Miami Living Magazine

Jennifer Esposito

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Living with Celiac Disease Healing the Gut It was a long road for Jennifer to get to her diagnosis. Living with celiac disease for so many years had made the actress so malnourished that her eyelashes, teeth, and hair were falling out. "I was breaking down from the inside. You wouldn't have even recognized me… As a woman, we're pushed off: 'Oh, it's your hormones. You need therapy.' If I wanted to be a drug addict, it would've been really easy," she remarks about all the pills, from antidepressants to a tranquilizer, she was prescribed. "It was like, How do you explain my panic attacks? Reoccurring sinus infections? How do you explain that? That is a physical symptom, that is not my mind. Those panic attacks I had my entire life. When I realized I had celiac and I healed my gut, I do not get them anymore. My mental disease didn't go away. What happened? I read this amazing book about the queen of the castle is the gut and if she is unhappy, she will take down the kingdom. I thought, that is absolutely the truth —it's also where 90% of your serotonin lies." Eating Out Going to dinner with friends is no longer a thoughtless activity. The barrage of questions, including, why aren't you eating?, that came with dining out was daunting in the beginning. "I'm trying to explain it to people. When you need food to live, but that food could kill you, it's a very kinda fucked up experience. Every meal you're worried or every meal you have to think." Severe celiacs, like Jennifer, usually have additional food allergies. In addition to gluten, she can't eat eggs, dairy, corn, or soy. Fortunately, she has found a way to make it work: she'll order the whole fish and always has either her homemade bread, biscuits, or muffins in her purse. "At least I'll be able to enjoy a glass of wine and maybe a salad with nothing on it. I'll take my bread and get their best olive oil and at least be able to partake in the experience. We forget that food is extremely social. So socially, it's strange this disease."

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