What Happens When Wheat Becomes Your Enemy?

I have been sick for most of the last year. What started out as what I referred to as, "my allergies acting up again", had been wreaking havoc on my body for the last .. well, as long as I could remember. (I cannot count the number of people I have implored to, "just put me in a plastic bubble".) However, in the last year, it reared its ugly head and showed me who the boss was.

It started out as a sinus infection. Two black eyes, swelling and pain in my face. One antibiotic down, I'd feel better for a few days and then as soon as I was off the medication, BAM!, it was back. I ended up taking FIVE different antibiotics this year, each stronger than the last. The final antibiotic I was given listed "ruptured tendon" as a side effect, so although it didn't get rid of my sinus infection, I DID get tendonitis in ALL my joints. Particularly, those in my right leg (which has yet to return to normal).

Fast forward a couple of months -- Yep, you guessed it, I'm still sick, and at the very end of my rope. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on about chronic sinus infections to try and educate myself. Especially, since the doctors were happy to just give me some pills and send me home to die.

It had gotten so bad that it was starting to effect every system in my body. I was sure that this incurable sinus infection was the culprit. That it had been inside me so long it had poisoned me.

And then on January 7, 2011, a miracle happened. I could breathe when I woke up! I still had the incessant swelling in my face -- BUT I COULD BREATHE! I didn't eat breakfast that morning. I was scurrying around the house like a woman on a mission. Finally, around noon I made a sandwich, and sat down to eat. Ten minutes later -- I'd have an A-HA moment that would change my life.

Ten minutes later, I was completely stuffed up, coughing, and gasping for air. I started taking inventory of what I had done or exposed myself to. I don't even know what made me think of it.. "THE BREAD!", I thought to myself. I ran to my computer, googled "wheat allergy", and I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I have been sick for most of the last year. The last few months feeling so gravely ill, that I honestly have been thinking they could be my last. And all along, it has been a food allergy.

I have been poisoning myself.