About Me
Kendra Flores | The GF Foodie
I’m a foodie, web designer, graphic designer and I have celiac disease. I love cooking, trying new foods and restaurants, traveling, meeting new people, and being a part of the gluten free community!
Gluten free doesn’t mean the end of good eating! I’m Kendra and I live in Portland, Oregon—not just a food-lover’s dream, but a gluten free food-lover’s dream. Here in Portland we are incredibly lucky to have numerous dedicated gluten free restaurants and bakeries, plus many restaurants that offer gluten free options and can cater to a variety of diets and restrictions. I’ve always been a foodie and I love trying new things—foods, restaurants, events, activities, and exploring new places. I’ve been working as a freelance graphic designer and web designer since 2010 and I absolutely love it!
My Story
In October 2021 I was diagnosed with celiac disease. Up until that point I’d never had health problems, never had gut or digestion problems or gastrointestinal discomfort, vitamin deficiencies, or anything else that would signal something is wrong inside of me. I had an easy, healthy pregnancy and birth of my son in 2018 and recovered well. My sister, on the other hand, had struggled with many of those issues over the years, without a diagnosis of any kind, and my mom was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2014.
In 2018 I joined a women’s networking group in Salem, Oregon, my hometown, and where I was living at the time with family. Not only did I meet many wonderful women in business, but I also met Nadine Grzeskowiak, the Gluten Free RN, a celiac disease expert, nurse, patient advocate, author, podcaster, and more. I told Nadine about my mom’s celiac disease diagnosis and she immediately said to me: “you should get tested” because celiac is so highly hereditary. When my mom was diagnosed, she was told by a medical professional that there was about a 10% chance she’d pass it on to her kids. Nadine quickly disagreed with that statement and encouraged me to get tested. Pregnant at the time, I asked my obstetrician if I could get tested since they were already regularly drawing blood as they do during pregnancy. She told me “nah, let’s get past pregnancy and then we’ll worry about that.”
After setting up meetings with Nadine, my mom, my aunt, and my sister, my sister got her celiac diagnosis in 2019 after a negative blood test and a positive gene test. Meanwhile, despite having a baby and the lost sleep that comes with it, I was feeling normal every day and still not experiencing any gastrointestinal problems….and still eating gluten. In the summer of 2019 I decided to do a gluten challenge and go gluten free for 6 weeks to see what happened. I was hoping it would clear my eczema, so I gave it a try. Nothing happened during that challenge, and when I ate a piece of wheat toast after that 6-week period, I took a bite and waited. And waited. And waited for something to happen–to tell me that my body didn’t in fact like gluten. But nothing happened. Not a single stomach crap. I carried on with life, eating as I always had, until May of 2021.
In May of 2021, about 2 months after moving into a new house that we had built in the Portland suburb of Happy Valley, I went to a facial appointment and started to feel so strange while I was there. Laying back, I started to get lightheaded and feel tingly and slightly panicky in my body. As someone who has always gotten low blood sugar, I thought maybe I just needed some protein, or lunch, and maybe a glass of water. This panicky feeling was so bizarre and very new for me. I’d never felt this way before, never had mental health or emotional challenges, and it started to freak me out. What’s wrong with me?! After the appointment, I left, had some lunch, and went back to normal.
Throughout that summer, things started to get weirder, stranger, and worse. I started to get that tingly, panicky feeling coming on more often. I’d eat dinner and feel like I had a hard time breathing. How is it hard to breathe and eat at the same time? I thought. And because I was starting to get short of breath while eating, it was starting to make me lightheaded, which brought on those weird, panicky feelings in my limbs again and surging throughout my body. I started to wonder if maybe I had new allergies that were starting because I was living in a new part of town, close to the forest, and it was summertime—prime time for allergens to be everywhere.
In 2009 we moved to Houston for my husband’s job and in 2010 we got a dog–the first dog I’d ever had. In the months that followed I started to develop weird allergy symptoms—lightheadedness and shortness of breath, and sometimes sinus issues. I saw an allergist, got prick-tested for over 50 allergens, both environmental and dietary, and learned I was allergic to cats and dogs but only moderately–the numbers weren’t bad. I was higher for select trees and grasses, and I started immunotherapy (allergy shots). The allergy shots had made a huge difference for me, and I went back to feeling great.
When I started to develop this shortness of breath and lightheadedness again in 2021 I assumed it was allergies based on my symptoms in Houston, especially since they had resolved from immunotherapy. But, something about this was different. Worse. It got to the point to where I couldn’t do Pilates or yoga (my favorite exercises) because I’d start to get dizzy, lightheaded, and then the anxiety would start. Anxiety would always begin out of nowhere, nothing would trigger it. And the brain fog that started that summer. The brain fog! I started to feel like I was in a fog just about every day.
In September I set up an appointment with an allergist, still assuming this was all allergy-related, determined to get to the bottom of this, because also, I was starting to worry something was REALLY wrong with me. I first had a virtual visit with the allergist, explaining my symptoms and she said, “yeah, those could be allergy symptoms”, sounding a bit unsure. She suggested I come in for a full prick-test and asthma test, and she said she’ll prick milk also as she thought that was potentially causing my eczema. While on the virtual visit, I asked “while I’m there can you do a blood test for celiac? My mom and sister have it and I’ve been meaning to get tested for a while now.” (I’d been meaning to for 3 years to be exact!)
A few weeks later I went in and saw the allergist, brain as foggy as ever, nervous but hopeful, I got a prick-tested for around 75 allergens, an asthma test (which was hard with my constant shortness of breath), and a blood test for celiac disease which they were able to run in-house.
About a week later I was in the car with my family when the allergist called. I answered and he said, “Is this a good time to go over your test results?”
Me: “uh, yes please!” What the heck?
“You tested positive for celiac disease, you DEFINITELY have celiac disease,” said the doctor.
“I DO?!” I yelled. Despite all of these weird acute symptoms I had been feeling in my body, I was shocked as hell. But my stomach NEVER hurt.
“Your numbers are really high,” he continued.
“They are?!” I said, still in shock.
He asked if I knew what to do now that I had the diagnosis and I said “yes, my mom has it so I’m used to all of the restrictions, label-reading and questions.”
We hung up and, still shocked I asked my husband, “can you believe I have celiac disease?!”
“It’s not that surprising since your mom has it,” he said casually.
That was true. But the symptoms were so strange. Could they be related? I thought.
Later that day the doctor emailed me the test results and I immediately forwarded them to Nadine, the Gluten Free RN. She called me and said “Wow, your numbers are off the charts!”
“They are?!” I replied. I hadn’t really looked at them that closely.
“Your Endomysial Antibody (IGA) Titer is 1:320 and it shouldn’t be higher than 1:5. That’s off the charts high, she explained. “You likely have Marsh 3 or Marsh 4 gut damage.” (Marsh 4 is the highest/most severe gut damage on the Marsh scale.)
I hadn’t even noticed that number and how high it was compared to the control number until she pointed it out. Nadine and I discussed all of the symptoms I had been experiencing that I thought were allergies and she told me no, that’s the celiac disease. She gave me a ton of information and I diligently took notes. That night I told my husband that tomorrow I’m beginning a gluten free diet for the rest of my life. That night we went to Crumbl Cookies and I said good-bye to gluten for good over a big, frosted cookie, thoroughly enjoying the last gluten of my life.
In the first couple months of eating gluten free I wasn’t just hungry, I was starving! I was told I likely was malnourished due to the undiagnosed celiac for however many years, and to eat a lot of nutrient-dense foods to get my body back on track and help it heal. I would eat a larger-than-normal breakfast such as 2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, and GF toast. Oftentimes I’d add avocado or fruit. In theory this should have kept me full well until lunchtime, but an hour and a half after eating I’d be starving again, hypoglycemia in full swing. I would start to get weak and shaky. I’ve dealt with blood sugar drops my whole life, to where if I waited too long to eat, I’d get weak, shaky, lightheaded and moody. I even saw black spots a couple times in high school/college because I was so hungry, tripping either up or down a set of stairs. Low blood sugar was not new to me, I was very used to it, but after eating a huge breakfast like that, how was I SO hungry just an hour and a half after eating?! And the anxiety had not gone away yet, nor had the brain fog.
Nadine assured me I’d get back to normal, that my body had been starved of nutrients for years, and that with time I’d heal, start absorbing nutrients again, and get back to feeling myself. “It could take 6 months to a year,” she said.
I still had a long way to go. I made an appointment with a general physician to get a blood panel done and find out if I had any deficiencies. Still so soon after going gluten free, I went in feeling paranoid and anxious with brain fog, a higher-than-normal pulse and somewhat high blood pressure reading.
I showed my celiac test results to my doctor and she looked at them and said, “It’s indicative of celiac disease but not diagnostic. I’ll order the blood work for you and refer you to a gastroenterologist.” She then added that she just could not believe I had celiac disease without the presence of diarrhea, as I sat there feeling more and more like a crazy person with these waves of panic amidst my ultra-foggy brain, and feeling invalidated about my symptoms.
Next, I had my blood drawn and the results started showing up in my chart right away. Normal. All of it was normal. How was this possible when I was starting to wonder if I was legitimately going crazy on a daily basis?
I called Nadine and emailed her the lab results. “How are these all normal?!” I asked.
“These are all in the range of normal, but some of these are not ideal,” she said.
I set up an appointment with her to review all of my lab results and find out what I was missing. This was December and I had only been gluten free for about a month and a half and was still feeling all the symptoms on top of now being starving all day long with crazy blood sugar drops. And I really started to think that I was actually going crazy.
Next, I had a virtual appointment with the gastroenterologist my doctor had referred me to. We discussed my symptoms a little bit but I essentially spent that 15 minute appointment with the doctor trying to convince me to get an endoscopy. I kept telling her no, I didn’t feel I needed one, that the lab results, the allergist’s diagnosis confirmation, and my acute symptoms were reason enough to know I should never eat gluten again. I asked why she wanted me to get an endoscopy and she said “because a life without gluten can be burdensome.” I was floored. What’s burdensome are these crazy symptoms!
One morning I was so frustrated with the constant hunger alongside being frequently weak and shaky, literally feeling like I was starving despite eating all day long, I broke down into tears. I must be going crazy! This time I was sure I was starting to go legitimately crazy. I called Nadine. She assured me, this will all go away and I will get back to normal, it will just take time as I had some pretty severe gut damage to recover from.
I accepted the feelings and moved on, choosing my food carefully, taking lots of vitamins, supplements and probiotics, and after about 5 months I started to feel normal again. I had been dealing with brain fog for so long I had forgotten what it felt like to feel normal, clear-headed, energetic, and have my normal-feeling body back. No more anxiety, no more panic attacks, no more brain fog, shortness of breath, dizziness or fatigue. No more major blood sugar drops. It was an amazing feeling. I felt like myself again!
It’s now 3 years later and I’m still feeling great. Every day I think about how grateful I am to know Nadine and have her help and encouragement. I truly believe if I had never met her in that women’s networking group, I never would have asked to get tested, and I’d still be feeling like I was going truly crazy. Not only that, the repercussions of undiagnosed celiac disease and continuing to eat gluten are drastic—blood and bowel cancers, worsening mental health disorders such as anxiety (that’s me!) and depression, diabetes, anemia, and so much more. Asking to get tested was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I’m so thankful to have this diagnosis. Don’t be afraid to get tested and take hold of your own health. It could just make a major difference in your life.