Dining Away from Home and Being Gluten-Free

The biggest problem I have found so far with adopting a gluten-free diet is eating food you didn’t prepare yourself.


Just after the Christmas holiday, my husband and I went to do some sale shopping and I found that all the old problems with my foot and my back came raging back, badly enough that I tripped and fell as we exited the mall.

Other that a rug burn on knee and some wounded pride, I was fine. But it terrified me. It was as though the MS struck all over again. The fear and the what-ifs that I felt when I was first diagnosed came rushing back and so did the terror.

Would I end up blind? In a wheelchair? Was I just imaging that the gluten-free diet was making me better?

My husband, who is often the voice of reason in these things, said it first. “Maybe someone screwed up.”

We had Christmas dinner with his parents; friends made us what were allegedly gluten-free treats for the holidays. But, not living with a food allergy, they might not have been as aware of all the permutations of gluten. My mother-in-law, for instance, was surprised that my allergy included malt.

So I went home, did some stretches and threw out all the wonderful food that I had not prepared myself.

Eating at a restaurant is just as hard. On New Year’s Eve, a friend was visiting from out of town, so we asked what she wanted to eat for lunch. Her choice? Quatro’s Pizza.

As we arrived, my husband was beside himself. Quatro’s is about the only local pizza he likes and he really wanted some since we were there and smelling it. “Is there something we can eat here?” he asked. He’s been so sweet, I told him to go ahead and have the pizza.

I ate a nice chef’s salad, but had to spend some time picking off the croutons that I forgot they add to them and I ate the toppings off a slice of pizza. To be honest, it was easier than many places where I’m just not sure.

Sushi? Sounds great, except I’m not sure about the soy sauce.

Roasted chicken? Did they flour the bird before roasting it? Most places do.

The solution, so far, has been to eat mostly at home and once I was back to being certain I was gluten-free the symptoms faded quickly. No more random dinners out for me, but in return, I get a healthier, more mobile me.

A Gluten-Free Beginning

In the past, when I have made a dietary change, it was generally not something I embraced with open arms. After all, we all know that dietary change is code for “eating crap that tastes bad” or “giving up everything I like.”

I was terrified at the thought that going gluten-free would mean the same thing. I love yeast rolls and pizza crusts and all manner of things made with wheat flour. Giving it up would be pure torture and there could be no health rewards worth it, right?

Despite that thought, about mid-October 2009, someone reading one of my articles at Associated Content suggested that I investigate gluten-free diets and their usefulness in treating multiple sclerosis. I read dozens of testimonials from people living with multiple sclerosis, like I do, and claiming that eliminating wheat gluten from their diet got rid of the MS symptoms. I scoffed, really I did. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered a family doctor telling a teenaged me that he thought I might be allergic to wheat gluten.

As a teenager, I scoffed and did nothing to change my diet. As an adult, I did what any good writer and researcher does. I checked the Web.

There were no good scientific studies that I could find that linked multiple sclerosis to wheat and gluten consumption. But there were claims, oh so many claims, that people felt better and got their mobility restored because of a gluten-free diet. I didn’t expect it to work.

Even as my husband I cleared our cabinets of everything containing gluten, which is a huge process, I figured we give it a game effort—two or three weeks maybe—and see that it was just another fad that had no real impact on our health.

I have had MS-related symptoms since 2001 and was officially diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005. I’ve seen the MRI with the lesions on my brain. I had the spinal tap. In October, I’d lived since January, 2001, with limited sensation in my right leg below the knee and my right foot. It was sort of like constant pins and needles or delayed feeling. It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t lived it.

My balance was shot; I couldn’t walk for more than about a quarter mile without shuffling my feet or falling. I had a semi-permanent bout of spasticity just below my rib cage. Spasticity is another common MS symptom, the feels sort of like wearing a girdle or weight belt all the time. Sometimes, it seemed to make it painful to breathe deeply.

And, I had semi-regular back spasms in the middle of my back.

All in all, I had a relatively mild lot of symptoms from the multiple sclerosis. I’m not confined to a wheelchair. I could usually walk without assistance, but not very far.

Four days into our gluten-free diet, my opinion on dietary change changed forever. As I walked out to the mail box that morning, I realized that I could feel my foot. Not the pins and needles that I normally felt, but a sharp, immediate pain when I stepped on a sharp rock.

I woke up my husband with tears in my eyes. “I can feel my foot!”

It took just a second for the sleep induced haze to lift so that he truly understood what I meant. My MS symptoms were fading after just four days.

Now, we are almost four months into our gluten-free journey. There are struggles and setbacks, questions I will need answers to at some point, but for now, gluten-free means almost symptom-free. Gluten-free for life isn’t simply a pledge or a temporary diet shift, for me, the switch to gluten-free means life. The life that my MS was stealing away, I seem to have won back.

It’s not easy…yesterday the temptation was Quatro’s Pizza, but come along on this journey with me as I discover how to be gluten-free for life!