Flour Power

Its been a year since we brought Gracie home and as wonderful as the whole experience has been, I just haven't felt my best. For the last 11 months, I've blamed my fatigue and various symptoms on the M&M's....menopause and motherhood. The memories of our family adoption adventure to Nanning were so wonderful, and I can still taste those fresh noodles and dumplings that we indulged in several times a day. However, the post China effects of turning my GI tract into a race track stayed with me and when I visited my favorite endocrinologist (I will call Dr. House) this year he said, based on your labs, you have malnutrition and you are allergic to something.

To be honest, I was mildly miffed at the idea that I could be malnourished as most of the meals that I prepare each night start with me planting a seed, harvesting the vegetables on so on. Besides, my waist line wasn't showing any signs of malnutrition so I did what most health care professionals do and ignored the warning.

I started getting some belly aches, irritability, muscle cramps and twitches but I knew it was time to take action when my favorite Starbucks latte left me queasy. So I got some lactaid and that solved the latte problem. It also seemed to be a great diet aide because I started losing a pound a day. Cool. Back in my skinny pants. But thought that I really should get my gallbladder out - it had bugging me for 30 years even though it always looked innocent on ultrasound. I am the owner of several organs that look perfect but behave badly. However, my personal health care strategies have been based on the procrastination theory: the longer I left my symptoms to develop the easier my problems would be to diagnose...understanding of course that it may be the coroner who makes the diagnosis. And of course, the earlier the diagnosis, the longer the disease.

So one day, I'm doing some research about prenatal calcium needs for a prenatal patient with Celiac Disease and realize that I have every symptom listed for Celiac Disease. Before kids I was a South Beach Diet fan...minimal carbs, lots of meat, veg, fruit. Felt great. Became a Mom and started eating Mac N Cheese, pizza, goldfish crackers...felt like crap. So I tried the gluten free diet for a couple weeks and all my symptoms disappeared. New woman and could still fit in my skinny pants. Had 2 bites of pizza one night and ended up in the ER. This was followed by an episode of tetany when I arrived home with the kids and couldn't let go of the steering wheel. Gut rot leads to calcium deficiency leads to tetany. Loads of fun.

So my stomach and intestines are biopsied following 4 days of a glutenized diet, and I end up back in Dr House's office. He didn't say I told you so, but he did want to admit me to hospital because I no longer had a blood pressure. I did wonder in that moment if I had passed on and no one had bothered telling me but after confirming with our receptionist that I really was still alive I declined his kind offer of hospitalization and returned to work. Nothing like seeing 60 pregnant ladies to get the blood pressure going.

The good news is that a week after being on a gluten free diet, I have a blood pressure again and feel terrific. It is mildly annoying that flour and gluten is in so many foods - from yogurt to licorice. But over the course of the last few months, I've developed aversions to those foods that defy the laws of gravity in my gut so I don't really care to eat them anyway. And there is no gluten in Haagen Dazs ice cream or chocolate so I'll always have those two food groups to rely on.

And its nice to have a trendy disease...it would seem that everyone knows someone with Celiac, support groups and Celiac twitters abound and there is even a Gluten Free for Dummies book available. I am left wondering if there are so many new Celiac's because they've been previously misdiagnosed with reflux disease or irritable bowel. If they would just stop eating goldfish they too could feel terrific.

So a slim degree of sanity has returned to our house. Gracie's job is to keep my blood pressure up which she does very effectively. Lil has made extensive mental list of what I am allowed to eat and has been overly enthusiastic about my recent attempts at putting together the family meals. And my lovely man who became my caregiver, mom and dad to the kids and kept the practice going gets the multi-tasker of the year award. Am I lucky or what.