I got glutened....

10 days in. I have done as near to perfect as I could. I haven't eaten even a crumb (to my knowledge) of gluten. This is now my life. This is not a diet, or something I can do until I'm tired of it. It's forever. But I'm feeling better. So I just keep on going.

The symptoms of celiac disease are so widespread. My symptoms are GI issues- bloating, cramping, pain, a little nausea, & bathroom issues (we won't go in to that). Also underlying lactose intolerance. But the more I read, I think I have other symptoms that I didn't know are gluten-related. Anxiety, depression, fatigue & foggy brain. I just blamed most of those on being a tired momma. I also have bad breath and yellowish teeth (which I was told comes along with being a redhead).

Symptoms that other people have are muscle weakness, failure to thrive (mostly in kids), night blindness, canker sores, unable to concentrate, moodiness (Russ would tell you I have this), can't concentrate, skin issues, irritability & poor memory (I kind of have these last two)

They are even connecting gluten intolerance to autism. This intrigues me so much. I studied autism in college my senior year. I wrote quite a few papers on the subject and worked with students that had autism. I even had two students in my own classroom that had autism. I've seen how it affects kids, and just the thought of changing their diet to getting gluten out could change their lives, fascinates me. I can't wait to read more studies on this.

Anyway, I'm rambling...

I ate something tonight that had gluten in it. This is what I ate today, so Pam, help me out...
Breakfast: 2 gluten free blueberry muffins, water
lunch: 3 pieces of turkey lunch meat (it's GF), piece of cheese, apple, piece of GF chocolate cake
snack: GF muffin
dinner: went to Chick-fil-a: had the chargrilled chicken salad with the berry vinaigrette dressing (on their website they say both are GF). Also had their fries (could this be it?)
Oh, also had A&W root beer at lunch (everything I've read says it's GF).

I was just sitting in the living room (about 30 minutes after I ate) and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, my stomach started cramping, hard! My stomach was gurgling, it hurt sooo bad, I thought I was going to throw up. I wonder if it hurt so badly because I've been GF for 10 days. It was worse than any other time ever! It took about 45 minutes for the symptoms to subside, but it sucked every bit of energy out of me. So at 8:30 as I was searching the ingredients OF the ingredients in things, I was ready to go to bed. But here I sit at 9:30 still trying to figure out what I ate.

Because what ever the heck it was, I don't EVER want to eat it again!!