I’ve succumbed to a number of ailments over the years, most of them skin related. When I was in elementary school, I contracted a fungal infection that made the skin behind my ears peel off. A few years later, I stepped on a sliver of lead from one of my mechanical pencils and got a splinter so deep, my pediatrician had to dig it out of my sole with a scalpel. In high school, a pimple the size of a silver dollar appeared on my left shoulder.
Pediatrician: That’s no pimple, sweetheart. It looks like you’ve got a case of MRSA.
Dad: What’s that?
Pediatrician: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Flesh-eating bacteria.
Dad: [rubbing temples] Oh, God.
Me: COOL.
So when a spattering of hives began traversing the landscape between my shoulder blades last summer, I knew something particularly gnarly was happening to my epidermis. As I sat in front of a dermatologist, he explained to me that this was actually psoriasis. Oh, easy peasy. He’d give me some pills and some cream and those itchy little buggers would disappear. Right? Nope. I called my mom. She is one of those people whose business card comes with its own alphabet of acronyms, one of which is RN: registered nurse.
Mom: Don’t let him give you pills! (Insert intricate explanation of how they are bad for your liver.) Ask for the lotions.
Dermatologist: Well if you’re that concerned, why don’t you just try taking a break from bread? Sometimes these things can be triggered by a gluten allergy.
I’m pretty sure I laugh-snorted at this point. That day alone, I had eaten Cheerios for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and was planning on making pasta for dinner. I don’t think I had ever eaten a meal that didn’t include flour somehow. But I told my dermatologist I’d give it a shot, though I was sure that it wouldn’t be the solution. I’d come back in two months to find that the rash was still as fierce and itchy as ever. How hard could it be to give up wheat, rye and barley (three foods that contain gluten) for a couple of months?
Answer: hard. Rock, steel, quantum-mechanics-test hard. Late night quesadillas and whiskey? Bye-bye. Colgate Total toothpaste? “May contain traces of wheat.” Soy sauce? I hope you didn’t like Asian food. Aveeno lotion? Might as well be rubbing sulfuric acid on your skin. Pretty much any dessert except vanilla ice cream? Hasta la vista, baby.
The worst part is that in a matter of weeks the psoriasis had—poof!—disappeared. And so began my foray into gluten freedom, or as I like to call it, gluten slavery.
For clarification, I do not have Celiac disease, although perhaps it would be easier for me to give up bread if each encounter left me with a violent gastrointestinal reaction (read: voluminous diarrhea). What I have is a food allergy. In other words, if I not-so-accidentally eat a piece of bread or a cookie, I won’t have an immediate reaction. It takes a couple of days of eating pizza and Oreos for dinner before I look at my back and realize I’ve got a situation.
This, in turn, means I cheat. I cheat a lot. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to say no to unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks at Olive Garden or to turn down a burrito when it’s free or if I’m starving. But I’m learning to cope. In fact, the hardest part for me is hearing my friends apologize for eating gluten, like it’s comparable to drinking in front of a recovering alcoholic. If only they understood how much I want them to enjoy a cookie just because I can’t.
Of course, I could always make or buy gluten-free anything (cookies, pasta, bread), but I’m not one to cook, and baking is foreign to me. Before getting diagnosed, I ate the same thing every day: cereal, sandwich, pasta. Naturally, I still do the same now, just with a more gluten-oppressed diet. My meals now include fruits, vegetables, oatmeal and tuna.
This is why whenever I hear someone say they’re casting off gluten as part of a diet, I respond with something like, “I will cut you.” Because I would pull a Vanessa Carlton and walk a thousand miles if I could just eat macaroni and cheese tonight.