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I was in the Nexvax2 clinical trial, flying from Atlanta to Nashville for appointments and gluten challenges in March 2019.

This was one of the posts I wrote in real time.

Not polished.
Not strategic.
Not cute.

Just me, trying to figure out what was happening to my body.

“I vomit the pink drink I’ve just consumed.

This is bad. This is really bad. Now, the mental gymnastics start. Was this gluten? Does this mean I’ve been getting placebo? Could the amoxicillin have caused this? Crap, crap, crap.”

That was me in the middle of a clinical trial.

Not knowing if I was getting placebo or drug.

Not knowing if the pink drink was gluten or not.

Questions swirl.

Was it gluten?
Was it placebo?
Was it the medication?
Was it antibiotics?
Was I dehydrated?
Was my blood pressure low?
Was I reacting?
Was I wrong?

That version of me does not really exist anymore.

Not because I became fearless.

Because what I learned became part of the database I carry now.

Every food challenge.
Every reaction or not.
Every recovery.

All of it became information.

And that clinical trial gave me something I had never had before: controlled exposure, timed symptoms, and a clearer understanding of how my body reacts to gluten.

For me, it was not always the simple story I had been told.

It was nausea.
Vomiting.
Fatigue.
Brain fog.

A body crash that showed up in a pattern I could finally recognize.

That mattered.

Because confidence with celiac disease does not come from pretending there are no limits.

It comes from learning where the limits actually are.

It comes from living inside the confines of this disease without letting those confines become your entire life.

It comes from making mistakes, paying attention, learning, and trying again.

That sounds like something you’d put on a throw pillow, but it is true.

The more I understood my own body, the less every decision felt like a gamble.

That was a turning point for me.

Not because the trial fixed my celiac disease. It obviously didn’t.

But it helped me understand my celiac disease.

And that changed how I lived.

What experience helped you understand your celiac disease better?

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