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Weldon's story My Freedom From Celiac Testimonial
Weldon Williford
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I wrote a testimonial for tomorrow's livestream and I figured I would share it here as well.
My Freedom From Celiac Testimonial
I have given a brief testimonial before but I thought I would go more in depth since there is a special livestream on celiac disease and how it relates to vitamin A.
It all started when I was a kid. Up until around 4th grade or so I was very athletic and very thin. I would place first or second in 50 yard dashes, could go all the way down the monkey bars and more. Then around age 10-13 things began falling apart. I was hit by tsunami of southern culture, 80’s food, the low fat craze and the great diet world and beginning of Weight Watchers. My mom was a shift work nurse and had gotten overweight so she decided to do Weight Watchers. She insisted on the family getting “healthy” so she cooked things with low fat, lots of vegetables and dishes that I really hated. She did that for about 6-8 years during my most formative growing years. Then I was hit with the 80’s fortified cereal, fortified chocolate mixes and fortified milk. Milk helps you grow right? My mom was health conscious so no sweet cereals in the house which was all an illusion as it was all garbage anyway. I would have a huge bowl of cereal for breakfast every morning and huge glass of chocolate milk before bed at night. What would southern culture be without lots of spicy pork bbq, fried bologna, red hot dogs, mountain dew, hoop cheese biscuits, cheese on toast with tomato soup, country crock margarine and pimento cheese sandwiches. Refusing to eat some of my mom’s “healthy” meals I resorted to pimento cheese. I would have been right at home at The Masters in Augusta, lol. For a long time it’s all I would eat and also when I visited my grandmother as well and she always had a big tub. I ended up becoming anemic and having iron dysregulation, probably from vitamin A poisoning which forced my mom to start cooking red meat more often thankfully.
But the damage was done. I ballooned up in weight and even though I was very active, always playing a team sport as well as miles of bike riding in the country, I was always pudgy and developed boy boobs that I was embarrassed of at the pool in the summers. It did motivate me to start lifting weights in high school but could not lose the gut and moobs no matter what I tried.
Then around my sophomore year in high school my nightmare began. In 2nd period I had an agriculture class with a cool teacher. We just had a new Hardees restaurant open just a few blocks from the school and he would make a biscuit run for the class. I would always get a Mountain Dew and sausage egg and cheese biscuit. I had my trigonometry class in the 3rd period which was a disaster. I would always end up in the bathroom for half the class. I usually made A’s and B’s but I ended up with a C because I was never in class. I had no idea what was happening because this was all new to me. Celiac was not a thing at the time so you just chalked it up to stress or some other issue.
Not knowing what it was, this went on for years. It got worse in college when I started drinking heavily and eating lots of cheap pizza and Taco Bell. I felt like I lived on the toilet. I always had to have a bathroom nearby after I ate. I had mastered tolerating stomach cramps and holding it until I could get somewhere to relieve myself. Again, this was all chalked up to the stress of college since I was in a difficult engineering program at the time so I “manned up” and dealt with it. This did motivate me to start learning about health and nutrition, so through pain, there is growth.
Then, the more serious health issues starting creeping in. I feel like I would have done much better in college as I had developed brain fog and it was difficult to remember things some times. I was naive and figured I just partied too much. I was having hemorrhoids which I attributed to my hard weight lifting and they would bleed sometimes. Then I started having the “chicken skin” on the back of my arms. It was my habit to pick at all the little scabs on the back of my arms as I sat around. Again, I ran many miles and worked out hard to get into shape and maintain but it was difficult. I had time in college to keep up the routine.
Then I got married and reality of life and struggling after being laid off and fresh out of college set in. We started a real estate business which was super stressful at the time. We had to eat out working 7 days a week and I again ballooned up to a size 40 waist, the biggest I had ever been. Celiac was starting to become known then and my now ex-wife would tell me that you are celiac. I was in denial because I loved pizza and hamburgers so much. Gluten free bread was non-existent then. My hair was falling out in the shower, my joints ached, I had dark circles under my eyes and I felt like I was falling apart.
So I continued to suffer for many years, until one day I decided I had had enough. I would try going gluten free. My bowel movements were almost normal within a week. I thought I had figured it all out. Except that it didn’t fix it completely. Sometimes I would still have an upset stomach after eating. I was having some hormonal issues as well. I had no idea about vitamin A because it was before this was ever discovered but looking back, it was after high vitamin A meals that I had these issues.
So gluten free didn’t really “fix” anything. Then Dr. Smith introduced the low vitamin A LYL program. I had always followed every recommendation for many years of his and this time was no different. I struggle giving up cheese, tomatoes and gluten free pizzas in the beginning. I worked out hard and had to find other protein sources than my beloved egg omelettes. But I preservered. There were rumblings of a few LYL members who had supposedly been able to eat wheat again after I was about a year in the program so it kept me motivated. Around the end of year 2 I decided to experiment. I ate a meal with wheat, I don’t remember what it was, but I had a bad reaction. I was bummed. I almost quit the program because everything else had healed but that and I wondered would it really heal me?
Then around the end of year 3, I noticed my seasonal and pet allergies had gone away. I always felt that celiac was an allergy. My hands had broken out from kneading sourdough several years earlier so this was always in the back of my thinking. We had a homecoming dinner at my childhood church and they had some great fried chicken and my favorite childhood cornsticks that have flour in them too. I decided to experiment. I was with my mom at the time and I told her what I was doing. I ate it and I waited. I waited an hour…then 2, then 3. Nothing happened. I was fine. Then, I got excited. I went to the grocery store and purchased some organic bread. I made sandwiches every day that week to see if I could “make” myself have a reaction and I couldn’t do it. I was ecstatic. I now knew that I could at least tolerate one gluten filled meal per day without issues.
For those following in my footsteps. Keep in mind that this is your body healing. It’s not an on and off switch. The level of gluten and how often you eat gluten will increase over time. I did over do it at times eating gluten at every meal for a few days and I still had mild symptoms. I simply backed off, added a few gluten free meals in and I was back to normal. The longer you go on, the more you tolerate and the more often you can eat it. I now feel like I could eat it every meal if I wanted, I just choose not to since I don’t really want to overeat bread anyway. I do eat a turkey sandwich every day for lunch and I don’t worry when I go out to eat anymore either.
My thyroid is noticeably working better now. My weight is easily maintained. I don’t have any celiac symptoms any more. I have no internal inflammation anymore that is attributed to celiac. I just want people to know that celiac is not a life sentence. I truly believe it is just a byproduct of vitamin A poisoning and it just takes time to get your vit A levels down and for your body to heal. Do the diet long enough and you can be free of this torture. Interestingly, you most likely won’t want the gluten laden foods you used to eat anyway as your attitude towards health changes. But it’s wonderful to be able to eat real bread again and not be scared to eat out away from home anymore.
For all of this, I owe it to Dr. Smith. Without this program I would still be struggling. Taking lots of supplements to try and figure out some magical combination that would fix my problems. I thank Dr. Smith for putting this out there for the world to discover.
Goldsboro, NC·Posted Yesterday, September 9
Reposted with authors permission.
That is a great story! Thanks for posting it.
The trigger toward VA toxicity is so often "a health kick", as it was in this case with his mother trying to loose weight. Ironic... And he hated the foods she made him eat. Our taste buds are trying to help us.
I quit eating gluten 14 years ago after I heard about a coworker who got rid of arthritis by going gluten free. If I had intestinal problems, too, they only manifested as lower back pain. It worked and my stiffness and back pain went away. I have been eating a low vitamin A diet for 5 1/2 years. The low vitamin A diet helped me lose weight and get rid of my overall yellow skin. This summer I decided to try to eat some wheat. The first trial was eating some pineapple pastry from El Salvador with no problems. I don't know how much glysophate is used in central America. Then I made some French style bread (no oil, milk or sugar) with Bob's Red Mill white flour. I noticed a little stiffness in my hands and one knee. But I decided to continue to eat the bread and see if my arthritis would get worse. I only eat a small amount or none each day. So far, after more than a month, I seem to be just fine.
I used to make all our bread and I ate plenty of wheat like most people in the US. In the last few weeks I tried to make a wild sourdough starter. It worked great for the first batch of bread but it was way too stringy (corrupted with some bacteria or fungus) the next time I made a sponge. I might try it again or purchase a starter but for now I will just make bread with yeast. I should try the overnight no-knead bread lil chick has written about. My mother used to make that, too.