I was a kid in a candy store today. I got to get something I cannot get right now. I have Dermatitis Herpetiformis an annoying disease–though I guess if you are stuck with a disease in this life, one in which you itch all the time is not a bad one to have–that, when you eat wheat, it makes your body itch. So we’ve had to completely alter our diet to remove any gluten foods. But today we broke the diet and ate at Panera!

Last year I discovered that I had dermatitis herpetiformis.

Dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) is a chronic disease of the skin marked by groups of watery, itchy blisters that may resemble pimples or blisters. The ingestion of gluten (from wheat, rye, and barley) triggers an immune system response that deposits a substance, lgA (Immunoglobulin A), under the top layer of skin. IgA is present in affected as well as unaffected skin. DH is a hereditary autoimmune gluten intolerance disease linked with celiac disease. If you have DH, you always have gluten intolerance.

It is really annoying, but not detrimental to my health. Like, it won’t kill me, but will certainly make life uncomfortable. So Jaime and I decided to change our diet completely, removing all wheat from our diet. It ended up not being too hard, because rice and potatoes work well as a substitute, and most packaged foods today provide info on what is inside. We implemented the change in June this year and it has been going well.

The scientist in me wants to study this disease, so I wanted to one day break the diet and see the effect, when the rashes begin, how long they last, etc. So we decided to break it today. What better place to do it than Panera, a sandwich restaurant with the best kind of bread.

I felt as giddy as a school boy standing there drooling over the menu and the sourdough bread. I got a turkey sandwich with sourdough bread, a chicken and noodle soup in a sourdough bread bowl, and a loaf of sourdough bread for takehome. Ah I was in heaven! To this point I haven’t felt any effects from the DH. We’ll see what happens. I do have enough medicine to help the rash when it starts.

UPDATE 9/28: Just to give an update, it seems the rash comes on within hours. We’ll see how long it lasts.