If you happened to avoid hearing about my digestive woes for the past year and a half, holy cow: How did you do that? But the rest of you know I’ve been having some major gut problems. Around April of 2016, my body decided it was done doing things like, say, digesting food or not causing agonizing pain 100% of the time. My days became a cycle of starving, eating, immediately regretting it, and potty emergencies. Rinse and repeat.
After several doctors’ visits and procedures, it looks like I finally have an answer: SIBO, brought on by gluten intolerance.
My gastroenterologist: Stop eating gluten. It’s causing 100% of your symptoms, plus probably global warming.
Me: Gluten-free? Isn’t that something nutcase granola hippies say to make themselves sound smug and self-righteous?
My GI: Not if that granola isn’t gluten free, they don’t.
Turns out I’ve got a crapload of symptoms (that’s what my GI called it: a crapload. Funny lady, my gastroenterologist) all due to gluten intolerance. Not just the abdominal pain and the digestive issues, but numbness in my hands and feet, pain in my joints, and a recurring rash on my back. Also, brain fog and back pain. All things I thought were due to getting older and overly sensitive skin. Turns out it is grain that is the enemy here, not time. (Though time is still fully 100% responsible for my sagging bosom.)
After nuking my body with hardcore antibiotics, I now have to take probiotics and avoid all gluten. Okay, I’m a grownup, right? I can handle this.
First thing to go: bread. I’ve never been a big bread eater, so no problem here. And if I do want bread, Udi’s makes a ridiculously overpriced option that’ll convince anyone they really don’t need bread at $5 a shrunken loaf.
Next up: pasta. (Insert screeching brakes, drumbeats of impending doom, or some other horrific “life as we know it has ended” sound effect.)
I am, for lack of a better term, a pasta girl. I will give up muffins, pie crusts, cereal, pancakes, graham crackers, soy sauce, and even communion wafers without blinking an eye, but asking me to give up pasta is like requesting I give up oxygen for a day. Not going to happen.
Luckily, while I was calling my gastroenterologist every terrible name in the book (and I’m a writer, so those insults got pretty descriptive and yes, perhaps requested she perform acts that are legitimately illegal in 42 states), she was able to dodge my verbal barbs and throw a box of Ronzoni gluten-free pasta at me. Okay, so there are options. (It’s a good thing all those hipsters are forsaking gluten, because their crazy diet fads have forced food manufacturers to come up with the darndest gluten-free selections.) I took my fake pasta and bad words and went home to boil. (Literally. You boil water, put in the pasta, and presto! Eight minutes later, fake noodles.)
The verdict: gluten-free pasta is not real pasta, that’s for sure. But when you throw a temper tantrum and dump the GF stuff and boil up legit noodles and scarf them down and wind up spending the next two days feeling like you were hit by a rhinoceros driving a Mack truck full of Lyme disease, then you know, the gluten-free pasta is really not that bad.
Gluten-free has turned out to be a bit of a lifestyle challenge. I have no doubt I’ll be waxing poetic on the versatility of the potato, and questioning why all Lara bars must be pressed and cut to resemble fecal matter, in blog posts to come. Because I’m afraid it’s official: color me a nutcase gluten-free-granola hippie.
After several doctors’ visits and procedures, it looks like I finally have an answer: SIBO, brought on by gluten intolerance.
My gastroenterologist: Stop eating gluten. It’s causing 100% of your symptoms, plus probably global warming.
Me: Gluten-free? Isn’t that something nutcase granola hippies say to make themselves sound smug and self-righteous?
My GI: Not if that granola isn’t gluten free, they don’t.
Turns out I’ve got a crapload of symptoms (that’s what my GI called it: a crapload. Funny lady, my gastroenterologist) all due to gluten intolerance. Not just the abdominal pain and the digestive issues, but numbness in my hands and feet, pain in my joints, and a recurring rash on my back. Also, brain fog and back pain. All things I thought were due to getting older and overly sensitive skin. Turns out it is grain that is the enemy here, not time. (Though time is still fully 100% responsible for my sagging bosom.)
After nuking my body with hardcore antibiotics, I now have to take probiotics and avoid all gluten. Okay, I’m a grownup, right? I can handle this.
First thing to go: bread. I’ve never been a big bread eater, so no problem here. And if I do want bread, Udi’s makes a ridiculously overpriced option that’ll convince anyone they really don’t need bread at $5 a shrunken loaf.
Next up: pasta. (Insert screeching brakes, drumbeats of impending doom, or some other horrific “life as we know it has ended” sound effect.)
I am, for lack of a better term, a pasta girl. I will give up muffins, pie crusts, cereal, pancakes, graham crackers, soy sauce, and even communion wafers without blinking an eye, but asking me to give up pasta is like requesting I give up oxygen for a day. Not going to happen.
Luckily, while I was calling my gastroenterologist every terrible name in the book (and I’m a writer, so those insults got pretty descriptive and yes, perhaps requested she perform acts that are legitimately illegal in 42 states), she was able to dodge my verbal barbs and throw a box of Ronzoni gluten-free pasta at me. Okay, so there are options. (It’s a good thing all those hipsters are forsaking gluten, because their crazy diet fads have forced food manufacturers to come up with the darndest gluten-free selections.) I took my fake pasta and bad words and went home to boil. (Literally. You boil water, put in the pasta, and presto! Eight minutes later, fake noodles.)
The verdict: gluten-free pasta is not real pasta, that’s for sure. But when you throw a temper tantrum and dump the GF stuff and boil up legit noodles and scarf them down and wind up spending the next two days feeling like you were hit by a rhinoceros driving a Mack truck full of Lyme disease, then you know, the gluten-free pasta is really not that bad.
Gluten-free has turned out to be a bit of a lifestyle challenge. I have no doubt I’ll be waxing poetic on the versatility of the potato, and questioning why all Lara bars must be pressed and cut to resemble fecal matter, in blog posts to come. Because I’m afraid it’s official: color me a nutcase gluten-free-granola hippie.
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