6 Months Gluten Free!

This marks my first six months on a gluten free diet (or within a couple of weeks of six months, anyway). Since I got the results of my blood tests today during my appointment with my gastroenterologist, it seemed like a good time to post a status update.

I had great results! One test (I’m not sure what it measures) went from >160 to <1:10, which the doctor tells me is a dramatic improvement. Of the two TTG auto-antibody tests, one went from almost 100 to 2.8. The other went from almost 40 to 10.3 and was the only test that was still a little out of the normal range.

My doctor told me that I’m obviously complying with the diet, that what we’re doing as a family is working, and to keep doing it. He’s going to have the tests reworked annually to monitor my progress. He was a bit impressed at the rate of improvement. He mentioned that everyone has ‘cheater’ days on a medical diet. I actually don’t. While it’s very hard to be certain you have completely avoided gluten in all situations, I have never yet consciously eaten anything I knew to contain gluten. Any gluten I’ve consumed has been accidental. However, my wife and I have worked hard to avoid such accidents. It’s nice to see those efforts pay off.

For whatever reason, I’m less prone than perhaps some people are to ‘cheat’ once I have actually decided to do something. A friend once told me that most people aren’t like me. They don’t decide something and then do it. Or something to that effect. I didn’t and don’t exactly understand his comment, but perhaps my lack of ‘cheating days’ fits in there somewhere.

I was worried that I was missing something somewhere and that my blood work would not show significant improvement. Changing to be gluten free has not been the easiest thing I’ve ever done. While it takes significantly less willpower than quitting smoking did, eating gluten free is much more complicated. There is so much to check and it’s so easy to make a mistake, misjudge a restaurant or product, or even end up with a contaminated product. I was extremely relieved at the results today.

And, a couple of weeks ago, my HDL (good cholesterol) tested high enough to be in the normal range for the first time since they started testing it some years ago. So I’ve really had two good blood tests in a row.

It seems I really am getting better. 😀