Friday, June 13, 2014

Inflamation and Gluten

Whether you are a athlete, weekend warrior or couch potato, inflammation (and the pain that comes with it) will introduce itself to you. Learning what changes it from being good for our body, to threatening, will continue to get our attention.

Up to now, prescription drugs helped us thru the short-term, but for many it is more long-term to manage on-going pain.And then there's side effects, kidney and liver damage, the scariest.

Although there seems to be major bantering in the medical community about the topic (The Gluten Summit for MDs), I decided to go gluten free for 10 days and just see how I felt.

 The first thing I noticed (that I didn't even know was present) was less stiffness in the morning. After about 5 days, I noticed less dryness of my mouth and eyes. After the end of the ten days, I just felt more energy so I decided to continue since there are so many gluten free options at grocery stores. Most are frozen so less waste when I pop into toaster oven..

Eating out is also becoming easier but you have to research which restaurants have gluten free options. If I'm going to family function, I eat before and/or bring a "contribution to the meal" with "I didn't know I wasn't supposed to bring anything." Many times somebody ends up liking it better or begins the discussion of my gluten free experiment. A great topic to a scientific family for dinner time debate.

The experiment continues...