My Years-Long Battle with Stomach Issues—and Finally Finding Answers

For years, I struggled with relentless stomach issues. No matter what I ate, I was left

feeling bloated, uncomfortable, and frustrated. I tried everything—cutting out dairy,

eating less junk food, increasing my meals, decreasing my meals—but nothing seemed

to make a difference. It felt like I was trapped in a cycle of discomfort with no clear

solution.

Every day felt like a new battle with my stomach. One day, I was just bloated; the next, I

was throwing up my meals hours after eating them. It was exhausting, frustrating, and

painful. What confused me the most was how my friends could eat the exact same food

as me, yet I was the only one getting sick. Why was my body rejecting food like this?

Why did it feel like the more I tried to solve the problem, the worse it got?

I went through endless doctors' appointments, X-rays, scans, and blood work, only to be

told that everything looked “fine.” It made no sense—I was absolutely not fine.

Eventually, they landed on IBS as a possible diagnosis, but with no real advice or

solutions, the problem just continued. The symptoms didn’t stop; they just became my

new reality.

By the end of my junior year, my stomach issues had reached their peak. And the timing

couldn’t have been worse—I was about to leave the country for my Maymester at High

Point University. The thought of traveling while dealing with this was terrifying. What if I

couldn’t control my stomach while I was away? What if I got sick in the middle of an

excursion or a class? Desperate, I packed every stomach medicine I could find—Tums,

nausea pills, Pepto Bismol, you name it. I prayed that something, anything, would work.

But when I arrived in Italy, it quickly became clear that this problem wasn’t just tied to

the food in the U.S.—it was something I was digesting, something my body couldn’t

handle no matter where I was. Even when I stuck to the simplest foods—pizza, pasta,

bagels, things with minimal ingredients—I still got sick. I spent nights fighting over the

toilet after meals, defeated and confused. No matter what I did, my stomach refused to

cooperate.

One night during the trip, a few friends and I grabbed dinner, and I decided to run a final

test. “Plain pasta with butter,” I thought. No sauce, no extra ingredients—just the

simplest meal possible. If anything could be safe, it had to be this. But a few hours later, there I was again, hunched over the toilet, stomach in knots. That familiar, dreaded feeling set in. And that’s when it hit me—I wasn’t just dealing with random food sensitivities. I was allergic to gluten. Gluten, which is in everything.

From that moment on, I tried my best to eat gluten-free for the rest of the trip, but

navigating this in a country where I wasn’t fully fluent, with no doctors and no realguidance, was overwhelming. Every meal felt like a gamble. I had no idea how to

properly manage this, and I was constantly worried about getting sick.

As soon as I returned to the U.S., I went straight to the doctor. More blood work, more

tests—this time, to check for celiac disease. But the results came back negative.

Instead, I was diagnosed with a severe gluten intolerance. No official celiac label, but

still a condition that made daily life more challenging.

To this day, I still miss my go-to foods. I miss bagels. I miss pizza. But what I don’t miss

is the constant pain, the bloating, the nausea, and the nights spent over the toilet. For

the first time in years, I can wake up feeling good. My body feels lighter, my energy is

back, and my health is the best it’s ever been.