Celiac

Monday night, I ate a salad from the Whole Foods salad bar. Tuesday morning, my stomach let me know that it did not appreciate that decision. Yup, glutened again.

For the record, I’ve eaten at the Whole Foods hot bar many times with no ill effects, and probably will again, and I’m VERY cautious about avoiding anything with gluten and also anything next to gluten. For example, they had some very fresh and tasty looking roasted veggies on the hot bar on Monday night, but they were next to the giant vat of mac n’ cheese, so I passed on those. But what can you do – sh*t, as they say, happens.

So Tuesday morning when I woke up, I knew right away that I was not well, and that it was going to be a long, awful day. After all, the last time I was glutened, I was out of commission for an entire day with not just a stomach ache but also a headache and lethargy. I’ve since called it the worst glutening of my life. Yesterday morning, I figured I was in for more of the same.

Instead, after resting for about an hour, I felt fine. I got up, got dressed, and took myself to work, where, other than being low on energy, I felt pretty much fine all day. And after 10(!) hours of sleep last night, I feel like myself again today.

It’s not hard to figure out the difference between these two glutenings (both, I’m sure, were the result of cross contamination, and probably a pretty insignificant amount of gluten). Back in October, I was six weeks into massage school and literally in the middle of my first term’s midterms, so I was either at work or at school or doing homework, and averaging about six hours of sleep each night. So what make me react so, er, intensely to that little bit of gluten? Stress, of course!

Now, back when I started this blog, I had this idea that everyone should eat the way I do. I’m not so misguided anymore – I know plenty of people cannot eat nuts, which are among my most major food groups, and that plenty of people can eat gluten without the reaction I have. Among other things – my idea of a healthy diet is probably a little different from yours. Also, I eat an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting every week, and am still addicted to diet soda, so maybe I’m not such a great role model after all.

But this I can say for sure – stress is bad. It’s really hard on our bodies.

Since I finished school, I’ve been making an effort to read actual books, and go walking outside, and spend time with my boyfriend. I feel better in general, but knowing that stress makes me react so much worse to a little bit of gluten, de-stressing is going to be a bigger priority.

What have you been doing to destress lately?

May is Celiac Awareness Month, and the twitterverse/blogosphere/whatever has blown up with posts about Celiac Disease and the gluten free diet. I think most of it is really great – lots of helpful advice and conversation.

But some of it is more like a Celiac pity party. You know the kind – being gluten free is so hard, celebrities are making a mockery of how I eat, I’m starving but can’t bear the thought of one more Kind bar …

I get it. I have been there, and I’m sure many of you, readers, have been as well. There are times when having Celiac sucks. Just last weekend, I had to send my breakfast back at a restaurant because they put toast on my plate, and the waiter tried to pin the mistake on me for not being more clear about my specific dietary needs. At that moment, having Celiac sucked.

Most of the time, though, having Celiac isn’t so bad. Actually, I think those of us who have been diagnosed with Celiac, stopped eating gluten and started feeling better are pretty lucky. I know several people with mysterious gastrointestinal maladies who probably wish they could simply stop eating gluten and start feeling better.

I remember my first bout of indigestion – I was seven. It was the middle of the night, and my stomach hurt so bad I couldn’t sleep, and I thought ‘I wonder if something I’m eating is making me sick’ (I tried to use this as an excuse to avoid eating my vegetables, but that didn’t exactly fly at the dinner table). It was, in a way, relieving, to find out fifteen years later that it was something I was eating.

Also, there are enough really good favors of Kind bars that I never really get sick of them.

It’s totally fine if you disagree, but please, let’s keep the pity parties to a minimum.

Usually around these parts, I post pictures of my food on Wednesdays – this week is a special veggie-centric What I Ate Wednesday. I’ve been eating my veggies …

A veggie-heavy meal that GFBF made for me – pan seared chicken with broccoli and butter.

… but today I have something else on my mind.

I tend to use the phrases “I have Celiac” and “I am gluten-intolerant” pretty interchangeably. Technically, both are true. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disorder, but the autoimmune response is triggered by an intolerance to gluten.

But you will never hear me say “I am allergic to gluten,” because that is not true.

I’ve been studying immune responses and allergies in my anatomy class, and now that I’ve learned a little bit about the differences, I’m glad that I make that clear.

Intolerances and allergies can have similar symptoms, and both lead to inflammation, but the processes are very different.

Allergies are characterized by a histamine response – histamine is a chemical released by our immune systems to clear our bodies of unwanted substances. In the case of food allergies, histamine is released in response to a specific protein. Histamine can be released in different parts of the body, which is why some people’s lips, tongues, and throats swell, but some people experience stomach pain and bloating (swelling).

Intolerances are different in that they are specific to the digestive system. You’ve probably heard of one called lactose intolerance, in which certain people’s bodies don’t have (or lose) the enzyme lactase, which digests lactose. Also unlike an allergy, an intolerance can be to any compound of a food, not just a protein – in the case of lactose intolerance, lactose is a sugar.

Another similarity between the two – they range from not-so sensitive to very sensitive. This is why some people with peanut allergies can eat a small Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and deal with itchy skin for a couple of days, but some people carry EpiPens and don’t like to be in the same room with peanuts.

Gluten, because it is a protein, can be the culprit behind both food intolerances and food allergies.

The takeaway message from all this is food allergies and food intolerances are different conditions. Most of this information came from my anatomy textbook, but if you’re interested in learning more, here is a good article on WebMD about the differences.