Happy Celiacs Awareness Month: 6 Things That have changed since going gluten-free

Welcome to May! I haven’t mentioned it much but it’s Celiac’s Awareness Month. I have yet to get a proper diagnosis, but that’s because my doctor doesn’t want me to get one. She doesn’t want me to start back to eating gluten, just to see if I test positive. The symptoms I had when I ate gluten, were the reason why I quit, and it’s okay if I don’t get a black and white answer. I’m not hurting anymore. That’s all that matters.

Right?

It’s been 5 months since I stopped eating gluten. Except for a few times where I accidentally “glutened” myself, while getting used to ingredients, and what foods are actually gluten-free, and what ones are not (Cheerios, Soy Sauce, and some Benadryl are not gluten-free by the way). I’ve had noticed a few changes, ones that I didn’t expect to have happened to me. I’m happy to finally have a new lease on life. S

1. I haven’t been as hungry: I used to be hungry all the time, and have like zero energy. I remember eating and falling asleep. It wasn’t even an hour after eating where, I felt drowsy, but hungry again. So I’d trudge to the kitchen to find a “healthy” snack, like apples, or fruit.

2. I’ve lost weight: The weight loss was the biggest surprise ever. In the past 5 months since I went gluten-free, I have lost 20 pounds. It wasn’t just myself that noticed the weight loss, my doctor even brought it up.

3. I stopped bloating: Some of my weight was bloat, and when I say bloat, it was serious bloat. My stomach was even round and hard a lot like a pregnancy belly. The days my bloat was bad, I wore maternity pants I had from my boys years ago just so I could be comfortable. I don’t need to wear my old maternity pants anymore unless I want to have one of my comfortable, loose jeans and pants day.

4. My stomach and intestinal pains stopped: I used to have really bad IBS pains, to the point I relied on Bentyl to live my day to day life. Bentyl made me tired, but also gave me really bad panic attacks, both of which took over my life. Along with my intestinal cramps, I haven’t had the really bad stomach pains that sent me to the hospital not once but twice, in fear that I had gallbladder issues.

5. My constipation left: Sorry for the TMI moment of this blog, but one of my major symptoms was constipation. I would go up to two weeks at a time without a bowel movement. I haven’t had that problem anymore. In fact I’m going once a day, or sometimes every other day. But it’s not like it was before.

In my case it's she. But, I'm not dying, I can't just eat gluten. 

6. I haven’t had bad hair loss: Hair loss is actually a common symptom of Celiac’s Disease. Now that my diet has changed, I’m not running my hand through my hair just to get a clump of hair, or finding tons of my hair in places that my hair shouldn’t have fallen out at.

The things that haven’t changed as much as I would have wanted them to, were my migraines, they’re not as bad, but they’re still there. Same goes with my fibromyalgia and muscular pain, the pain and flairs aren’t as bad but they’re still here. I’m at least able to have less pain than I did in the past. Hopefully, as time goes on I’ll see more changes, even bigger changes.