About Me

Living gluten free is pretty new to me.  It was an experiment to see if it would help me feel better.  That was five months ago, and most days I feel great!

In November 2010, I started having headaches that were accompanied by blurry vision in my right eye, the occasional loss of peripheral vision, and insomnia.  I would occasionally have eye pain as well.  My vitamin levels were extremely low (B-12 & Vit. D).  The thing about this headache was that it NEVER WENT AWAY.  I had this headache 24 hours a day, 7 days a week  Sometimes it was less intense than others, but it was always there. 

Because my opthamologist found that I had swelling of my optic nerves, my neurologist thought that I might have intercranial hypertension (psudotumor cebri).  I had to have a lumbar puncture to rule that out.  After that, doctors said I simply had migraines and would have to deal with it.  That wasn't good enough for me; I was set on finding out what was wrong with me, because I was sick, miserable, and couldn't do much besides going to work.

After a conversation with a colleague, I decided to eliminate gluten from my diet.  I gave up gluten in March 2011.  Within 2 weeks, I was sleeping better and waking up without a headache.  Another two weeks later, I rarely had headaches.  After a visit to a new neurologist, and a neuro-opthamoligist, we found that my vitamin levels were back where they should be and all of the swelling in my optic nerve was gone. 

With the support of my husband, my family and my friends, I'm committed to staying gluten free.  Most of the time I feel great.  I get a headache occasionally still, and whenever it happens I cannot believe that I was able to function (albeit not entirely well) for almost 5 months with a constant headache. 

This blog is about my experiences about learning how to live without gluten.  I'm thankful that I started this at a time when many others are GF, so I am having an easier time than many other people have had and am able to learn from other blogs, books and websites.  I've always loved to cook and bake, so now I'm having to learn how to do that without gluten.  Some things taste better than others, but I keep trying!