Dear Fellow Celiac Struggling to Stay Gluten-free - Tayler Silfverduk, DTR - Celiac support, celiac disease support, coeliac support, a letter to celiacs, gluten-free lifestyle, gluten-free living, gluten-free life, coping with living gluten-free, gluten-free support, celiac education, celiac nutrition, gluten-free education, gluten-free nutrition, rd2be, celiac dietitian, gluten-free dietitian

Dear Fellow Celiac Struggling to Stay Gluten-Free and even those of you who are non-celiac gluten-sensitive, struggling to stick to it, I see you.


It’s hard.

Switching to an entirely new lifestyle isn’t easy and it won’t happen overnight. Be patient with yourself, give yourself grace, and don’t give up. Even the best of us make mistakes.

Believe me, I know it’s difficult now, and while it will never be easy, this lifestyle does get easier.


It’s overwhelming, I know.

People mistakenly think that it just impacts your food but we know better than that. It impacts:

  • Routines (beauty, shower, morning, night, etc)
  • Relationships
  • Socialization
  • Shopping (especially grocery shopping)
  • Cleaning / Organization
  • Planning
  • Leaving the house for longer than a few hours
  • Going out to eat
  • Buying a morning cup of coffee

and so much more.

Suddenly things you didn’t think twice about, you have to triple and quadruple check. Suddenly going out to eat or having a meal prepared for you sounds more stressful than just making it at home. Except… what can you make at home that doesn’t require every ingredient under the sun just to not taste like a piece of cardboard?

Suddenly, you have to be on high alert about everything and just when you thought you knew all you had to know about staying safe, you learn about more things to watch out for.

It’s overwhelming, I know but you’re not alone. Dear fellow Celiac struggling to stay gluten-free, I see you. There are people out there just like you and me going through the same thing and they see you too. Find them, reach out to them, vent to them (my inbox is always open too), and feel heard. Support is ALL to important when coping with this lifestyle change.


It’s Lonely

Oh my gosh is this lifestyle lonely. I used to think I was the only person with Celiac in Columbus. Every time I meet someone new here with Celiac Disease or NCGS, I get ecstatic.

It’s so easy to want to isolate yourself. To say no to every invitation because the food situations stress you out. To say no because you don’t want to hold your friend’s back from eating where they want to eat.

It’s lonely because no one truly knows what you’re going through. The stress involved around eating at parties, dinner parties, and restaurants. No one knows how disappointing it is to see someone put their gluten hands into a dish of gluten-free chips, making it so you can no longer eat THE ONE THING you could eat at a party.

It’s lonely because sharing food with your loved ones is a social thing, a social thing that feels like it’s been taken from you. It’s lonely because your needs are met with resistance or ignorance from the very people you love, despite your best efforts to educate.

It’s lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Again, there are people like us out there, find them and reach out to them! Additionally, a health professional well-versed in Celiac Disease can help teach you how to advocate, educate, and convert people into your corner.


Dear Fellow Celiac Struggling to Stay Gluten-Free, I see you.

This lifestyle change that’s been forced upon you is not fair, it’s hard, it’s isolating, it’s overwhelming, and it impacts every aspect of your life. A life that you’ve been living for years – and now have to uproot and relearn how to live.

Dear fellow Celiac struggling to stay gluten-free, I see you. I am here for you. It does get easier, it just takes a lot of learning, mistakes, and time to get there.


Comment below something that you’ve struggled with related to staying gluten-free. Also please know, my inbox again, is always open.

I don’t like to call people Celiac and instead like to say, people with Celiac (or verbiage along those lines). However, for brevity and SEO’s sake, this post does refer to people with Celiac as Celiacs. Please know though, you are not your disease, you are not your lifestyle, you are YOU. You are merely just living with this disease, this disease is NOT you.