In May of this year, Jamie went to see a Gastroenterologist after dealing for many years with reflux. He had also been having episodes of choking on food and having chest tightness and pain when he ate certain dense foods, like meat or apples. I always said he should get it checked out, and he agreed, but we are not really "doctor people." It may seem strange since I am a nurse, but seriously neither of us has needed to go to a doctor for any reason (other than my pregnancies obviously) for many years. We are both generally healthy. But when the choking and chest pains got to be more frequent (and ultimately ruined his highly-anticipated steak dinner on his birthday!) I said, "I'm finding you a GI doc and we're going."
In June he had an upper endoscopy--camera examination of the esophagus, stomach, and first part of the small intestine. I was expecting him to have a stricture (band of scar tissue) from his acid reflux, the doctor would dilate it, and we'd be on our way. BUT instead, Dr. A told us he has Eosinophilic Esophagitis, an inflammatory disease of the esophagus caused most often by food allergies. The whole esophagus gets inflamed and swollen when exposed to whatever it is the person is allergic to, causing food to get stuck or be slow moving all the way down to the stomach, which is painful.
The first step in treatment was to try to identify the food that was causing the problem. Jamie was DREADING the elimination diet, which involved cutting out the six most common food allergens--wheat, eggs, milk, soy, fish, and nuts. He was eager to start with some of the easier ones, like fish or soy. But all the literature that I read said that research points to wheat and eggs as the most common culprits in EoE, so I suggested he just start with the most likely food. We did some shopping and started searching gluten-free food blogs for recipes, and committed to cutting out wheat for 2 weeks to give it a try.
It was hard at first to find things to eat that filled him up. He was hungry a lot and lost a few pounds! But he definitely noticed a big difference. Besides just feeling good and having more energy, essentially all of his GI symptoms were gone! No choking or chest tightness. Like the doctor suggested, he added wheat back in to see if his symptoms returned, which they did. Gluten seemed like the obvious trigger.
We were grateful to have found the answer so quickly, since Dr. A told us that it's often very hard--sometimes impossible--to determine what you're allergic to. This is not like a regular food allergy where you eat a peanut and swell up immediately. It only affects the esophagus, and the inflammation can show up days after you ingest the food. But it was also a hard pill to swallow that he has to completely change the way he eats for the rest of his life.
Jamie is an optimist. It's one of the things I love about him. I know he was discouraged, but he didn't let it get him down. He just hit the ground running--checking food labels and figuring out what he could and couldn't eat. It has been a big change for our whole family. I still buy many things with gluten for the kids for breakfasts and lunches, but for family meals we all eat gluten-free. In fact, the kids are getting a great education in being mindful of what we are eating and putting in our bodies. They will sometimes sit down to dinner and ask, "is this gluten-free?" Cade even has a girl in his class at school who can't eat gluten, so he asked me to be sure and make gluten-free cupcakes for his birthday in October!
We feel blessed that there are more gluten-free options in grocery stores and restaurants than ever before, it seems. With Celiac Disease and gluten-intolerance on the rise, and also just the popularity of gluten-free diets, at least we have options (even if they are more expensive…). For dinners it hasn't been too hard of a change; we eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, and lean meat. Lunches were trickier since he ate a lot of sandwiches. But I've found an easy solution to that is just to make extra at dinner time so he has left-overs every day!
But listen, desserts are still challenging. I LOVE baking! It's the one thing in the kitchen that I actually enjoy doing. I am trying to figure out gluten-free baking, but it's hard. There are lots of different flours and baking mixes out there, but so far it's just not cutting it. I came across a recipe the other day for Nutella Cookies. I don't love the taste or texture of gluten-free flour, but I thought if you add enough chocolate and Nutella you wouldn't even be able to taste it, right?!
While I was right about the taste, the gluten-free Nutella Cookies were a total FAIL! The boys looked at them and said, "You made chocolate pancakes for dessert??" They were flat as pancakes and fell apart completely when you tried to pick them up. The only thing they had going for them was the chocolatey-gooey taste, even if you did have to eat them with a spoon!
So I'll keep working on my gluten-free baking. I feel like it's a small way I can support Jamie in his diet restriction. He has such a good attitude about it. He even jokes that we are turning into "that couple." He drives a hybrid car and eats gluten-free, and I'm taking a yoga class. We're getting crunchier by the day!
