is there life after wheat?

It has come to my attention that I may have developed a wheat allergy. I didn't know such a thing was possible at this stage in my life - but I guess I don't know everything.

It's been going on for several months - I just didn't know what it was. I never thought to look at bread as the cause of anything. It was always the other parts of the meal that must have upset my stomach. Then there was the cough. That started about 3 months ago. I had a cold so I didn't think much of it. The cold went away, but the cough didn't. Ok, that happens to me too. Coughs take a long time to go away. Still, it felt different. I didn't have any lingering chest congestion, just a sudden an unpredictable cough. Also eating was getting weird. It felt like stuff was always getting caught in my tonsils and choking me. I had choking/coughing fits while drinking things with raspberries in them. The tiny tiny little seeds would cause me to choke and then cough to the point of vomiting. Sometimes my own saliva would choke me. While my throat wasn't swollen enough to cause problems with breathing, it must have been swollen. Eventually I started to vomit after every meal with wheat in it. (every meal) I still didn't look at the breads and say "you're doing this to me." Well my active brain didn't. My subconscious must have known because the sight of bread would make me go "uggghck" even though I love fresh bread.

Eventually my conscious and subconscious got together and had a talk. It happened after two distinct instances last week. First I had a cup of soup and half sandwich from Panara. It was hard to eat the sandwich even though it was 4pm and I hadn't eaten since 11pm the night before. I was only able to eat part of the sandwich and a few min later I threw up. I also spent the rest of the day coughing and feeling headachy and bitchy. The next day I had a soft pretzel and juice with blueberries in it. Again I only ate half of the pretzel. I almost choked on the blueberries. Somewhere in those few min I realized that wheat might be my enemy. A few min later as i was puking up the pretzel I decided to give wheat free life a try.

So this week I am not ingesting products with gluten in them. Sucks because I generally love products with gluten in them. Probably good for me though. I am already less congested and I haven't coughed or vomited in two days. In a couple of weeks I will try eating some bread or something and see what happens.

I do have one very very important question. If I am sensitive to wheat does that mean I can't drink beer anymore? So far research says the answer is no and that sucks on so many levels.