The path of discovery

I was diagnosed with Celiac sprue (also known as celiac disease or gluten intolerance) in 2004. I had been sick for years, including various gastro-intestinal problems (from constipation to diarrheah), lower back pain (I was convinced I had ovarian cancer for several years) and dysmenorrhea (heavy menstral periods that lasted for over 2 weeks in my case and included debilitating cramps and pain all the time). I also could not lose weight despite years of excercise and dieting and often struggled with low energy and in particular the last year or two before I was properly diagnosed I also caught every virus that crossed my path and was by far more sick each time I caught something than I ever had at any time prior in my life. I kept thinking, why is my immune system failing me? It's like it doesn't exist anymore! And in effect, I guess it wasn't.
The doctors I saw couldn't find anything wrong with me. Other than the fact that I was overweight I seemed healthy to them and more than once it was suggested to me that I should just try to eat less and maybe some of my problems would go away with the weight loss? Well, I did and the weight did not budge and I was starting to feel unatractive; not necesarily because of the weight but because I couldn't control my body and I was always sick, run down, in pain and embarassed to have enter the bathroom after me because the smell was worsening almost every day.
Finally, when I could not stop complainin about the gastrointestinal problems I was referred to a gastroenterologist. He said "I think you have IBS but I'm going to do a few blood tests to rule out a few possible but unlikely alternatives". And low and behold a week or so later, he called me in to say that I had tested positive for the antibodies commonly found in people with celiac sprue. He suggested I undergo a colonoscopy to confirm the diagnosis.
Now allow me to pause and thank this man for getting to this moment. I now know many people now who were shuffled around by doctors who did not take this crucial step- who did not think that giving a colonoscopy to confirm the diagnosis was important- who may have read about celiac sprue in two lines of medical school and would not consider it an option for an overweight 28 year old but he did. SO THANK YOU! We are now only beginning to understand how common this disease really is in this country and how poorly diagnosed it has been (in part because it has not been a focus in many medical school's cirriculums). I can only express gratitude for not suffering longer than I did because of this doctor's willingness to consider something so "rare".
Now back to my story; everyone I talked to who had experienced a colonoscopy (mostly men like my dad and the taxi driver who took me to the hospital at 5:30 am) relayed that I should prepare myself for discomfort, particularly when it came to preparing for the procedure which includes a liquid diet for 24 to 48 hours and taking laxatives in order to literally clear the way for photos to be taken of your interior) What I discovered as I went through the preparations was that I actually felt improved rather than grossed out or horrified. The experience of taking laxitives was actually gentler than what had become my usual bathroom experience at the time- an experience coined by my younger brother as an LQBE (low quality bathroom experience).
Suffice it to say that experience was a foreshadowing of the liberation I would feel as I began to flourish gluten free.
A week or so later, when my results came back, the gastroenterologist suggested I follow a gluten free diet for the rest of my life. He suggested that I would find the information I needed a plenty online and I would not need any medication beyond food. Now I had an answer! An explanation for the consternation, constipation and over all root of all that I perceived as wrong in my life. Until I began to transform, and literally flourish gluten free I couldn't understand why at 28 years old I felt much older, had as many perscriptions and doctors visits than my friends more than twice my age and now I knew. I wasn't crazy, I wasn't making this up, I could heal and feel sexy and perhaps even lose some of that pesky weight!
But first I had to figure out this gluten free thing...