I mean, it is your body, your choice, just like you could play Russian roulette, or smoke 60 a day, or take any number of risks with your body - drugs, unprotected sex, etc. But it is a relentless, slow, way to self harm.

You will have symptoms, your IBS and persistent hemorrhoids are symptoms, you may also have mental health and cognitive symptoms. It's a drip, drip, drip, destruction of your digestive system, immune system, and neurological system. You have more than a slight risk of health issues down the line. Coeliac disease has been known since the time of ancient Greeks, the cause and treatment (a strict gluten free diet) known only since the late 1940s. It shortened lives and destroyed lives while lived for 1000s of years. it's an autoimmune disease, not an allergy or intolerance.

But it's your body, but you could get up with a colostomy bag or even committed, as it can cause serious mental health issues too. Before that it will just catch up with you with fatigue and brain fog and multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies, even if you don't have organ failure or cancer. And being unable to follow a TV show or sleeping all day is no fun, is it? Good luck with your 5 empty barrels, one day the sixth bullet will get you somehow. I hope you don't then regret your choices.

And, yes, I had this same conversation with my own daughter when they were very mentally unwell a couple of years ago, and when they struggle with staying gluten free working in theatre touring, coping with ADHD and autism and remembering why they need to stay gluten free. As their mother, and someone who was not diagnosed until my late 20s, with now other autoimmune and immuno-neurological illnesses, bedbound, housebound and in need of a powered wheelchair, I would quite frankly rather they went back to cutting than ate gluten. But sadly, now, they are having 'symptoms', as in ones immediate and noticeable without biopsies and MRIs, because they took too many risks with gluten for just 2-5 years on and off, from 16-21. And as someone with a child who took risks, and who was diagnosed too late, I find your comments triggering and concerning. I really hope you do not have people who love you and will watch your decline at some future date, it won't be fun for them either.

It is so fucking easy to maintain a gluten free diet these days.

But as I say, it is your body, your life, your future. I told myself this when my own daughter took risks, too, but didn't not stop me worrying. Thing is, they always had some symptoms too, but called it IBS. Until they started vomiting their stomach lining. And I would not wish my illnesses on my worst enemy.

You did ask for my thoughts.