Having celiac disease can mess with your mind.

Doctors diagnose us with celiac disease, say go start a gluten free diet, and send us on our way. We don’t really get a lot of information about what gluten is from doctors. Registered dieticians are hit or miss with their gluten free diet recommendations. Books, the internet, and social media is where most of us get our information about celiac disease.

Much of the social media stuff is scary about being gluten free enough. Being gluten free enough requires all new dishes, pot and pans, and a completely gluten free household. It requires never eating outside your home and only eating ice chips and berries grown in your own backyard.

If you are not gluten free enough or accidentally consume gluten, a deadly cancer is absolutely growing in your guts. This cancer is the result of you not being good enough at a gluten free diet.

Some say they are so sensitive that being in the same room as gluten gives them gluten reactions. The sensitivity posts always made me feel inadequate as a Celiac patient. I felt this way because I was not as sensitive as someone else.

After reading all of this, when something goes wrong in your body, you automatically assume gluten is the culprit. Then you rack your brain for days trying to figure out from where the gluten came. It may not even be a gluten issue, maybe you ate something bad or are just sick.

Anyway, all of this to say – What keeps you up at night about having Celiac disease? What worries you?

For me, it’s the long term damage. I believe I have had Celiac since I was young. We never would have known it because by all accounts I grew normally. As a kid, I did not like sandwiches, pasta, or pizza (really). No biggie, not all kids like sandwiches, pasta, or pizza. In college, when drinking beer, I was always more hungover than my friends. After college, broke, and living on pasta, I got very lean. I was not eating much. All things that could be explained away by the circumstance. Was it celiac? Dunno.

But if I have had Celiac my entire life and only went gluten free recently, what damage has been done? That’s what keeps me up at night.

Tell me what keeps you up at night.

#gluten #celiac #glutenfree #celiacdisease #glutenawareness