Guest Post! My Friend’s Struggle with Hashimoto’s, Celiac, and Severe Food Allergies

Hi, my name is Brie. I am a Texas girl born and raised, an Aggie married to a Longhorn (IYKYK), and have a pet parakeet named Rita. I have a passion for discovering new interests and love learning new things. Oh, and I also have Celiac disease. And Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. And many, many allergies to foods, pets and things outside. I’m sharing a bit of my story today to hopefully connect with something in you, or even just bring comfort that you aren’t alone in whatever struggles you might be facing. For me, some of my biggest challenges have been health related, and arming myself with knowledge has been the best way to overcome them.

Looking back on my life, a lot of things now make sense. I was a fairly sick child, always on multiple allergy medications and still struggling. I would even take a full box of tissues with me to school, just to toss the empty box in the trash on my way out. As a kid, I always thought that’s just what I had to do, that that was just going to be a part of life. Then, when I was 14, my dog passed away and suddenly, a large part of my allergies went away. I was heartbroken, but for the first time, I could breathe easy in my own home. But so what? Almost everyone has allergies.

Then came the second diagnosis. A blood test, ultrasound and several doctor’s appointments later, and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s at 16 years old. Luckily, the Hashimoto’s diagnosis was pretty quick. It runs in my family and my mom took me to get tested early, knowing I was genetically predisposed. Thankfully, Hashimoto’s is also easy to manage. Just take a little thyroid pill each day to feel healthier and more energized, and get a blood draw once a year to check thyroid levels. Okay, I could handle that. I started to feel even better and began to wonder how much of my childhood I had missed, or really, how much my childhood had been impacted by this condition. However, I didn’t dwell on it too much, I was feeling better and wanted to keep moving forward.

Fast forward to college. It had always been a dream to work as an Imagineer at Disney and when I finally got an engineering internship at Disney, I was on top of the world. This was my chance, and I was going to do everything in my power to make a good impression and achieve my dreams- the stakes had never been higher. This was also when I had finally started learning how to cook. I had created this “genius” recipe for fried rice and, once I was settled in my new apartment at Disney, it was just about the only thing I ate. My routine looked something like this: Get up, go to work, eat fried rice, come home, eat more fried rice, go to bed. Every Single Day. You might be thinking, “Okay, Brie, what is with all this fried rice talk?” Great question. Let me show you the ingredients, along with what I now know about my body:

1 c. white rice (ALLERGIC)

1 TB butter

1 pkg. vegetables

Peas (ALLERGIC)

Carrots

Corn (ALLERGIC)

2 eggs

1 TB sesame seeds (ALLERGIC)

A LOT of soy sauce

Wheat AKA Gluten (ALLERGIC)

Soy (ALLERGIC)

As I continued to eat this fried rice day after day, I slowly felt worse and worse. I knew I was putting pressure on myself to succeed, and I knew I was stressed mentally, but I didn’t know I was also stressing my body physically. The amount of time I slept went from 10 hours, to 12 hours, to 14 hours. I was chronically fatigued, and my mental health had reached an all-time low, all while living at the “happiest place on earth”. I did my best to act like everything was fine, but I was falling apart the moment I got home. It even got to the point where I fell asleep during an important meeting (after a full 14 hours of sleep) and my boss decided to lecture me on “being more responsible” and not “partying late with friends on a work night”. I wish I had been out late partying, but I was literally just trying to survive.

It wasn’t until after college that I finally considered food could be at the root of a lot of my issues. It all started when I started to become friends with Amanda. I remember the first time she and her husband stayed at our home, she arrived smiling with a bag and a cooler full of food. I remember asking her about it, and when she mentioned autoimmunity, my ears perked up. Hey! I have Hashimoto’s. I know what living with autoimmune issues can be like. She explained everything she was doing in her own health journey- and the thing that caught my interest the most was her elimination diet(s). In fact, she was surprised my endocrinologist hadn’t suggested that I try eating gluten free to help manage my Hashimoto’s. I was as equally surprised to hear the two were even related! I was excited and inspired, and I had found something new to learn about: my health. My engineering brain couldn’t wait to start exploring this new realm of possibilities I hadn’t even known was out there. This is really where my journey into diet changes started.

I started with small diet changes. I cut out dairy and gluten-heavy foods to prepare for my wedding, feel better and maybe lose a few pounds. I was stunned at the difference it made in both areas. Sure, my physique improved (but also thank you Pilates!), but I also felt the best I had ever felt. However, there is nothing like a wedding and honeymoon to ruin a good eating plan. After the honeymoon, I was reflecting on how good I felt while eliminating dairy and gluten-heavy foods, and worked up the courage to try a bigger elimination diet. After some research, I decided to go all-in and do the AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) diet. I eliminated highly processed foods, legumes, dairy, chocolate, alcohol, caffeine, grains, nightshades, nuts, seeds, eggs, seed oils and seed-derived spices. I did this for 100 days. (Can you tell I’m pretty proud of that??) With how restrictive this diet was, I had no choice but to cook at home for every meal, for the entire 100 days. The first few weeks were challenging, but once I started seeing improvements in my mood, energy levels, and body, it made EVERYTHING worth it.

Post-elimination phase, you add each thing back slowly, seeing how you feel with each change. I started with chocolate, then added wine, and then coffee (the essentials, of course!). Everything was going well until I went on a vacation in Mexico with a few friends. I decided to forget all my diet restrictions and just enjoy this time on the beach with my friends. Spoiler alert- it DID NOT go well. I got two UTI’s on vacation, started feeling terrible, sleeping more, and my mood was all over the place. I was slipping back into the person I was during that Disney internship, and really struggled to enjoy the vacation and time with my friends. When we got home, I tried to make better choices, but I could never get back to the way I felt pre-vacation.

Flash forwards a few months later, and I reached my breaking point (literally). One night, after eating ramen for dinner, I broke out in hives all over my body. They stayed around for 10 days, and it took a trip to urgent care and serious steroids to clear them. This was the beginning of many new doctor’s appointments all of which resulted in me being diagnosed with multiple food allergies and Celiac disease. Honestly, I was relieved. I finally had answers, and because I had answers, I had solutions.

Armed with this information, I am currently working on fine tuning my diet so I can feel good, stay healthy, and still enjoy eating out with friends and family. It’s a balancing act, but so is everything in life. There is something so immensely personal about health. It can be challenging to take on the task of uncovering what might be hiding underneath your health issues, and even more challenging to share that journey with those close to you. But I promise you, it is a journey worth taking, and a journey worth sharing. In fact, I don’t think I would be where I am today without Amanda first sharing her journey with me! So, whether or not you have a heath journey of your own, I hope my story has resonated with you in some way. I know I don’t have everything figured out, but I do know I will continue to gain knowledge and I won’t stop chasing the answers to my struggles. After all, you can’t solve a problem you don’t know is there!