My doctor’s recommendation after the diagnosis of celiac was a catch phrase: Don’t eat any gluten.
I don’t know which of these two, Rachelle Buchanan or John Arman, has celiac, but one of the author’s I identify with:
“The more time I spent trying to talk to people about my disease, the more I realized I knew nothing about it. I began researching the disease trying to piece together how I had acquired it. I read through countless medical journals and public forums online. Through this new information, I started to realize how difficult it was for people diagnosed to implement the medical recommendations without help or guidance, and how many people did not follow these recommendations as advised, leading to lower quality of life. From the information I gathered, I began to formulate the idea that certain mental health issues could be tied to celiac disease and how little research was being conducted [emphasis added] about this issue . Through my passion for mental health, along with my own personal experience, I realized that people suffering from celiac diagnosis needed to be heard and that I could provide that voice.”
The article’s title: Celiac Disease: Depression, Anxiety, Social Stigma, and Implications for Counselors suggests
“It is the responsibility of medical professionals and counselors to gain insight into how this diagnosis is affecting individuals and to give light to the fact that a diagnosis of celiac disease can have far-reaching effects.”
and those responsibilities, assuming they are being met, are restricting, as the authors begin with social anxiety and social stigmatization.
Somehow I’m thrown “Into the Wild” and hear Eddy Vedder singing a Jerry Hannan song, Society. “I hope you’re not lonely without me.”
Society may not be lonely without me, but corporate society won’t be as profitable.
Our society isn’t so far-reaching that our government and our corporations lobbyists won’t consider reconsidering unless it’s profitable.
Here I suppose is a good place to discern what is meant by “profitable.”
Meanings get twisted sometimes.
For example, if a healthyeating.org employs registered professionals, experts, and leaders teaching “how to make the best food choices from a realistic and inclusive perspective.” Am I being unrealistic if I don’t agree?
When our families pay for medical professional services, is it okay for the professional to send us on our way with a brochure from the Dairy Council? I guess so. It is happening.
But do we, this family, maybe even our society, need the reminders anymore? The emphasis of the brochure, of the council, and the medical professional now is to influence rather than to counsel. The influence sounds more like counseling when the professionals tell us kindly “we just want your kid to grow strong teeth and bones.”
Really? And what are the chances of this kid developing osteoporosis later in life? How about osteoarthritis? Is it weird that I would even know how to spell osteoporosis? How long are teeth and bones supposed to last? What happens to people who are lactose intolerant? Does lactose intolerant mean sugar in cow’s milk or sugar in human milk? Both? Are lactose, fructose, glucose, sucrose just scientific words for sugar? Sugar is sugar, right?
I don’t even know where those questions come from — but they seem to come off as anger. And so it is. I don’t find comfort and pleasurable agreeability writing the word “osteoporosis” or knowing that the disease is in epidemic proportions in the U.S. My views must be because I’m intolerant — lactose intolerant is what I mean to say.
I’d asked my doctor, and this particular doctor, just to distinguish from the other doctors I was seeing at the time, is an allergist. I told the guy I was a celiac. He seemed to be talking down to me as he asked how I came to know this diagnosis, and I explained via blood work, a biopsy, and genetics. Then I asked this doctor, my doctor, my allergy specialist, if there was gluten in the pills he was prescribing for me. He said, I don’t know I don’t manufacturer the drugs. He didn’t offer to do any discovery or research on the drugs he was prescribing for me . . . . When I mentioned that I’m also lactose intolerant, he didn’t ask how I’d come to the diagnosis, he said ” It comes with the plate.”
Address what’s on your plate — do you want your microbiome to be it’s new home?