I went gluten free when I was about 25 years old, after suffering with all sorts of health problems (most of them autoimmune related, such as hives) and emotional problems (severe depression and anxiety)all of my life. I had NO idea that gluten and other food allergies could cause these things. I began getting hives as a toddler, which makes sense, because that was probably when my mother weaned me off breast milk and began feeding me regular, gluten-containing foods.
I found out about all of this stuff on my own after giving up on doctors. They never helped me or told me that something in my diet could cause the kind of problems I was having. Within a week of going gluten free, my life-long depression disorder vanished. Just like that. It was like all that dark clouds just faded away and suddenly, I was a normal, bubbly girl. After years and years of being heavily drugged up on antidepressants and sedatives and all sorts of crap throughout my teens. Un-freakin-believable, right?
My skin problems and other health problems also began getting better. But unfortunately, many of that stuff is related to leaky gut disorder, which I have because of all the damage from eating gluten all those years. I've been working on healing that for the past few years now. It's slow going, but I do have 25 years of bad health to make up for, and unfortunately I wasn't taking good care of myself for a lot of that time because I was 1) a typical teenager (partying, eating at taco bell, etc) and 2) No doctor had ever told me that my diet was a problem. I'd always thought I was eating relatively good because I ate whole wheat bread. *sigh* If only you could go back in time...
I'm actually glad that this happened to me though, because my mission to heal has taken me on quite a journey. I began eating mostly raw foods and all organic, and have learned how to do a number of fasts/cleanses/detox programs that have helped me SO much.
Oh! And I forgot to mention the best part! I always HATED my body. I carried a lot of fat around my belly and my breasts never got very big. I was stick skinny everywhere else, but I had this belly. I hated myself. Well, a year or so after being consistantly gluten-free, all the fat melted away from my belly and respositioned itself (in a good way) on my ass. And my breasts doubled in size. I went from maybe a small A at BEST to a nice, filled out B cup. I was 27 years old and my breasts finally grew! I now believe that all the damage and nutritional deficiencies that I had from gluten stunted my growth. I finally have the hourglass figure I always wanted.
Being gluten-free rocks. I'd never change it for the world.