Joint Pain, Gluten and Little Girls Hairstyles

Joint Pain and Gluten

In my previous post featuring a recipe for gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins, I mentioned that when I gave up gluten I got my joints back and thought I would share more about that.  As I also mentioned, I LOVED muffins....and waffles, pancakes, cookies, cereal, etc.  So when my sister was diagnosed with celiac several years ago while I was still in college, we all began to learn more about it.  As I learned what some of the symptoms were, I thought "I think I might have that" but also thought "I would die if I couldn't eat gluten...seriously I would surely die!"  So I remained in denial.  I'm not going to go into everything because this could turn into a novel, but 2 years ago things had progressed to the point where I just had so many symptoms I could no longer ignore...including severe joint pain.  I could hardly grab or grip lids to open things, typing/playing piano was painful and braiding my daughters hair was excruciating, I couldn't do it, I would have the sections of braids and my joints were so painful and rigid I couldn't make my fingers do what they needed to do to make a simple braid.  I remember being on the verge of tears many times in frustration complaining to my husband "I'm in my mid-twenties! Why does it feel like I have arthritis!?!?!?"  

Around the same time, my daughter was also having many issues that pointed to gluten intolerance and if you've ever looked into it, you  know it's pretty genetic and if one family member has it, mostly like other members of the family have it also.  In our family, it fits right in with the various autoimmune issues that also run in the family such as juvenile diabetes, hashimotos-hypothyroidism, etc.  So we went off gluten, one year ago.  2 weeks later my daughter was a completely different person and I was feeling much better as well.  Now, I do all sorts of hairstyles on my daughter with ease.  The other night after bath time I quickly gave her two tidy looking french braids and it hit me, I got a little bit emotional remembering that exactly one year ago that was not even possible for me to accomplish.  Now one of our favorite things to do is visit Cute Girls Hairstyles youtube channel and I let her pick out any hairstyle, we watch the video and I do her hair.  It's so fun for both of us.  Now anytime I look upon a gluten containing food with envy, or feel burdened by the extra preparation, making so many things from scratch, running around to various stores for specific ingredients or products. the extra expense of gluten free products...I quickly remember where we were a year ago and it is so easy to not be bothered that we can't eat things that most people enjoy and the convenience they take for granted.  

Here are some of the cute hairstyles we have done...unfortunately some of my favorite ones we didn't get photos of and my daughter won't let me redo them because she always wants to do something "new"...she's like "I already did that one!" lol...reminds me of Hilary Banks from Fresh Prince...could never wear an outfit twice! 

Oh and now she's gotten "inspired" and made up her own hairstyle...I was going to do two braids but she insisted this was the most wonderful hairstyle and spent the day showing it off to everyone.  When she showed her teachers "Do you like my hair? I made it up!" while wearing rainbowy clothes from head to toe, the response was "you remind me of punky brewster!" Anyways, she things this look is FABULOUS! So if you need a new hairstyle for you daughter...the one you are about to see is a total hit with the 4 year olds! lol

Look at that proud grin, so please with her hairstyle invention

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