“You have a gastrointestinal-related disease,” the doctor announces and then he might as well go on to say, “And here is your ticket to a foreign country.”
Congratulations, you have won an expensive trip to a place where you won’t know the language, where you are guaranteed to feel like an outcast from all social culture and where the tourist food stinks.
G-I related diagnoses can be a long and arduous journey typically averaging eleven years with 280 different symptomatic detours that can mislead the doctor in 280 wrong directions. If you have been diagnosed, you could consider yourself one of the lucky ones.
Back at the office, the doctor snaps your file shut as if to say, "Bravo, my work here is done," and on the way out the door, he stops himself, turns and almost as an afterthought, drops the real bomb.
“Oh, and go on a gluten-free diet. We’ll see you back in three months and we’ll test you then to see how that’s working for you.”
So you dash off home with your medical diagnosis in hand and a song in your heart, thrilled by the assurance that it’s not all in your head.[1]
Reality Check: “Whew! It’s not a figment, and that means that I’m not a nut! (At least in the gastronomic sense anyway.)”
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