I had been having unexplained diarrhea off and on for the past 6 or 7 years. With some urging from Mike, my husband, I finally decided to see a doctor about it in October 2007. I absolutely hate going to the doctor and get anxiety about it a bit, so I had Mike come with me. It was such an embarrassing problem for me to talk about, especially since I am a pretty private person. I described my problem to the doctor. He was concerned that I may have picked up an amoeba on our trip to Mexico six months prior to seeing the doctor. He had me submit stool samples to the lab to be tested, and I scheduled a follow-up appointment. At the follow-up visit, the doctor gave me the news. The only thing they found in my stool was lactose fermentation. The verdict: I was lactose intolerant. Needless to say, I was pretty relieved that I didn't pick up any weird viruses in Mexico. That wouldn't be fun. Switching to soy milk and stocking up on Lactaid, on the other hand, I could handle.
So I stopped drinking cow's milk and started pouring Silk on my cereal. I took lactase enzyme tablets when I did eat dairy. And it helped. My digestive troubles seemed to be solved.
Fast forward a few years. I don't know when it was exactly, but over the past year or two I started to have diarrhea again. It would come and go, and I couldn't figure it out. I began wondering if I ate things containing dairy without realizing it. I started considering going completely dairy free. As time went on, the diarrhea became increasingly frequent, and seemed like there wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't bloated. The bloating made me feel like I looked four months pregnant, even though I wasn't. I was getting frustrated.
One day in the spring of 2012 I remembered that my mom had been diagnosed gluten intolerant a couple of years beforehand, though she never changed her diet. This was the first time I ever considered that gluten might be the problem. I began searching around on the Internet and found out that gluten intolerance is hereditary. Why didn't anyone tell me this when my mom was diagnosed?! That could have saved me a lot of grief. But it didn't help that my mom wasn't convinced that gluten was the culprit of her digestive problems. I had no reason to consider it myself.
In June 2012 I decided to see the doctor and ask to be tested for gluten intolerance. I am still scared of going to the doctor, but I actually went without any prodding and unaccompanied. I needed help. The doctor walked into the room and asked me why I was there. I told him that my mom was diagnosed with gluten intolerance and I wanted to be tested for it too. He said, "You're the second person to say today." I was floored. I had the 8 AM appointment, and someone else that day had already come in wanting to know if they needed to stop eating gluten too. At that moment I realized how big of an issue gluten intolerance is becoming. It's not so rare anymore.
My doctor asked me several questions about my symptoms and my diet. Then he said it sounded like Celiac to him. He went on to tell me about a friend he had in medical school who went through the same symptoms and finally got tested. The friend did, in fact, have Celiac disease, and stopped eating gluten. He lost twenty pounds, was healthier, and even his mood improved. My doctor ordered the blood panel to test for Celiac as well as the genetic test and sent me over to the lab. He also told me to start a gluten-free diet immediately rather than wait for the lab results since it was likely they would be positive.
I went straight over to the lab and had my blood drawn. After a few days, I was beginning to get anxious for the results. I started calling my doctor everyday. A week later, I received my lab results in the mail. The results were negative. In fact, my doctor put a note that stated, "No sign of Celiac." What?! I was so sure that I had Celiac disease. And I had been feeling better, even after only a week on the gluten-free diet. But it was difficult to eat gluten-free when my husband and kids weren't. So I went back to enjoying real bread again.
As the weeks and months passed on, I kept having frequent diarrhea and was constantly bloated. I finally decided to go to the doctor again. I saw a different doctor this time but explained my symptoms, how my mom was diagnosed gluten intolerant, and how I had been tested for Celiac a few months before. The doctor told me that she thought I had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). She wanted me to keep a diary of everything I ate for a month, all of my bowel movements, and times when I was feeling stressed. She told me that some people carry stress in their belly and that she thought that was what was upsetting my digestive system. The doctor also sent me on my way with a prescription for bentyl, which is supposed to help with the symptoms of IBS.
I thought their might be something to this theory of IBS caused by stress because I tend to get stressed easily. So I kept a log for a month of everything I ate, all of my bowel movements, and when I was feeling stressed. My symptoms did seem to be bad when I was stressed, but there were plenty of other times that they were bad too. My symptoms didn't seem to come from any certain food; the bloating was constant and the diarrhea was almost daily. I couldn't make any sense of it.
I kept reflecting back on that week when I had gone gluten-free and thinking about how I felt better. I kept second-guessing myself too, wondering if it was just a good week, a mere coincidence. My symptoms never really were consistent. I decided to do some searching around the Internet and came across a doctor, a gastroenterologist no less, who discovered he had non-celiac gluten intolerance. This really got me thinking that gluten may in fact be the cause of my stomach troubles, so I finally set a goal to go gluten-free for a month and see if my symptoms improved.
At the beginning of October 2012, I started my personal challenge of eating gluten-free for a month. Obviously, my symptoms cleared up. Bloating and diarrhea are not the norm for me anymore. I don't know if I had a false negative on the celiac test or if I have non-celiac gluten intolerance. Either way, I do know that gluten makes me sick, and I'm never eating it again.
