Week two has had a very high point and a very low point. The high point was Wednesday morning, naturally the time of my doctor’s appointment. I’d finally regained strength and had shaken off all of that horrid fatigue. The night before, I was astounded to find I was full after dinner but was not bloated at all. My brain was very confused because I used to know I was full because I felt sick and my stomach was huge. Wednesday morning, my stomach was flat as a pancake. In fact the only thing wrong with me was the soreness my ankles felt as I used them for the first time in days. For one day, I got to experience a glimpse of what a bright, gluten-free future would feel like. And then things went a bit wrong. After heartily munching down an exquisitely healthy seafood salad, I felt a bit squiff. Then I felt verrryy sleepppy…Then my stomach got hard and distended and angry. But-but…it was just a salad. Something was amiss! I inspected the packaging the mussels came in… Wood Smoked Flavoring: Contains traces of gluten. My face skewed into a WTF expression as I realized such a tiny amount of gluten had attacked my insides full force! Now I cannot stress this enough; if you have quit gluten because of an allergy, do NOT a) neglect to check ANY package’s ingredients or b) make allowances for even TRACE amounts of gluten. Just as in the cases I’d read about, the reaction was much worse after quitting gluten. I would usually suffer for a day or two and just feel gross, but this time, a tiny trace of the stuff has caused extreme discomfort in a variety of ways, with the addition of headaches and lower backpain, with this evening being (what I hope was) the climax of the poisining, including acute pain in the intestines. I don’t normally ever swear but at one point I was in so much pain I actually called the gluten in my body an “arsehole” out loud. Just to give you an idea. So this relapse unfortunately makes my progress report atypical, but still I hope, useful. This experience has been useful to me, because now I know without a doubt that I am definitely very allergic to gluten, and I need to rid my life of it completely. I’ve been reassured that though an acute reaction to accidental ingestion is to be expected, I shouldn’t have to go through the withdrawal stages again, so hopefully by this time next week, I will be a healthy bunny.