Wheat; The Silent Killer. (Of Your Social Life)

This is a new segment in which I, Brooke Van Poppelen, aka health expert and Uninsured Hypochondriac field all sorts of medical questions based on years of terrified google researching and Web MD browsing to try and figure out what the hell was going on with my failing health. Feel free to submit questions about what seems to be ailing you and I will do my best to give you an internet based answer devoid of contemporary medical facts.

Dear Uninsured Hypochondriac,

Lately all of my gal pals seem to be no fun to eat at restaurants with. One by one, they have all claimed to have a gluten (wheat) allergy and now have very restricted diets. This has really been upsetting to my social life and has caused me to have some digestive disturbance. I am thinking I too am allergic to wheat. How do I find out for sure?

Sincerely,
Wheaties— the Breakfast of Cramps


Dear Wheaties,

Being utterly and completely effected by even the mention of a disease, ailment, or allergy, I feel your gastric pain. I too was once temporarily allergic to wheat and that was a harrowing year of my life being restricted to rice cakes and lettuce wraps, but boy oh boy was I thin! Man was I thin! I wish I could show you a photo of how pretty and thin I was when I had my wheat allergy.

But let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Gluten allergy is very prevalent in white, middle to upper class America, especially in females with too much time on their hands. It is the inability to digest gluten, which is the binding agent in wheat, and over time it causes your intestines to become porous. This prevents beneficial nutrients from being absorbed and can lead to toxins and waste escaping from your intestines and into your bloodstream. Or at least that’s what I read on the internet. I do know for sure that gluten is basically found in every type of food that tastes good and it causes a lot of stomach pain, IBS, and worst of all bloating.

You should definitely freak out about this. I say get on the internet NOW and start google-searching all of the symptoms and make sure none of them are fatal, which, unfortunately, one of them always is so just keep your fingers crossed that it’s not the symptom you’re experiencing.

There are a lot of reasons why your stomach could be upset. Did you ingest bleach at any point this week? Did anyone have to administer the Heimlich Maneuver on you in the past 2 weeks? Did you eat a heaping bowl of Kashi Good Friends Cereal this morning? That stuff will fuck you up.

Okay, so you’ve answered ‘no’ to the above questions and we can start narrowing this down to the answer you want to hear.

In my personal journey, there seemed to be a strong correlation between anxiety and having an upset stomach. The anxiety would cause me to stress eat and binge drink, therefore resulting in horrible stomach pain the next day, leading me to diagnose myself with temporary wheat allergy.

It sounds to me like the envy you are feeling towards your girlfriends and their new, lithe frames, is causing you to have gluten intolerance. Let’s hope and pray I’m right so you can start making sense of this nightmare and immediately eliminate all wheat and flour from your diet.

Best,

Uninsured Hypochondriac