Flipping Gluten Allergy/Intolerance...whatever!

So I have this awesome chiropractor. She has helped me so much in the past couple years I can't even begin to articulate it.

After the princess was born & I was so sick, I also developed an anxiety disorder...apparently not uncommon with cardio problems. So, for the past almost 6 years I've dealt with this amazingly annoying condition. I finally discovered that when my life is actually super stressful I do okay, but let things mellow out a little bit, the anxiety rears it's ugly head. When Doc & I talked about it, we came to the conclusion/assumption that I'm sort of an adrenaline/stress addict and when it is removed my body doesn't know what to do. I thought it was a good theory, but what do I do about it? At that point she suggested an elimination diet...removing wheat, dairy, sugar. I thought about it for a while, because that is a daunting task.

I started realising that I had been having digestive issues, for a while now. Bound up and abdominal discomfort quite frequently in the past year. The more water I drank & exercise I got, the worse the problem...it's really not supposed to work like that! The whole elimination diet kept ruminating around in my brain while I was busy doing other things.

About a month ago, out of the blue, I decided to eliminate wheat and see what happened. Tuesday was the day I began refraining from the offending grain. Wednesday I was going REALLY fast. Almost like an anxiety attack, but different. I couldn't turn my brain off and was extraordinarily manic. I started thinking that the crazy psycho doc I'd been to, who thought I was bi-polar, might be right. Thursday I felt better but my muscles started twitching periodically & I didn't know what was going on. When I saw Doc I told her I was feeling weird and she asked what changed. I told her about eliminating wheat and she asked how I'd felt the day before and proceeded to tell my symptoms I was having and said I was allergic to wheat. Very strange.

It really hasn't been hard for me to stay away from it, mentally I don't miss it that much at all. Now when there are big cookies at work or a nice loaf of crusty bread for dinner, I go, aaaawwwwwww. Most of the time though, I'm fine.

Last week DM made meatloaf for dinner. When I asked what he put in it, he said just seasoning. That night I couldn't get to sleep, just couldn't turn my brain off. The next day I was psycho manic girl again. When I got home I asked DM if he had put bread crumbs in the meatloaf, he apologized & said yes, but he had forgotten. It was nice to have the confirmation that I do have a problem with wheat.

Today #1 has a track meet. While at the meet I got a cheese burger, no bun. I sort of felt like a loser, but oh well...when has THAT ever stopped me? The princess had nachos and I ate a few of them. Corn is okay right?! Approximately 45 minutes later I started feeling weird. Going fast, shaky, etc. I started wondering about the cheese sauce for the nachos, but tried to blow it off. As more time passed and I was feeling worse, I went to the snack bar, dug the nacho can out of the garbage, wiped the coffee grounds off and read the label. It has modified food starch and natural flavor in it...both can be hidden wheat.

It pisses me off, but again, it is good to have the confirmation that I really do need to stay away from gluten...in a big way.

This has probably taken me twice as long to type as it should since my hands are shaking and not behaving like they should.