I'm sad I'd eat a bag of peanut butter M&Ms. But much of the time that happens, I don't ever feel in control...it's like something else is telling me to have it. And I don't think it's emotion...I think it's craving being manifested as emotion because I'm being made to feel guilty to have what I crave.
Alls I'm saying is, I don't think the blame rests on us. We have no idea what we're eating. And if I can eliminate one thing at a time that is bothering my body, then I'm happy.
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