i'm back...new year, new name, new diagnosis.

I bet you thought I fell off the earth, huh?  Nope...but I've had quite a journey.

I've been gone from the blog because I became totally disillusioned with the whole Eating For IBS thing, mainly because it just wasn't working for me.  That's not to say that it doesn't work (clearly it does, for many people who suffer), but if you don't have IBS in the first place it isn't going to do you any good.  It's kinda like taking a Benadryl for a broken arm...right medicine for what it is designed for but completely inadequate for what it isn't designed for.  Quite honestly, it was just flat depressing to come here and post again and again that I was not feeling any better despite following the program to a T.  I wasn't making any progress, and I just felt like I wasn't being any help to anyone...least of all, myself.  I was feeling worse and worse and popping Imodium like it was candy.  For a while, I just quit following it altogether and ate whatever it was I wanted...I couldn't feel any worse, I reasoned.  It was certainly no way to live.

I decided to take my life back.

It was time to jettison the dead weight, so to speak.  I got rid of my physician.  She was a nurse practitioner who took over my old doctor's practice, and we had been going to her for the past several years; but she gradually got worse and worse until finally I just couldn't justify going to her any longer.  She had moved what was left of her practice to a quick-stop clinic-type place in a strip shopping center, and I felt like the service I was getting was second-rate at best.  Besides, she is the one who told me that everything was just fine with my colonoscopy, and that these problems I was having were all in my head, when it turns out I have Celiac Disease...a problem she never even tested for.

I asked around and found a new doctor, an actual doctor-type doctor, one who is treating me with the respect I deserve and who is hearing me instead of turning a deaf ear.  She has listened to me, taken me seriously, realized my symptoms were real, and ordered the appropriate tests.  Not only has she diagnosed me with Celiac Disease (confirmed by bloodwork), but she also ordered a sleep study to be done and it turns out I need to be on a CPAP machine (more on that later).

After switching over to a gluten-free diet, I can say that while I don't feel 100% better, I do feel more like a human being.  My Imodium intake has slowed; I'm trying to wean myself off of them.  The gas and bloating has practically stopped and I no longer look like I am pregnant.  I'm still overweight, but at my last doctor's visit they told me I had lost five pounds, which makes about twenty pounds altogether.  All in all, I feel better and look better and I know this is the diagnosis I've been waiting for.  And, as it turns out, some of the things I was doing on the Eating For IBS plan were totally counter-productive to what I needed to be doing.  Again, they can work if you're suffering with IBS, but they aren't exactly compatible with Celiac Disease.

I have big ideas for this blog, and I hope to share with you those ideas soon.  In the meantime, just know this...

You are not alone, it is not in your head, and your problems are real.  You deserve to be treated with respect, and you deserve to treat yourself with respect.  It's time to take your life back.  Come with me!