Overcoming Celiac Disease #nomoreglutenfree

I have had so many people asking me to post this. I know, I would be curious too! How can someone overcome Celiac Disease? Isn't it a life-long thing?   The answer is yes...and no. It is really hard for me to explain intricate things such as this. It emotionally drains me for some reason, but I know I really want to tell you, so I got up the courage to write it out today. I know many people can benefit from what I am going to share!

This is my miracle story of how my life changed. Its very spiritual, and emotional, and well...life changing! It is definitely a miracle, and I will never claim otherwise. The Lord blessed me, and decided it was the right time to guide me to the right things that would heal my body.

Before I share this, I know that many many people are sick right now. Just in my own relatives there are many that have a lot of digestive issues and pains. Many of my friends struggle too. This is my journey. This is how I received help, and maybe it will guide you to something that will help you. I hope, I hope, I hope, because I feel your pain. I know its rough. I wish no one ever had to go through what I went through, but alas we are all mortal and trials come in all shapes and sizes and pains. 

Another thing is that, There are two steps to my healing:

1) going gluten free

2) going to homeopathic doctors to help me overcome celiac disease

in no way am I saying that if everyone does what I did (either of the steps), that they will also be miraculously healed, or that it will help everyone. But I do think that it will help a lot of people. 

 I in no way think that people should eat gluten free unless they have to. I don't think its a good weight loss diet, and that the Lord meant for wheat to be a staple for us. The Word of Wisdom specifically tells us that "all grain is good for the food of man..." and then specifically tells us later that "wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse..." D&C 89:16-17.  BUT some people's bodies just reject wheat. If you are feeling sick, milk or wheat is the first thing I would say to eliminate (I will post later about the best way to go gluten free). BUT if you do find that your body "rejects" any food, my experience can show you that there are ways of eliminating that food "intolerance" or "allergy."

Here goes....

I was sick for a long, long, long time. I am 27 now, and I was sick for 9 of those years. A third of my life. So I understand being sick, every day, all day. Wanting to pull my gut out. Doing homework in the bathroom, saying no to dates because of my pains.  Many people that new me from 18-27 have told me that they never knew that I was so sick, (except my companions and def my husband. #shoutouttonate he went through so much with me being sick! I think he was just as grateful as I was to overcome it!) I guess I was good at smiling through it? I can def say that that I went through most of it alone, so I don't want you to go through this alone! I am here for you!

Anyway, it started when I was a senior in highschool. I remember that food just didn't settle well and I would get really tired. When I went to college the next year, the problem got really bad. I deduced that it was lactose intolerance since I was always sick coming home from my job at a frozen yogurt shop. So my family had to deal with me "not being able to eat anything with milk in it" or taking those lactaid pills (none of which helped me, but i see why now.) Anyway, I just kind of went on in my life always having digestive issues. 

When I was 20, I had gallbladder issues. I started having severe pains in my abdomen once a day or so. Then it progressed to every day, then every time I ate, then all the time, then almost non-stop. It kinda felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife all the time, it would double me over and take my breath away. It was so bad, amidst finals week I went to the doctor many times to figure it out, and they finally deduced that it was probably my gallbladder. So a week later I had emergency surgery. Funny thing is that the doctor said "well, we'll take this out and hope it takes the pain away, then we'll know it was your gallbladder..." um...k, thanks for doing an experiment with my body!! haha, jk. It was the right thing, they said my gallbladder was all shriveled up in a constant state of contraction. Anyway, who knows why that happened...one explanation is that some people with celiac disease when they don't control it with a gluten free (GF) diet it can affect their gallbladder.

Well, my gallbladder is gone now, the pain went away. I still have digestive issues that reoccur from that when I don't eat for a long time (fasting is always a fun experience!!) but those issues compared to everything else are minimal :)

Ok, then I went on my mission. I got really really sick. The MTC was horrible. I lost 18 lbs there and couldnt eat anything. I was there during thanksgiving and christmas and I remember eating a roll and some veggies for thanksgiving while everyone else had their feast. They didn't know what was wrong with me and at one point I was on 8 different medications. Some to help the problems, some to alleviate the side effects of the other medicines. It. was. horrible. When I got to Taiwan i said "heck with these meds" and stopped taking them... it mostly went away for the first 9 months. The last 9 months of my mission I got really really sick again and lost a bunch of weight (my family said i looked like a chemo patient when i got home #eek). Anyway, it pains me to remember how sick I was during those years, and the stresses of being a missionary and being sick are no fun, but I am eternally grateful that I was not so sick that I had to come home. It was a huge blessing

I got home and got right into american food. I had become a lot more healthy by this point, so fruits, veggies, and lots of whole grains were my staple. Little did I know at that point that whole wheat was hurting me the worst. The thing about celieac disease (or gluten intolerance) is that it hurts your digestive system. When I would eat foods my body "rejected" (with celiac disease it means your body is rejecting gluten --a protein found on the wheat--, I would later find out that my body was rejecting more than just wheat...but we'll get to that.)  So when your body comes in contact with something it is "rejecting" it creates antibodies against it. So then, it fights it like its bacteria. So what happens is when the wheat would touch the villi in my digestive system, my body would actually attack the villi in my intestines (so my body was attacking itself!). they would become very inflamed, kind of like huge sores all over my gut. 

So, what would happen after eating lots of gluten for a long time, my whole gut became one big sore. So even if I ate a meal with no gluten, i would still feel lots of pain and "sick" because of the wounds that were ever present. You can see why it was such a long process for me to figure out what was making me sick. (I found out later, from doing expiriments after going completely gf and then adding it back in, that the symptoms didnt appear for 12-24 hours for me, so it was really hard to find out when I got contaminated and this made total sense why I had such a hard time figuring out that it was gluten that was making me so sick to start with.)

I was sick almost every day, all day. The only way to explain what I went through is to imagine this: imagine if you ate a ball of nails. Imagine feeling it move from your small intestine, around all the little curves, and then into your large intestine. You would be very aware. You would know it, and feel it, and want to get rid of it. This is how every bit of food and gas felt as it went through me. It was this way from about age 22-25. I was always bloated, but gas was painful. Like I said, it felt like a ball of nails that would never come out. I spent endless hours in the bathroom doing my homework. Every date was filled with many bathroom trips. I wonder what my roommates thought of me, haha (i'm too scared to ask, but i'm sure they thought I was weird.) 

Anyway, I new I had a problem that needed to be fixed. I tried going milk free. sugar free (I did make it whole year! but that wasn't it). I tried doing cleanses, probiotics, eating healthier, eating more yogurt. Finally one day I was telling my friend Brittany about how sick I was and how I was soooo tired (I needed like 10 hours of sleep). She told me that I should try going gf, and it had really helped her. So I tried it and it did help. well....i would say it took away half of my symptoms. but that was amazing enough. (Ill explain later that my body was rejecting a lot of other foods, and thats why it didnt help me 100%, but it was the main culprit so it did help a lot). Since it made such a big difference,  I was religious to my gf diet.

#sidenote

I met nate a few weeks after starting to go gf so thats how all his family and friends knew me. My family I'm sure thought I was this weirdo that kept skipping from diet to diet, and now i tell them I don't eat gf they prob think its a new fad. but if they read this, than i think they would understand why i went through so many different things and why i am the way I am now. 

So, since i was still sick even though I was eating gf, the only thing I knew to do was to be more strict. Make sure food wasn't made in a place with wheat, make sure I didn't inhale it. I would make nate brush his teeth before he could kiss me. I'm sure I drove everyone nuts, especially when people brought food over to our house after I had eli, but what could I say. I knew that I was still kinda sick and that eating gluten made me really sick. So I was paranoid. 

After 6 months of eating gf we wanted to find out more about why I was still sick and if they could help me any more. So because of good insurance, I had an endoscopy where they put you out and they stick a camera down your throat and go and take a few peices of my intestines to examine them. they made me eat wheat for 4 weeks leading up to that, and it was horrible. I hated it! I remember thinking that if the diagnosis came back negative for celiac disease that I would still eat gf because it made me so sick. But they called me a few days later to confirm that I had celiac disease because they could see the inflamation it was causing in my intestines. So, I went back to eating gf again. 

A few months later i was still very very sick, well not as sick as eating gluten, but its horrible to eat gf and still be sick. I had a preisthood blessing around this time that said that "if I were faithful, that the Lord would show me how to be healed."  I was so excited. I thought I would be free of pain soon. But the Lord had different timing for me. He knew I needed some more refining. So I did what I felt was right, and a long year and a half later I finally was healed!

to be continued....