Celiac Awareness!

The move went...  well...  I guess.  We haven't gotten everything from our last house, and it's going to take some time finish getting the rest of it.  The worst part?  We don't really have furniture, and we haven't had time to run by Ikea to get the stuff we picked out.  We're living out of boxes and trash bags and sleeping on our sleeper sofa.  Honestly, though, I don't mind at all!  I am absolutely smitten with our new place!

Tonight, we're going to talk about something near and dear to me, Celiac Disease and gluten intolerance.  I'm going to pepper this post with photos of my mani to break things up a bit, but I'll save the info on the polishes I used until a little later.  Also, since we're in a new place, I'm having to deal with new lighting for my photos.  I apologize if they aren't as vivid.  I'm hoping once we get everything unpacked and moved like we want, my photos will be back to normal.

While I don't suffer from Celiac Disease, I am gluten intolerant, which makes eating certain foods quite tricky.  In 2008, I came down with Salmonella poisoning while visiting my parents in Florida.  Needless to say, I refuse to eat turkey burgers from anyone other than my family.  After that incident, I have had problems digesting foods with gluten and lactose.  I started having serious upset stomach issues, and for a few years, I had no idea what was happening.  I read about gluten intolerance, and thought, why not cut out gluten and see what happens?  So I did.  And my world has been forever changed.  

When I cheat and eat gluten, I feel horrible for a couple of days and retain water like mad.  That's even just ONE piece of bread.  It's especially hard because I have a serious love affair with craft beer.  I still drink it, which is stupid, but I enjoy it and put up with the symptoms.  I was really good about not cheating for several months and felt so much better, which is how I discovered that I had an intolerance.  I need to be better about my eating, but I've been soooo lazy with my shopping and my weight loss and menu planning lately.

Here's a little info about Celiac Disease from the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness.

What is Celiac Disease?

Celiac disease is an autoimmune digestive disease that damages the villi of the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. What does this mean? Essentially the body is attacking itself every time a person with celiac consumes gluten.

Do you have celiac disease?
Take our celiac disease symptoms checklist »

Celiac disease is triggered by consumption of the protein called gluten, which is found in wheat, barley and rye. When people with celiac disease eat foods containing gluten, their immune system responds by damaging the finger-like villi of the small intestine. When the villi become damaged, the body is unable to absorb nutrients into the bloodstream, which can lead to malnourishment.

Left untreated, people with celiac disease can develop further complications such as other autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, thyroid disease, and cancer.

Interestingly, I also suffer from Hashimotos Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune thyroid disease.  To find out more about Celiac Disease, examples of symptoms, and what you can do if you think you may be suffering from Celiac or gluten intolerance, check out the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness.

The official colors for Celiac Awareness are green and yellow, so naturally I had to use my favorite yellow and green polishes from one of my favorite makers, Pam of Girly Bits.  The mani I've been showing off is a gradient of Girly Bits Glo Worm and Banana Hammock.  Since they are both jellies and sheer, I decided to do the gradient over two layers of OPI Alpine Snow, a nice white creme.  Although, I think I should've let it dry a bit longer as I messed up the white layers a little bit.  I used a makeup sponge to create my gradient by following this tutorial from Lissa's Polish Addiction.

Next, I topped it with a creation I made for myself last night with Celiac Awareness in mind, Self Satisfied.  I went heavy on the yellow and green neon, which, as I mentioned above, are the official colors of Celiac Awareness.  

Self Satisfied is a glitter topper with green and iridescent shimmers, matte neon glitters in yellow, blue, pink, purple, and green, satin hot pink hearts, matte neon green stars, large fuchsia dots, teal holo moons, and silver holo butterflies.

I felt that this would be a good pairing with the green and yellow gradient.  I'm not going to lie, I felt like I was wearing a parrot on my fingers all day today.

You can purchase Girly Bits at her store, Llarowe, Overall Beauty, and Mei Mei's Signatures.  Follow the lovely Pam on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for news and updates on additions to her line of gorgeous polishes.







Do you suffer from Celiac or gluten intolerance?