The post I’ve been trying to write all week. Seriously.

It all started with an innocent fad diet. And then we made a discovery.

Adam got a diet from work and we were going to try it. I’m sure you’ve heard of this kind: you eat vegetable soup and fruit the 1st day. The second day, you eat the vegetable soup and veggies. The 3rd day you eat the vegetable soup with veggie and fruit…. You get the idea. The diet boasts that if you stick with it and you don’t cheat, you will lose 10 -17 pounds. The night before we were going to start it, Adam was looking up on-line about the diet, just to see what people had to say about it (isn’t it amazing the things you can look up and find, just at the tips of your fingers?).

One link led to another and Adam came across information about Leaky Gut Syndrome. (It sure has an awful name, doesn’t it?) Out of the 15 symptoms, I have 11 of them. And I have had them for at least 15 years. We did the diet for the 1st day and eating only fruit, made everyone…lets just say we all used the bathroom more often that day. That was last Saturday, February 20. We were talking about this Leaky Gut condition and we’re continuing to research things about it. I have been told, by medical doctors, that I am hypoglycemic and to control my blood sugars, I need to eat a protein dense diet. This diet that we were on doesn’t include any protein until day 5 and I didn’t think I could last that long without it. So on Sunday, we decided to “cheat” a bit and we had eggs for breakfast.

By Sunday night, we were off the diet. However, we came to the conclusion, based on the research we had done, that keeping gluten and processed sugar out of our diet would be a good thing. And perhaps it would help, if I do indeed have Leaky Gut Syndrome.

We didn’t eat any gluten or processed sugar (meaning white and brown sugar) for the whole weekend. Then on Monday, February 22, Maacah had a doctor’s appointment and we went out to eat at the Chinese buffet restaurant. Well, before we even left the building, both Maacah and I had a headache and Grace complained of a stomach ache (although I suspect her tummy ache was due to overeating). With hypoglycemia, I have to eat at regular times or I get a headache. When we ate lunch, we were done by 12:20 or so, so we ate at a good time. I had a good breakfast of eggs and veggies, so I concluded that the headaches were possibly due to the gluten and/or sugars found in sauces and various dishes.

The headache was gone by Tuesday morning and I felt wonderful for the remainder of the week. Tuesday found me cleaning out our pantry, getting ride of everything that had an ingredient of wheat and/or sugar. We bought gluten free baking ingredients; such as tapioca starch, potato starch, sorghum flour, oat flour, brown rice (which we grind into flour), zanthan gum, and Agave Nectar (this is a natural sweeter). I have done lots of baking this week, having fun experimenting with the non-gluten flours and natural sweeteners (I have used honey and real maple syrup*, along with the Agave Nectar).

I had energy this week and I really felt good. Better than I have in a long time, longer than I can remember. Adam said he felt good this week as well, except he’s been tired. But his schedule has changed and he has one less day off than he did before. He also said that when he’s gotten tired in the past few months, he has gotten a headache as well. That’s not normal for him. And all his life, he has had to have something to drink when he eats anything with flour in it; from a muffin to a sand which. If he doesn’t have something to drink, or there’s not a lot of fat in the dough (such as a danish or croissant), he can’t swallow. It feels like the food gets stuck in his throat. Upon talking with a friend today who has a known allergy to the germ and bran from wheat, he learned that his not being able to swallow could be a reaction to wheat.

I was excited to be feeling better this week. Until today. Every other Saturday, we have the Lords’ Supper and a fellowship meal at church. That was last night. I ate about a cup of pasta (maybe 1 1/2 cups) and 2 slices of a pinwheel (where a pickle with meat and cream cheese is wrapped in a tortilla, then sliced). How I wish I had never eaten those things! It doesn’t sound like a lot, because it’s not. But if you stop ingesting something that is irritating your system for a period of time, then reintroduce just a small portion of it, the reaction in your body is magnified. While you are daily eating that irritant, your body is accustomed to the irritation and the reaction that happens becomes normal. When you remove that irritant from your diet, when your body comes into contact with it again, the reaction is far greater than when you stopped.

This morning, Adam, Maacah and myself woke up with headaches, most of us were quite lethargic and quite tired. All are symptoms of a reaction to gluten. So, that pretty much confirms it in my mind. There are testing we could have, but we’re not going to to them. We don’t think they are necessary. All we are doing right now is changing our diet and I’m taking a probiotic to help replace the good flora that should be in your system. Even if we are not having a reaction to gluten and/or processed sugar, making these changes are not going to harm us, they will be for our good. Eating out could be problematic, but for a family of our size, the bill is more problematic then what’s on the menu. Besides, I live with the best chef in the area, so what do I need a restaurant for! (Not that I’m biased or anything.) And, I’m surprised to see, Grace’s eczema is starting to look better. There is belief that eczema is connected to gluten. If that’s true, I hope we see it get much better, if not totally go away, for she has it bad on her legs.

In conclusion, we have officially become a gluten free, processed sugar free home (I say processed sugar free because we still use honey, maple syrup, and agave nectar as sweeteners. We are not sugar free.). I sincerely never thought I would say those words, but it’s true. After 15 years of not feeling well and suffering from so many different things, if eating no gluten and no processed sugar helps me to get my health back, then so be it. Esp. since I can see that my eldest daughter is showing the same symptoms that I have. I don’t want that suffering for her. My suspicion is that the gluten is the culprit, but the processed sugars aren’t good for us anyway.

* Real maple syrup is expensive, but we make our own. Each March, we collect the sap from the Sugar Maples in Adams’ parents yard (about 12 of them) and we boil it down to syrup. Last year was a low year and we only got about 4-5 gallons of it. But we only tapped 7 trees, I think. This year I think we’ll tap more and hopefully this year will be better. Esp. now that I’m using it way more than just on pancakes and waffles.