Whoops.

Well, here I am lying in bed, wishing I could turn back time and not eat those evil things I did. Yesterday around 4 pm, I started to feel really sick. Not like a throw up sick or a cold sick, but a throbbing stomach sick. For the last 16 or so hours, it has consistently felt like someone has been punching me in the gut from the inside out and has been robbing me of all my energy. I have also experienced some shortness of breath and serious brain fog (not so good when I had to take a midterm at 5 last night..) All of this happened, I believe, due to a couple Hershey's mini candy bars (apparently they melt down remains from all their candy bars including Krackle-- NOT gluten free in any way, to form the minis). I was unaware of this when I ate 6 of the little devils. As said by Tara in my favorite show, True Blood, "Its Satan in a Sunday hat". Ok, well maybe not that dramatic but it really sucks.
The most commonly asked question that I get from friends is "what happens when you have gluten?" The fact of the matter is that it's hard to say exactly what the symptoms might be as they can vary from time to time. As painful and/or uncomfortable as the symptoms may be sometimes, nothing is worse than what happens to your insides. The second your intestines notice the gluten in it's system, it begins to self destruct. I always imagine that machine thing in The Incredibles, with the tentacles, that self destructs itself in the end by pulling out it's insides. Imagine that happening in your intestines. Gluten attacks your system and creates a little war in there, immune system vs. gluten. The villi that lines your small intestine are normally supposed to look happy and stringy and stand up straight. It's purpose is to absorb nutrients from the food you eat. However, when you ingest gluten, the villi retract as if they are terrified of the gluten coming their way (as they should be). This is why I was so sick for so long. The villi on my intestines were constantly being pushed down by all the gluten I was eating, making it so that my body was deprived of nutrients from food. When a Celiac ingests gluten, the only things we can do is wait it out. It is said that taking enzymes helps, but I have yet to try this. Sometimes it can take up to a couple of weeks for the gluten to leave the system.
Anyways, I made the dumb mistake of not only shoving my face with too many chocolate candy bars (a bad idea for anyone), but also not double triple checking things online beforehand, just to be safe. I can tell that as I get deeper and deeper into being gluten free, the more painful it gets when it accidentally slips in. It's really frustrating when about 10 minutes of occasionally eating a chocolate bar results in a couple of days lost in bed. Which is where I will be, possibly for the next several hours. See you later, villi.