Recovery after being glutened

Not excluded, as much as limited

After my last post, I’ve mostly recovered from the accidental exposure to gluten. My symptoms aren’t as bad as some of the other people with celiac disease. However , I can share my experience to the best of my recollection as I write this. These couple of weeks, I was'n’t disciplined enough to keep a log of my symptoms. I have talked about logging symptoms in a previous post. This has got me thinking about building a simple app for the task. But that’s a digression for another time.

I had a tough time with bowel movement. It’s not easy to have stomach aches when pooping; especially when it’s more than usual number of times per day. I had stopped feeling hunger and had lost all appetite. Being drowsy all day was another struggle. Another consistent symptom in the last 2 weeks has been heart palpitations. My heart starts pumping so hard that I can feel the beat in my ribs and pulses in my head. Now, imagine this happening randomly 4-6 times a day. Additionally, waking up with inflamed face (and rest of the body is no fun).

There are only a few things that I followed to mitigate the symptoms and their affects on my life. The first thing is exercise. I made an effort to persist the weight training as it helps to reduce inflammation in the body. I don’t train everyday, but 3-4 times a week works well for me. It was important for me to not skip those sessions.

I am fortunate enough to work from home. It allowed me to take 2-3 short naps a day. It helped manage tiredness. I made sure they were about 20 minutes, not to be longer than a usual coffee break in an office. It helped manage the drowsiness well enough that I could work a full day.

I would have liked to eat more fibre than I did. I did eat some sort of fermented food everyday. This supposedly helps with bowel movements, but I had a difficult time. Probably, it would have been worse. Probably, I didn’t follow the advise well-enough. Or maybe, it doesn’t work for me. I am not completely sure about this yet.

On of the Saturdays, I attended a wildlife photography workshop. The photographer told us about his photography tours. Those tours are all inclusive, I meant to ask if they would take care of dietary restrictions. But I was too tired towards the end, and forgot. But most likely, they don’t. I don’t feel excluded, as much as limited.