There’s all this chatter about people and their food allergies and sensitivities online these days.
Team No Hearts
“I or my child doesn’t have issues with X so don’t make us suffer with you #CupcakesForLife”
Team Compassion
“Let’s support these people who have issues with X because their lives are hard enough”
I get it because I live as though I have Celiac though not technically diagnosed. I’m one of those assholes.
Many of these written pieces will say “I’m not talking about those with real allergies, but those with sensitivities or intolerances.” You know, because they matter less.
Maybe those people don’t realize that people can be suffering from other health concerns that cause the sensitivities and intolerances. For myself, I have a thyroid auto immune disease. I may also have Celiac. Add those 2 together and it’s a digestive nightmare. Auto immune diseases of all kinds tend to really destroy your digestive system and lend themselves to food intolerances overnight. It’s as fun as it sounds.
I don’t need your sympathy. Or your gluten filled cupcakes.
I need you to not be an asshole.
Are there people out there over dramatizing their issues? Maybe, and for those of us that suffer, we know they’re not helping the cause as a whole.
The recent/current gluten free craze is one that really gets people’s eyes rolling.
“Oh, you get a little bloated when you eat gluten, poor you.”
Did I eat a Jimmy Johns? Some delicious pizza? Garlic cheese bread?
No.
I ate maybe a half cup of chocolate ice cream before I felt wrong and ran to container to see that it had gluten in it.
It was my bad for not checking the label and I won’t make that mistake again but THAT is what my “little bloating” looks like and it turns into a digestive nightmare for me for about 2-4 weeks until it’s out of my system. (Fun fyi, gluten can take up to 6 months to totally leave your system)
It also affects me cognitively. My brain feels like my brain is split into two halves and thoughts on one side cannot cross the bridge to the other side to be completed. I can’t think of words and cannot process information. I get overwhelmed with anything over one step. I have to think it’s a lot like dementia in older people.
That glutened episode made me gain 10 lbs in 3 weeks. How? When my digestive system is that inflamed, my thyroid medications are unable to be absorbed and I’m dealing with those symptoms as well.
To say I’m miserable would be an understatement.
It took one month for my body to get back on track from one accidental exposure.
So when I say I can’t have gluten, I mean it. Don’t worry, I don’t expect any accommodations from you, I can take care of myself.
Just don’t be an asshole and if you can keep your eyes from rolling, that would be nice too.
I’m with you on the jerkfaces that just don’t get it. No, I don’t struggle with having Celiac (which people are familiar with) but my doctor advised that my sensitivity could go that way eventually if I wasn’t careful because I show some initial signs… What I do have though is debilitating migraines though that they couldn’t find a cause for and on a whim after a friend with similar allergies gave it up and had fantastic results. Without all the details, I (and my husband) think that giving up gluten might have been the best decision I’ve ever made.
I’m sorry you got glutened. It’s awful.
oww poor you, i’ve heard about gluten allergy but never thought it could be that bad, i was more thinking poeple vomit, sleep bad one night ect but not that it lasts for so long and is so not kind to your body and mind. my thoughts are with you and all poeple with allergies.
i’m part of the lucky ones with no allergies except to senseless people.
take care, Olivier
This!! All of this! I’ve had people get excited and think our IVF cycles finally worked. No. That’s gluten belly. But thanks.
I ate a tiny bit of something mid Febuary and have not been ok since. :-(
AND?? I didn’t meet you at BlogHer last year because I was recovering from gluten and my body was completely unable to fight off a stomach flu that most people I was with experienced as barely more then ingestion and I thought I was going to die.
So yeah. This. Just … Don’t be an ass hole.
I for one have totally benefitted from this “glutton free craze”! If it weren’t for this “craze” I’d still be dealing with nightmare digestive issues. Seen specialists over the years, prescribed lots of meds (one of which was taken off the market after people died!). No one ever asked about my diet, only recommended I “drink more water.” Um, ok.
And, yes. Two to four weeks of agony after I glutton it up. Sucks avoiding glutton, but so worth it! #QuinoaForLife!
Oh amen hon. Gluten poisoning is, at minimum, a two week stretch of hell. I’ve been lucky lately, but I’m always on high alert. :p
YUP. this is my life too – it’s INSANE what gluten does to me when I accidentally eat it. My whole family has switched over, partly because it was way too easy for me to mess up. Have you read Wheat Belly yet?
What kind of monster puts gluten in chocolate ice cream?!? …I’ve been doing a similar diet (ie, not diagnosed, but finding it helps immensely with long standing digestive issues) It doesn’t hit me quite as hard as it seems to hit you, but I’ve struggled with digestive pain for a decade now that gets blown off as “stress”. Uhm, you know what’s stressful? Not being able to eat without being in pain afterwards.
See, now I don’t have any issues with gluten, but I feel you very sincerely here. I have created my own diagnosis, based on people’s inability to “believe” (as if it was a religion or something) that my child has a mental illness. It’s called Severe Lack of Imagination, or SLI, and it leads people to act like assholes. Kind of like my grandma, who never had a single instant of nausea with any of her pregnancies and based on all that evidence, decided that morning sickness was something women made up to get sympathy from their husbands. That’s a way bad case of SLI right there.
Really, you don’t have to “get it.” You just have to stretch your brain out a little bit and acknowledge that sometimes, things outside your personal experience might be possible.
I’m sorry you got glutened and I’m very glad you’re feeling better. That sounds like pure misery.