Thursday, May 26, 2011

gluten.

WARNING: this is a serious rant, and has a bit of 'adult' language. I don't care if you like this post or not. I don't care if my grammar sucks, or if things are misspelled. I need to get this rage the HELL out of my system, and this is my way of doing so.

I haven’t eaten gluten since October of last year. It’s not because it isn’t tasty- I miss the hell out of gluten-filled food. It is because I get really sick when I eat it.

I haven’t eaten gluten since October of last year. That’s a lie. I’ve eaten gluten about 5 times since then, and each time I have been violently ill. One time, I ate two bites of breaded shrimp. (do you know how hard it is to watch other people eat your favourite foods that you KNOW you can’t eat any more?) I felt my stomach turn while we were in the restaurant. I did my best to maintain my composure, I clenched my fists through the cramping, and I swallowed back my urge to vomit. I was shaking and sweating, we paid our bills and left. I drove a friend home, and normally we’d sit in the driveway and chat. This time I didn’t even pull in to the drive way. I didn’t even put the car in park. I drove home quickly and ran to the bathroom. I vomited so hard I got a nose bleed. And then I shit myself. That’s right. I’m a grown woman, and I shit myself.

That’s what gluten does to me. The same thing happened when I was on vacation in Mexico, except I ate more than two bites. I thought that what I was eating was gluten-free, but there was some mix-up with the order. After drunkenly devouring an entire plate of food, I was hit like a Mack truck with a wall of “oh no” on my insides. I spent that night in the bathroom on the toilet with a bucket on my lap. At one point that night I tried to shower because I had vomited on myself. I never made it back to my bed, and I spent the next two days lying naked on my hotel room floor in a pile of my own ‘gluten intolerance.’ Yay vacation...

I used to get sick all the time. That’s why I stopped eating gluten. My sister tried a gluten-free diet and it seemed to really work for her, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I am a student. I don’t work during the school year. I work in the summer, and save as much as I can. My parents (thank God) pay my tuition. OSAP helps with the rest. I’ve been to college for three years, and I just finished my second year of university. I used to be able to make ends meet financially. Used to.

Now, a loaf of gluten-free bread costs $6-9, depending on how much you like the texture of Styrofoam. Now, a box of gluten-free cereal costs $7, and that isn’t for the family size. Want to go eat at a restaurant? Good luck. Fast food? HA. Nice try. Grab something quick on the way out the door? That works if you just want an apple. Want some cookies? Be prepared to spend AT LEAST $4 for a box of 12. And those are the gross kind. The good kind are $7/12pk.

Do I need to start taking out more OSAP? Should I cut down the features on my cell phone? Ask Mum and Dad for more help? What do I do? Government to the rescue!

A friend of mine informed me that the government offers a tax break for people with celiac disease. You can claim your groceries as a health expense (or something like that, Dad looked into the details for me) and get money back to make up for the cost of living gluten-free. All you have to do is get a formal diagnosis, and you’re set! :D 

Here’s the fun part! Guess what’s involved with a formal diagnosis? I asked my doctor today, and this is what she told me:

“Well you can go and get the blood test done. It isn’t very effective, so it isn’t worth much. I don’t even think the government would take that as proof. The best test to do is a biopsy. They take a camera to guide a pincer through your colon and intestines, and take a few samples. The samples get sent to a lab, and they can tell you if you have celiac disease. This test is only 75% effective. And all you have to do is eat a gluten-filled diet for two weeks before the procedure. Want me to set it up?”

EXCUSE ME? A gluten-FILLED diet for two weeks? And it is only SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT effective? So TWENTY FIVE percent of the time, a person WITH celiac disease will not receive a diagnosis?

I thanked my doctor for her time, and left. I nearly started to cry.

Fun fact: eating large quantities of gluten can cause intestinal and colon cancer in people with celiac disease. I wonder if they’d take that as proof.

<is crying now.>

2 comments:

rapunzel_jo said...

A co-worker of mine as an allergy of some sort to gluten. Although, no where as extreme as the violent vomiting and diarrhea, she gets extreme joint and muscle pain. She has been near gluten "free" for well over a year now. Don't know how she does it (she has a sweet tooth for cakes and cookies and such) but I guess at 52 years old, she just decided she doesn't want to hurt any more.

jedi starrunner said...

Rapunzel,
Thanks for commenting! Sorry I didn't respond sooner, I haven't been able to post comments anywhere for a while [:( :( :( :( :( :( :( ]

I have a SERIOUS sweet tooth as well, luckily I created a gluten-free flour mixture that I can use instead of regular flour in all of my favorite recipies! (And the organic/gluten-free bakery down the street that I found a few weeks ago helps too!]