Wheat Allergy?

I’ve written about the food issues I’ve been having over the last few months. I met today with a GI doctor to essentially get the rest of my questions answered. I had scheduled this appointment about 5 weeks ago when I was fed up with the abdominal pain & feared I had gallstones or something. Those issues have largely been resolved. Prilosec has been miraculous in its ability to mitigate the horrible abdominal pain I was having. However, certain foods have still been problematic-such as wheat. Since a commenter here queried whether I’d been tested for Celiac disease, I decided to keep the appointment today with the GI doctor. One of the best things for me about seeing a doctor for this type of visit is to simply get my questions answered. For example, they sell Prilosec over the counter now with a warning to not take more than 14 days worth in any 4 month period. Um…is it dangerous to take longer? The doctor reassured me that there should be no problem being on this in the long term. She also suspects that I had a non-bleeding stomach ulcer & that to completely clear it that I should stay on it for at least 8 weeks. No problem agreeing there. The first doctor I saw gave me a 21 day supply. I skipped days 22 and 23 to see whether I was all fixed. The answer was a resounding NO. Eight weeks it is. Happily.

As to my wheat issues….”Would you like to be scoped to confirm whether you had an ulcer? I could snip some small intestine to look for Celiac disease while I’m in there” Eeek. “Um, no thank you. Alternatives like I could just avoid wheat. Really.” “Well, if it’s Celiac, you really need to know that so, how about a nice blood test to rule out Celiac disease?” “Um that would be terrific thank you.” Of course if the blood work comes back positive I get to go for the intestinal snipping. Joy. On the upside, I did learn that with aging, it is VERY COMMON to become less tolerant of all of those foods that are recommended for good health such as whole grains. If I don’t have a true wheat allergy she actually recommended Wonder Bread since it’s devoid of all of those good for you things that we lose tolerance for. I think she was mostly joking. I will say that from my wheat experiments things like: whole wheat tortillas, multi-grain English muffins and Kashi Go Lean Crunch were much more problematic than refined pasta and restaurant french bread. And, as I suspected, even if there is not a medical issue, e.g. Celiac Disease, there is no downside to just going wheat/gluten free. If it is Celiac Disease, then any wheat/gluten is too much even soy sauce.