I joined a celiac drug trial certain it would cure me.
I believed it enough to fly from Atlanta to Nashville every week for months—paying my own way.
It was exhausting. Physically and emotionally.
And then my body rebelled.
I got so sick I ended up in the ER.
And then they pulled me from the study—for my own safety.
And I understood in a way that broke my heart.
Was it the drug?
Was it a reaction?
Was it something else?
That guessing game almost broke me.
Eventually, I got my answer:
I was on the placebo.
What I felt wasn’t a side effect.
It was gluten doing exactly what gluten does to my body.
And that hit harder than anything else.
Because it forced me to stop pretending celiac was something small—
something I could manage by just “being careful.”
It’s not.
This is my immune system going to war.
And more than that—it made something else clear:
I couldn’t keep waiting for something to come along and make this easier.
So I stopped waiting.
And I started figuring out how to live with celiac in the world as it actually is—
not how I wish it would be.
Because at some point, you either keep searching for a different answer…
or you accept the one your body has been giving you the whole time.
I chose the second.
If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in that in-between—
questioning your symptoms, hoping it’s something else—
you’re not alone.
Have you ever talked yourself out of what your body was telling you?