Kaycee's Blog

15 July 2006

Celiac.com Sponsor (A13):
Congratulations to me, we have been married one year today. One wonderful year.

Unfortunately I volunteered last night to do a stint of volunteering at the local library today, forgetting what today was. But Jim forgave me that indiscretion, it was only for 3 hours. Which gave him enough time to walk the dog, and check out a few cars, or whatever men do when on their own.

We went shopping later on, and bought ourselves a coffee plunger, and a new frying pan for me. Very romantic. Love the coffee plunger, it is a stainless steel one, insulated and quite heavy too. So I went out and bought some coffee to go with it. Irish cream would be my favourite, so I bought it, only to find out later it contained a flavour in it. Since when has coffee not been pure coffee?!! Panic stations for me, as I have been trying to avoid all flavours, but I gave this the exception to the rule, and decided to try it, and so far, 4 hours later, nothing untoward, so hopefully it is an okay flavour. If not, I dare say, I will let you know.

I was not going to bother to have something special to eat for tonight, as I did not want a meal out that could put a damper on such an important day. It would be just so horrible to have that meal out and to have to pay for it later. My memory of my anniversary, birthday or whatever would be marred by a sick stomach. And that is what I got on my wedding night, a year ago, a sick stomach. So we, Jim and I had leftovers from last night. But my two boys had takeaways, and everyone is happy, happy, happy. The wine is good too. I feel good.

I have been doing a bit of looking back over the last couple of years, and have traced my path to this far.

Below is the first half of the trip. It might be a bit messy, and a bit boring. But by reading my food diaries, I am only beginning to realise how sick I was getting. Not as bad as some people, but over Christmas it was really telling, as I was not a happy well person. I was worried about myself, and that was the stage where I realised I had to do something.

This is how I got to here, with the gluten intolerance coeliac battle.

For years now I have had stomach issues, but always thought, as my mother had issues too, it was just part of our physical make up, and I did not become concerned, as my mother never was overly concerned with her problems. To start with she blamed chocolate, and I followed suit and gave that up, and that made a difference. I should say, the difference with giving up chocolate, was that I did not get the horrible stomach cramps, but still had diarrhoea. Then mum blamed coconut, but that didn’t make a lot of difference to me, her latest allergy/intolerance is palm oil as well, which I now would not know if it bugs me or not, as I do not seem to eat any palm oil that I know of. My mum not too many months ago put the gauntlet in my court and told me to find out what our problem was, so I found out what my problem was and went back to mum about it, but it was at that stage she clammed up and did not want to know, and refused to believe this could be her problem too. I must add that my parents have had no problem accepting the fact that I have coeliac, as they have been very supportive of me, especially over the last week when I was visiting them.

Like a lot of people I have always battled with my weight, and late 2004, I began yet another diet. After my first successful diet way back in 1986ish, I decided that I was not going to do it again, as at the end of that diet I found out I had a cyst on an ovary, and I couldn’t help but blame the diet for the outcome. I know it wasn’t the case, and I had had the cyst for probably a long time. It was removed and I managed to have two more sons since then, and of course I gave up smoking and then put on weight. I had always been a bit weary about dieting, but no matter how much I walked I could never loose the weight, so I decided it was time to do the diet thing again. So late 2004 it began, and ever since I have been writing in a food journal all that I eat and the calories, and the more I got into it the more I noticed relationships with my food. I think the biggest telling thing, was that when I over ate, especially in rich food, I seemed to have the stomach cramps and the urge to go to the loo in the wee hours of the morning. It was through my diet that I was not able to handle the rich meals I would eat on occasions. So for birthdays and Christmases, I would suffer quite a bit, and I would get a bit of heartburn, but by sticking to a diet to loose weight the heartburn would disappear. So I felt doomed to diet forever. It must be noted this was not a coeliac diet, but just a diet to loose a bit of weight. Even so, to start with I did eat a lot less gluten, and for a while my diarrhoea abated, but slowly came back. I was like an ostrich with my head stuck in the sand. A bit worried to see the doctor as I thought it would be something nasty.

Looking through the before coeliac diagnosis food journals, I am realising that even though I was dieting, I was still eating a lot of rubbish.

The first comment, that came in my diary, about eating too much and being quite ill, (but that had happened on and off for years without mention) was on the night of my birthday in June 2005, when we had gone out for tea. The words were “Well I ate and ate. Sick next day.” I remember exactly being caught out that morning while walking with a friend, and the fact that I had to take a day off work. I feel quite lucky that that was the only day I have ever had to take offwork because of coeliac.

The next comment came on 4th July, 2005 “Reacted to something like chocolate or bread?” I could say the marble was dropping. Nearly nailed the answer.

Then 8 July “Ate shout for me and Chrissy who is leaving, felt yuck”

15 July 2005 mentioned what I had for breakfast and then I wrote “Then got married, then ate and ate. It was nice. Paid for it later” So I suffered the night I married. Thankfully that did not interfere with anything.

I must make a note that at this stage I had been talking to my sister and we both felt that we had an intolerance to gluten, but we still had not gone into it in depth, and I decided I will try to avoid gluten soon. She now does not think she has a problem, even though her results turned out to be borderline.

23 September 2005 “Last day of term. Shout. Ate ate. Drank drank. Sick sick sick!”

1 October 2005 “Too much chocolate, a bit of upset stomach that night and next day”

5 October 2005 “Upset tum in morning. What did I eat yesterday? Wine?”

8 October 2005 “ Straight after eating bread got burps - felt bloated and uncomfortable” I think this was in one of the weeks where I tried to give up gluten, but that exercise did not last long.

17 October 2005 “Blowout. Bread, chips, choc. Felt bloated and yuckie next morning. Verging diarrhoea.”

21 October 2005 “Pizza, scones, drinks, bread. Bad reaction, wind and heartburn. Too much”

23 October 2005 “ Upset tum”

28 October 2005 “Lot of bread, sally lun, nasi goreng, chips = fat. 2 drinks! Feel fine” That really confused me, sometimes I could eat and eat and be fine.

3 November 2005 “Sick stomach”

15 December 2005 “Sick at 12.30am. Could it be the wafer sticks with palm oil in?”

19 December 2005 “Overate, would’ve eaten more, but I couldn’t. Didn’t feel too hot and didn’t really want my tea. Enjoyment of food will go!! Pull myself together” Was that a rambling comment?

20 December2005. Because it was Christmas week I decided I would eat as much as I liked and ignore the diet. This could explain this comment “Breakfast. Still trying to eat. Had peanut butter with margarine and toast. Felt not too hot after. So I think I will give up this trying to have a eating week and stick to diet as much as possible.”

21 December 2005 End of school year “Last day at work. Shout. Wasn’t too much food, but I didn’t stop eating. Polished off over half a bar of chocolate. Needless to say feeling seedy (hungover) feels like, and not a comfortable sleep. Bring back a feeling of hunger. Has not been a good feeling eating too much. Help I’m allergic to food.”

25 December 2005. “Ate ate. Bad night sleeping. Burps. One week of not bothering to count, calories, cause I said I wouldn’t. Now I can and am looking forward to normal eating. Eating too much makes me fat, uncomfortable and my mood changes. I think dieting and eating right makes me feel better physically and mentally.”

30 December 2005 “Still got this eating thing going. Was sick tonight. You know that toilet thing. Last day has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster.”

Well that is the first half of this story.

Cathy