An update on my "Celiac status"

Hello all, it's been a while. I have some very big updates, and an explanation of my absence.
I never blogged about my Celiac diagnosis, because I wasn't sure what to say. I've had symptoms for many years, maybe even 10 years. I went from doctor to doctor trying to find someone who could fix me. Finally, last December I went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. My doctor there is fantastic, and the level of care offered there is something I've never experienced before. He listened to my story, and he looked at my medical records that I brought. He looked over a report (no photos, or slides) from my endoscopy and explained the findings. One of the findings, among a lot of other damage/inflammation, was mildly blunted villi. Combined with my symptoms and my personal and family medical history, he told me he believed I had Celiac disease. My visit wasn't meant to be extended, and we had traveled out of town to come to the clinic, so he only ran my blood and told me to go gluten-free and see how I felt. My antibodies came back negative, my genes were positive, so my "diagnosis" would be based completely on how I reacted to the diet. Well, I never really got better. I tried hard to be optimistic, because prior to my visit I had been depressed about my health. I gave it 10 months, until I decided that it was time to go back to the clinic.
At my visit last month, I told him how dedicated I had been to the diet, and how I even tried to make my lifestyle healthier in general (more water, more activity, positive outlook, more whole foods, less processed foods, etc.) and how I felt that I had seen minimal improvement. So he told me it's time to move on to something else. At this time, he no longer considers Celiac disease to be my ailment. We're looking into SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) at this time. If this doesn't pan out, I'll return to the clinic to get a full work-up of tests.
So this is why I've been absent. I've felt poorly because I've been undergoing treatment for SIBO, so I haven't had much will to blog, but I also didn't know what to say to you all. Currently, I'm still eating gluten-free because you should never change more than one thing at a time to truly see how your body reacts (plus, I've still got like 10 lbs of GF flour..), but I'm eventually supposed to try introducing gluten into my diet again. But to be honest, after 10 months of this I'm pretty scared. If I react poorly, then I may have Celiac (or gluten sensitivity) and something else as well making me still feel poorly. In that case, of course I'll continue eating gluten free. But, until we figure this out and I start seeing a real improvement in my health and figure out how my body really reacts to gluten, I am on an indefinite blogging hiatus. You can still follow me over on Instagram and Twitter if you'd like (links in the side bar). Also, if this is my last blog post, CheckYourGluten.com will stay up until my year contract for the hosting/domain is over (around May next year). After that, I plan to keep CheckYourGluten.blogspot.com up with all the exact same posts.
If this is my goodbye to the gluten-free blogging community, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you for those who inspired me to join this community. Thank you for those who were comforting and helpful in this journey. Thank you for those who have been supportive and friendly. Thank you all so much. It has been a truly life-changing 10+ months being a part of this community as a whole. I'll say goodbye to this blog, but not to this community. There are so many special, wonderful people here that I won't say goodbye to because of this. Thank you.

Tilapia & Red Potatoes

I've mentioned previously that I changed my diet drastically a few weeks after going gluten-free. One of the first changes I committed to was to make a simple meat and veggie dinner every week. At first it was an attempt to cut down on eating heavy, or processed foods too often. But, I developed this meal and it's not only become very convenient, but VERY tasty. We've been eating this once a week for several weeks and haven't grown tired of it because it's that good. Not only that, but it's really convenient on busy days. This makes a filling meal for 2 people.

Vegan Quesadillas

Recently I've been experimenting with going dairy-free. Long story short: I react VERY poorly to carrageenan so that didn't last long. Anyway, it was pretty hard. For me, cheese was one of the most disappointing offerings of the dairy-free market. But then I found the Daiya Havarti Garlic & Jalapeño Wedge. It tasted way better than the other cheeses I had tried and melted fantastically (where others failed). I knew instantly what to make with it. And this is what I came up with. The avocado balances the spiciness of the "cheese" really well making the simplicity of the ingredients work. It's quick, easy, and really yummy.

Grilled Pesto Shrimp

So rather than a recipe, today I present more of an idea, or an inspiration to base a dish on: pesto shrimp. It's really, really easy and very un-fussy but the flavor is fantastic. It's great because if you use pre-made pesto and frozen shrimp, this can be whipped up last minute if need be and served in a variety of ways.

Breakfast Smoothie

I have a love-hate relationship with breakfast. I don't really like cereal, or eggs, or yogurt. But I like really bad breakfast food, like hash-browns and bacon-egg-n-cheeserz (a breakfast sandwich of my childhood). So that kind of made me stop eating breakfast. But recently I concocted an awesome breakfast smoothie that's not awful for me. It started with mocha powder, ice and milk. Then came almond milk instead. Then PB2 (powdered peanut butter) and frozen bananas. Suddenly I had an awesome breakfast smoothie that I really liked and wasn't half bad nutritionally.