A Gluten-Free Life: My Celiac Story

By Jeeva Anna George and Sheila Kumar

When Jeeva was diagnosed with celiac disease, she realized just how hard it was to find food that suited her. Every trip to the grocery store was an arduous exercise in reading ingredients and researching the effects of certain foods. She also discovered that gluten-free food was expensive. Jeeva understands the nightmare of living with celiac in India. To her, gluten-free is neither a fad nor an allergy. It is an auto-immune disorder -- a disorder that can only be controlled, not cured. This book is her journey of trying to lead a gluten-free life while dealing with a condition that goes largely undiagnosed but affects 1 per cent of the world's population. In A Gluten-free Life, she unravels the secrets behind ingredients found in most foods, gives practical tips on how to avoid gluten and most importantly, helps us better understand celiac disease.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Mar 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9789352776771

Jeeva Anna George

Jeeva Anna George is a Master's in Economics and International Economics from the University of Nottingham, UK. She now Heads, Jeeva - A Gluten Free Venture. She was awarded Anthah Prerana an award by TiE Bangalore Chapter in November 2013. Sheila Kumar, ex-adwoman, journalist, travel writer, book editor, lives in Bangalore and is the author of No Strings Attached.

Book preview

1

When It Hits

Like most stories, this one, my own story, has a hero, a villain and a few very supportive sidekicks. And to bring you—the reader—to the place where I am today, I first need to do the old look-back exercise. So bear with me. Who knows, you might well pick up a tip or two as we go along, you and I.

Don’t be alarmed—this look-back won’t go back to my infant days! Ironically, truth be told, I was always the kind of child who did not fall sick too often, other than the odd cough and cold. In fact, it was only in college that I can recall actually falling quite ill with amoebic dysentery, which was bad. Thereafter, I never fell majorly ill, and there had been nothing too serious. It was a good life—one I took for granted as one does so many of the good things in one’s life.

The fact that I seemed to be in rude health was a matter of much gratification to me, primarily because I do not like hospitals, medicines and syringes—the whole affair. Call me a scaredy-cat but I really dreaded the odd vaccination I had to take at school (I did my early schooling at The Indian School in Kuwait) or the stray injection one was forced to suffer during those one-off medical tests one had to take. This antipathy included medicines too. I used to be, and still remain, one of those people who find swallowing a tablet or capsule inexplicably difficult. Much water has flowed down that particular bridge, but even now I do not think I have perfected that art. What can I say? I am just not someone who will guzzle medicines merrily.

After I passed out of school, I was an undergrad at Stella Maris College in Chennai, and eventually went off to the UK to pursue my Masters in Economics, as well as International Economics at the University of Nottingham. During those days, the world was mine to conquer. I still remember my airy response to the standard question whether I had any medical problems to report, during the prepping and putting together papers for the stint. ‘Nope,’ I would reply cheerily, ‘no allergies, no nothing. Zip. Nada.’

If my unseen guardian angel was coughing nervously somewhere above, well, I did not hear her or heed her. I was tempting fate, of course. The turnabout was gradual, so gradual that I didn’t notice it at first.

After garnering university education and with a degree in hand, I moved to Bangalore for work and started a new life. I worked for a national industry body, handling the Economic Affairs & Public Policy Desk, and also assisted some national committees on various areas ranging from MNCs to family businesses and the media for the Bangalore office. My work involved a lot of research, going through policy documents, studying industry trends and a separate area of technical conference management.

I am the quiet sort; more than partying madly, music and quiz events were my idea of a fun time. In fact, at Stella Maris College, I had been the president of the Quiz, Debate and Current Affairs Club. I made some good friends, both males and females in Bangalore, and generally settled down into a happy life. All was good, then.

But the trouble had started, at another level—the physical level. It was during this time that I found myself falling sick often, mainly with stomach-related problems. It kept happening with almost routine regularity but I refused to let these episodes faze me. I put it down to bad (and frequent) bouts of food poisoning, water or even the quick-change nature of Bangalore weather. I mean, these were not the things to fret about, not if you were otherwise as healthy as the proverbial horse.

Then again, something good happened before the deluge, as it were. I met and married Deepak Abraham in April of 2009. It was the old chestnut about Bangalore coming true, that in Bangalore, if you throw a stone you invariably hit a techie, i.e., a software engineer, before you hit a dog. My husband is a techie and works for an MNC which deals in storage solutions, and we had been friends for a while before we decided to get married. I remember my marriage as a time of new hopes and aspirations, a bend in the road. Now, looking back, I can tell you with some satisfaction, dear reader, that I couldn’t have chosen a better helpmeet. Deepak is a very supportive man, even more when it comes to my celiac condition. Formerly, a person who did not know or care to know much about food and ingredients at all, he has grown to understand what food products are safe for me, how he can avoid cross-contamination, and everything else that is part of the turf for us. He also reads labels diligently. 

Workplace Transformation

Let me try and peg down the dates. I remember, in late August of 2009, I had frequent bouts of diarrhoea, which went away after a few days. I would go out for a casual pizza, and almost afterwards, start to feel awful. I would begin to itch all over, and this was not something one normally associates with a bad stomach. However, due to two parts ignorance and one part optimism, I was still making excuses for the ill-health episodes. On most days, I would tell myself it was because I had had a long day and needed rest and a hot shower.

In retrospect, those pizzas were the early warning system doing its work, acting both as culprit and cause, as well as the beacon that shone a light on my condition. If I had had the smarts to open my eyes and see, that is.

Soon the diarrhoea bouts became more frequent and would last for many days. Initially, I would take some over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, and more often than not, it would right itself. But there were the times when it used to be really bad, when none of the OTC drugs were of any help. I went to doctors and underwent tests but all my results came up vague. They all seemed to be okay and none pointed to anything that aroused suspicion or called for further investigation. I was back at square one: it was put down to something I ate which just did not agree with me. The problem was not keeping me up nights but yes, there was a niggling worry unfurling deep inside me.

And so, that was the life I lived in those days: I’d turn in what was seen as good work; I’d go out with my family and friends; I’d catch a movie and I’d medicate myself for that medical problem. But the tummy bug kept biting, taking me down for days at a time. Now the specialists suspected that I was probably suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and as there really is no cure for it, I was told to keep a watch on what I was eating, so I would know what to eat and what to avoid. My subconscious absorbed that it was about control, not cure, then. This of course, led to a fresh dose of medicines. My stomach did not give me any more trouble—for the time being. There were concurrent troubles too. One just cannot keep feeling below the weather and still be happy, cheerful and optimistic. As these incidents kept happening, I gradually went from being a happy girl to a reserved quiet girl and then to a very unhappy girl. I was constantly feeling tired, depressed, and most alarmingly, I noticed that I sometimes experienced short flashes of memory loss.

Just what was happening to the Jeeva I had known for most of my life, most of her life?

The days changed character, too. I would get up in the morning and would already be so stressed that I just didn’t want to go to work or deal with everything an ordinary working day would invariably throw at me. I didn’t want to deal with life, in fact. What made it much worse was that I had to put on a social mask, hide all my inner tumult and act normal. Oh, how much I hated that word ‘normal.’

Once I dragged myself to the office, I would find I could not concentrate on work at all. I would want to run away someplace—anyplace. I just did not know what was happening to me. I would sit at my computer to write a routine mail and stare at the monitor blankly for ages. Sometimes, I would write the mail, read through it, find it just didn’t read right, delete it and start all over again. It took me hours to draft one small mail, something I had done in a trice and with laughable ease before. Was my life becoming compartmentalized into before and after sections?

Zoned Out

The change was beginning to affect my social skills, too. It felt like I had changed from an extrovert to an introvert. There was nothing that annoyed me more now than talking to people. Basically, everything felt like a task; simple things seemed to bother me. I had much trouble making decisions, and oftentimes, it seemed like I just did not want to do anything. Nothing made me happy; there was this fog enveloping me, smothering me.

I was also tired all the time. Most of the day, I would long for the time to go to bed, but once in bed, I would get absolutely no sleep. This became a dismal pattern. I would lie awake thinking about work next day. These things had never happened to me before and it felt very strange. These periods of sleeplessness went on for months on end and as a result, I would feel like some kind of a zombie—a very tired, unconfident kind of zombie. It was one of the most horrible phases of my life.

So there I was. It was a tough state to be in, not knowing what the unfolding day would bring. I would spend hours just thinking about things I could have done or wistfully recall how good I had been in school, my goals and aspirations at that time, and how they all looked painfully distant now. It seemed like I had reached a dead-end. I was nowhere in life, just a big zero, not doing anything worthwhile. This didn’t even make sense because by nature, I am anything but maudlin.

What were those early dreams, you ask? Well, I had wanted to join the civil services. doing something for people meant something to me, and fulfilling that dream had been very important. I wasn’t going to just sit around doing nothing, no siree. I was always one of those people who went for the jugular of life, who handled the tough tasks first, and did them with ease.

Ah, but that was another Jeeva. I could hardly recognize the Jeeva I saw in the mirror every day now.

And here, it’s time for an ironical reflection: early on in life, I had realized that cooking irked me. as for daily cooking, that was something I meant to avoid as much as I possibly could. Famous last words, given the amount of cooking and baking I do now!

Somewhere along the line, my husband was not feeling too well either. He suffered from repetitive strain injury (RSI) and often used to endure prolonged flashes of pain in his hands while typing or doing some repetitive tasks.

Trust me when I tell you, dear reader, two sick partners are not the best thing to happen to a new marriage. But where I was concerned, I had made up my mind that my problems were largely because I did not like what I was doing at work. The solution was simple: I needed to change my job, quit this one. However I was also apprehensive about walking out of a good job, one which paid quite a few of my bills at least.

While I was adrift on this sea of emotions, I fell prey to a contiguous attack of diarrhoea once again. I went to the doctor again and the needle of suspicion this time fell on lactose intolerance. A new cycle of treatment was set in motion; I dutifully swallowed the medication, stopped having dairy products, and pretty soon, I kind of felt okay again.

At this point in time, my daily routine was to wake up at around 6.30 a.m., spend a short time in prayer, get ready for work, eat breakfast and head for work at 8.30 a.m. My workplace was a walkable distance from home, within 2km, so I used to walk to work and back. Yes, in walking shoes, though it made for an odd sight, workwear and walking shoes. If I felt lazy, had a meeting scheduled or if it was raining, then I took an autorickshaw. On some days after work, I used to head for an evening walk in the park, something I could not get myself to do in the mornings. I used to get back from work a little after 6 p.m., listen to some music, freshen up, cook dinner, spend some quality time with my husband discussing the day, watching some TV, and on a normal working day, we’d hit the sack at 10.30 or 11 p.m. Most of the pending chores of the house and the socialising were left for the weekends. During this time, however, there was a lot of work, so I had to work longer hours, and sometimes even on the weekends. The work–life balance did take a hit, the park walks stopped, and we ordered food in a lot because I did not have time to cook. Just one of those things that happens to everyone once in a