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When you’re first diagnosed all you can think about is getting better. Here are a few ways this disease might impact your life that you may not have realised, and not all of them are bad!

Food trust issues – Once you’ve experienced the dangers of cross contamination, how ill it can make you and how common it can be in unaware eateries, letting someone else, even family members, cook or prepare your food can be stressful. It’s hard to trust anyone not to make you ill when you think about how little you knew about cross contamination before you were diagnosed. This feeling mellows over time, but the key is to educate those close to you as much as possible. You might be surprised how willing they are to help.

Heightened Awareness of Free From Issues – Being diagnosed is like entering another world. Suddenly you’ll become aware of so many other food related illnesses that you never knew existed like IBD, nightshade intolerance, casein allergy (to just name a few that I hadn’t hear of before my diagnosis). Being a part of this new world of dietary requirements will hopefully make you more empathetic to other people’s struggles, and I know in my case it’s made me more open to helping those with dietary requirements that are ignored or stigmatised. It can be as simple as going out of your way to provide safe food for someone in your life with a peanut allergy or lactose intolerance, now that you better understand how to help them.

Secondary illnesses – Whilst not everyone develops another illness after Coeliac diagnosis, it is unfortunately quite common to develop other autoimmune conditions or IBS. Lactose or dairy intolerances can also be linked to Coeliac, due to the gut damage caused by the ingestion of gluten.

Stigma – Non-Coeliacs sometimes have a hard time believing that you have a lifelong disease, especially as the symptoms are invisible. You might find yourself fielding comments like “it’s all in your head”, “you don’t look ill” and “oh doesn’t everyone get bloated after eating?”. The stigma can only be fought with awareness – non-Coeliacs often don’t mean to be rude, they just don’t understand.

Weight gain – This is not the case for every Coeliac, but the combination of your gut healing and the higher quantity of fat in some gluten free products means that you may find yourself gaining weight. Whilst this may initially be a good thing if the illness left you underweight (I lost more than a stone in just two months when I was first ill!), sticking to naturally gluten free foods instead of ready meals is a good way to ensure you don’t consume more fat and sugar than you should be.

Stretched budget – When you’re first diagnosed you’ll be so relieved to find bread, pasta and pizza that you can actually eat, so you might not notice the price difference! Having to eat gluten free might dramatically effect your shopping bill. Sticking to naturally gluten free foods will help keep your shopping bill down. See here for money tips for Coeliacs on a budget.

Feeling better in other ways – Of course you expect to feel better once you’re on a gluten free diet (and be aware it might take some time, see here for advice) but you may notice changes that you didn’t realise were affecting your health. You may notice that as your stomach symptoms settle your energy levels rise (due to your healing gut being able to absorb more) or that your skin improves (lots of Coeliacs suffer from a gluten related skin condition called DH, read more here).

You miss the taste of wheat – I’m sure that not everyone experiences this but I never realised before I had to go gluten free that wheat has a taste. I often find myself craving Wheetabix even though I hated it before diagnosis. Whilst I would never give in to that temptation (read here for why Coeliacs still eating gluten should stop) it’s very strange to miss that specific taste, even though we have good gluten free substitutes.

Have you had any other unexpected life changes? Has your health changed in other ways since going gluten free? Have you been diagnosed with a secondary illness? Have you lost or gained weight? Let me know down below or on social media!

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