A Road Not Yet Traveled

I finished my sleep study two weeks ago—the kind where you go to a hospital and sleep in a room with a ton of monitors on your head and chest and legs and arms while they watch you through a camera all night and expect you to sleep soundly. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad; unfortunately, I got the results back and nothing was abnormal enough to raise any red flags. So back to square one, I guess; my fatigue problems are not apparently due to lack of quality sleep.

Something I have been thinking about bringing up with my doctor apparently is something down a totally different road that we (surprisingly) haven't even really addressed—the possibility of a gluten intolerance. For any of you who have met me, you likely know that my diet is rather limited. This, however, is not due to allergies as far as I know, and is mostly just a result of trial and error with different foods. For example, I haven't eaten potatoes in years because I know that they upset my stomach. I can only eat about a handful grapes at a time or a spoonful of tomato sauce before my stomach starts getting angry at me. Grains, however, I've never thought were a problem. I can usually eat breads and pastas with no upset; in fact, I practically live off pasta. But after searching all corners of possibilities with the symptoms I'm experiencing, most of them match up with the symptoms of a gluten intolerance. I don't usually get an upset stomach immediately after eating grains the same as I would with tomato sauces or juice or potatoes or corn, but at this point, my stomach basically hurts so often that it's hard to determine the primary cause.

I'm also starting to notice tiny red dots on my chest and arms, and in addition to my fatigue, joint pain, nausea, migraines, mouth ulcers, weight changes, inconsistent stools, vertigo, bloating... the list goes on. I'm obviously not an expert on intolerances or sensitivities to food, but I'm just hoping to find some answers. When symptoms start to add up, I start looking at all possibilities. If this goes somewhere, I can't say I'll be relieved (due to my pasta habits), but at least I'll have an inkling of an idea what might be going on inside my body.