It was as if I were in a tunnel. I could hear what the Dr was saying, but his voice was so very far away. Did anyone else feel that earthquake? My chair is quaking and it takes me some time to realize that I’m doing this. There is no earthquake. There is no tomorrow. There is only right now. This very second. And I’m terrified.
Over the past few years, my health has really gone downhill. For the past 5+ years I’ve had wandering joint pain that hits my ankles, knees, hips, wrists, lower back, neck… before taking a few days off and beginning the journey all over again. At times the pain is so bad that I cannot sleep and I lay in my bed at night quietly crying in misery and bouts of self-pity. It’s as though I’ve been hit by a car. The ache is sharp and painfully deep at the same time and encompassing my entire lower body from the hips down.
How wonderful it would be if this was the extent of the issues, but unfortunately that is not the case. In addition to the pain I’m exhausted to the point of collapse. Where just a few years ago I could jump out of bed in the morning and be filled with energy, it takes everything I have to crawl out of bed around 10 (if not later) and stagger to the bathroom, reeling in exhaustion and nearly weeping at the thought of doing anything other than sliding back beneath the covers and going back to sleep. When I do manage to make it out of the bedroom, I collapse onto the sofa and lay there, attempting to muster up the energy to do something. Anything.
Along with the exhaustion, I feel stupid, thick, slow. As though I’m looking at life through a vaseline coated lens. I forget words and can barely remember my own name some days. Work? Forget about that. A job that used to take me 10 minutes now takes an hour or more as my thoughts grind to a halt and my IQ drops into the single digit range. Eventually, I crawl back to my bed and nap the afternoon away.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the frog in the pot analogy. Stick a frog into boiling or extremely hot water and it’ll make every attempt to jump out.. until it’s dead. But put it into cold water and set it on a stove set to low and it will slowly cook to death without realizing the danger it is in. Welcome to my life where I am the frog and my health is the pot of water. If I could step outside myself and see who I am today compared to who I was 2 or 3 years ago, the difference would be startling. In my current state there is absolutely no way I could ever do the baking and gluten-free mixes that I did just 2 years ago. Every Friday I used to get up at the crack of dawn, drive to my kitchen, and bake the day away there, preparing dozens of different baked goods for the Farmer’s Market on Saturday. If I tried that now, I’d fall asleep on the drive over there. Most days the simple task of making something to eat is outside what I am capable of doing.
In late February I caught a terrible cold. By the time mid-March had rolled around, it was apparent that something was really wrong so I headed off to the Dr. Walking pneumonia. Antibiotics and lots of rest. It took until mid-April until the chest symptoms went away and my cough finally died off. But the overwhelming fatigue just wouldn’t stop. For several weeks following I slept and slept and slept. One weekend we drove 4 hours down to Vancouver, WA for my brother-in-law’s graduation from WSU. I sat in the back of the van and rested as we went down. And yet that easy and simple trip did me in. By the time we arrived I was about comatose and ended up going to bed around 7 and sleeping until after 10 the next morning. It was this trip that made me realize something was seriously wrong and so, we made another Dr’s appt.
Fast forward to last Thursday, 4:30pm when the phone rang. “This is Dr X’s office, we have the results of your lab work and the Dr would like to see you.” “Ok, when should I come in?” “The Dr would like you to come in right now.”
Panic. Fear. Uncertainty. Anxiety. Obviously something is very wrong if I’m supposed to go in right this very second. Heart pounding out of my chest we drove there and then waited in the pressure cooker of a waiting room for an hour before my name was finally called. And there I received the news that has changed my world forever.
Diabetes. No question about it. My blood sugar level was 415, which is very high. So high that the Dr phoned in scripts that very day for me to pick up and start taking immediately.
How could this happen to me? I’ve lost 60 pounds in the past 2 years. I am a salt eater and prefer that to sugary items any day. I don’t eat fast food. I don’t drink soda. I rarely eat breads and baked items (most of the food that I make for my blog is given away or ends up in the trash as I’m just not a big sweets/baked good person). My diet really consists of meats, veggies, eggs, bacon and potatoes. In the end, it’s decided that since there is an extended family member with diabetes and since I have celiac disease, this could not be stopped or avoided. Depression and despair hits and as we drive away from the office, I’m sobbing. Why me? Is it not enough that I already avoid most food through my celiac and allergies? Now my life will be even more restricted. But while that is frustrating, that pales in comparison to the fact that keeps smacking me in the face — this is forever. Forever I will be checking my blood. Forever I will be diet-restricted and possibly on medication. Forever this is a guillotine hanging over my head, ready to drop at a moment’s notice. Celiac disease is a cinch compared to the very real threat of health issues as a result of diabetes.
On top of this, there are those who are going to assume that since I’m not skinny, I did this to myself. That I *have* to be a closet eater and sucking down the candy bars and such. Because who has ever heard of someone losing the weight that I have and ending up a diabetic? My last blood sugar test was prior to my weight loss and a few years earlier. What switch was flipped in my body in the past 5 years that triggered this?
I’ve spent the weekend googling diabetes and every possible other search term and I’ve learned something as I’ve done so. I had chronic heart burn that began during my pregnancy in 91-92. This pregnancy was my celiac trigger and for the next 11 years, I grew sicker and sicker. Burning heartburn was my constant companion and I ate literal handfuls of rolaids and tummy before eventually moving to OTC acid reducers. I hoped that this would resolve itself once the gluten was removed from my diet after my 03 diagnosis, but nope. While a myriad of other health issues I had vanished nearly overnight, the heartburn remained and I would still be suffering from it today had I not read an article a few years ago about low stomach acid. Fascinating and changed my life. I did the baking soda test and never burped.
http://www.drdebe.com/stomach-acid-assessment.html
http://www.puristat.com/coloncleansing/lowstomachacid.aspx
All those years I thought that I had too much stomach acid. As it turned out, the exact opposite was true. And the longer I was on those blasted acid reducers, the worse it got. The heartburn was due to food rotting in my stomach. I was always bloated after eating and could go more than a day before I was hungry. Why? The food wasn’t being digested, it was just sitting there in my stomach causing all kinds of trouble. In addition to this, and this might be TMI for some folks, I had very foul and large bathroom visits. All that undigested food passing through my body and none of the nutrients being absorbed. I immediately started taking a betaine hcl supplement and wow, it was like a miracle. Within 2 days my heartburn was totally gone and things just got better from there. No more horrid bathroom stops, no more heavy, bloated stomach. And best of all, I slowly started losing weight as my body moved away from starvation mode and began to actually use the food I was eating.
Unfortunately, the damage was already done. I cannot eat without taking the betaine supplement and doubt that will ever change. If I eat without my pills, I get bloated and a return of that heartburn within an hour. But even worse than that, low stomach acid can trigger diabetes. Google low stomach acid and diabetes – some very interesting reading there. The Dr said that my diabetes is not diet related – meaning that it wasn’t caused from poor diet choices or frequent trips through the all-you-can-eat sugar-buffet line of life.
The thought that I’ve done this to myself is quite angering. Who knew that taking a simple acid reducer could wreck so much havoc. There is no doubt in either my or my husband’s mind that my chronic use of acid reducers have put me in this position. I will be writing more on this subject once my health is back to normal. It is my opinion that others need to know the danger of daily antacid and acid reducer usage.
So here we are. This will be a change in direction for both my blogs. The focus on both will be lower-sugar and a focus on healthier recipes. Things that any person would enjoy eating – not just an allergic, celiac suffering, diabetic!
If you’ve made it through the end of this, pat yourself on the back. Definitely the longest post I’ve ever written. If you’d like to discuss this, please join me over on Facebook and I’d be happy to chat!
http://facebook.com/beyondthewheat
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