At the Risk of Sounding Like Someone I Know

The day after my last post I made, my tonsil pain started flaring up again. It's looking more like this can be blamed on the gluten as well. Google search results (because they are just reliable as a visit to the doctor, right? Right? ;) )with the words "tonsil" and "gluten" are numerous. The tonsil inflammation and pain lasted a few days, but yesterday I noticed it had completely subsided. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus. I had been battling it off and on for nearly two months. Hopefully it stays far away. Before when I went paleo I would give myself one cheat meal a week, and it always contained gluten. Always. I did it so I "wouldn't feel deprived". When I had those meals the only real side effects I felt were bloating and brain fog. But it was always in my system, I suppose, since it can take up to two weeks for your body to get rid of it. I've had a recent love affair with a jar of chocolate almond spread from Trader Joe's. Thankfully we finished the jar off yesterday. I won't be buying that again any time soon. It was delicious, oh so delicious, but I don't want to be planning my days around when my next spoonful will come. And the sugar content was a wee bit over the top.

Personal Diary

I think I'm going to start using this space as a personal diary. Today I've wondered for the first time if I really do have a medical gluten intolerance, or even Celiacs Disease. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I will peruse testing in the future, for now I will just self experiment. I've been gluten free before, back when I was training in the gym and following a paleo diet. I never in my life felt physically and emotionally better than that period of time. But life with a family got in the way and I fell back into the gluten-filled habits that I had grown up with. Recently, I've re-introduced myself to paleo and training. This time the kids came on the paleo ride with me(it has had amazing effects and benefits for Evan, but that's another post for another day). A few days ago, I ran to the store to grab a rotisserie chicken so I could pack some in Evan's lunch the next day. It was late enough at night that the deli had been shut down, so I hit up the pre-cooked, pre-packaged area of the meat aisle...and dum dum dum...I didn't do my job and read through the ingredients list before throwing some sliced, cooked chicken and steak in the cart. Today I opened up the steak for a quick lunch, while heating the meat I flipped the bag over and started reading, and found that it contained yeast, a.k.a. gluten, a.k.a. that evil bastard known to cause inflammation and a plethora of other things. Not wanting to toss a five dollar bill in the trash, I willingly chose to eat it anyway. About thirty to sixty minutes later, I started to feel a somewhat familiar pain that starts in my knees and radiated out through my calves. These symptoms typically show up along with a bizarre, tingling, painful, pins and needle type of numbness in my feet, hands, and elbows. I always assumed that when I felt like this in the past that I was becoming dehydrated. Today, I know that is not the case, as I've consumed nearly 3/4 of a gallon of water. For the first time, I can actually document that I consumed gluten and developed these symptoms shortly after. I will for sure be keeping this in mind for future occurrences. Perhaps it is gluten related, perhaps not. I'm hopeful that time will give me more clues, but for now I'm going to take some ibuprofen to ease my obvious inflammation.