Frustration.

So.  Back in February, I got a stomach bug that took a week for me to get over.  It was no fun at all.  And I developed an intolerance to eating things made with wheat.

Everything is made with wheat: my favorite gravy mix, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup.  Everything I like to cook with is made with at least a little bit of wheat. 

Restaurants are an interesting minefield: apparently, either the pulled pork or the twice-baked mashed potatoes yesterday had wheat ingredients.  The Mexican restaurant brought me flour tortillas instead of the corn ones I asked for. 

Yeah, they make stuff that's supposed to help when symptoms have set in, but that's all it does: help.  A bit.  For a while.

I can't make and eat beef enchilada or chicken enchilada casseroles, anymore.  I can't use dry onion soup mix to make roast.  I can't make and eat the potato soup by the recipe I have.  No more cookies, unless I make them with special flour.  Same with biscuits.

I thought this would go away.  I thought it was a temporary thing, brought on by my entire digestive system deciding to scour itself over a five day virus, and causing some sort of imbalance.  So, I avoided the foods, and didn't bother looking up my symptoms.

Until yesterday.

And I've been having symptoms for a lot longer than I'd thought: frequent headaches (often migraine level), brain fog, and chronic fatigue are also symptoms of this.  It's not just a painful gut--there's a lot more to it that has only come clear months after I stopped eating most things with any wheat in them (and the rest of the symptoms mostly vanished).  Yes, my energy levels are still limited; I still have an underactive thyroid. 

But a lot of the other symptoms have mostly abated, with exceptions for times when I eat something that I don't know has wheat in it. 

It's frustrating, honestly.  I can't carelessly and thoughtlessly eat a burger, anymore, complete with bun and salad.  I can't eat a cheesy hash-brown casserole (cream of mushroom soup) if I don't want to be having to curl up somewhere out of the way to not bother the rest of the family visiting.  I can't just eat, anymore, without having to carefully consider whether I'm going to be in pain later. 

Thank God this doesn't seem to extend to bourbon.  If it did, I think I might cry.