www.glutenmakesmesick.com

Fast Food, Fast Decline

In 2008, my fiancé and I moved to the U.S. as part of our university’s management training program. We were placed in Scottsdale, Arizona, and started working at two different hotels.

We were young, broke, and… well, kind of dumb.
Even though the hotel provided (really good!) meals for staff, my coworkers convinced me that the $1 menu at a well-known fast food chain was “better.”

So I joined in.
We ate fast food almost every day for a year.

Strangely, I didn’t gain any weight.
If anything, I was constantly getting sick.
The kind of sick where you need to run to the bathroom, if you know what I mean.

An Unexpected Test in Colombia

In October 2009, we left the U.S. We were engaged, and before settling in Italy (my fiancé’s hometown), we went to Colombia to visit my family and get married.

One day at the mall, my grandma, mom, and I passed a stand promoting calcium supplements. They had a machine to measure bone density — you just placed your hand inside. I joked that my grandma should try it “since she was old,” and she laughed and did it.

Then they asked me to try. I was a bit offended but went along.

To everyone’s shock — including mine — my results showed worse bone density than my grandmother.

We were all speechless.

My mom took me to an endocrinologist who told me to get a full bone density scan.
The results came back: osteopenia. One step away from osteoporosis.

It didn’t make sense. I was in my twenties.
The doctor prescribed calcium tablets…
I took one.
And immediately felt so sick, I never touched them again.

In Italy: The Pasta Phase (a.k.a. Rock Bottom)

By then, we were already living in Italy — and thankfully, my husband’s cousin is an orthopedist. She referred me to her colleague (now her husband!), and when I showed him my bone scan results, he asked some questions. One of them stuck:

“How’s your gut? Any issues with digestion?”

I said, “Actually… no, not really.”
But then paused.
“…Well, now that you mention it — yeah. A lot, actually.”

He nodded.
He knew.

He asked for blood work.
When the results came back, there it was: positive IGA anti-transglutaminase antibodies.

He told me, “You most likely have celiac disease.”
Then referred me to a GI doctor.

I had no idea what gluten even was.
I went home and Googled it. I was shocked.

Oh — and during this whole time, we were living with my very Italian mother-in-law.
She was trying to take care of me, so she kept feeding me Pasta in Bianco (just pasta with olive oil) because “that’s what you eat when you’re sick.”

I was getting worse and worse without realizing it.

16 Years Gluten Free (and Still Going)

That was in 2009.

I’ve now been on a strict gluten-free diet for 16 years.

No cheat days. No “Italian gluten is fine.”

Even one crumb will make me very sick.

And no — there’s still no cure for celiac disease.

And in Case You’re Wondering…

When my mom told my GI doctor in Colombia about my diagnosis, he said:

“No way! Celiac disease doesn’t exist in Colombia. That only happens to people from Northern Europe.”

It’s not just him — that misconception is still incredibly common in Colombia to this day.

← Read Part 1: Mogollas, Broken Ankles, and the Signs I Didn’t See