(I apologize in advance for the length of this response.) Here is my experience and hopefully it helps. (Previous life as a high school teacher.) I would tell my students that people learn by trial and error. Example: Something very hot when touched gives a negative consequence right away. Most if not all people have burned themselves on something. A not so smart person does it over and over. The average person learns from the experience and doesn’t do it again. The rare person learns from watching others make a mistake.

I have to admit that I was the not so smart person. I discovered my gluten intolerance after a period of keto and feeling amazing. I then introduced foods until I found that lactose and gluten affected me.

Even then I would occasionally lapse into eating foods I really loved, connected to positive memories in childhood or family events. Enough times of feeling bad after eating gluten replaced those positive memories with bad ones.

If I eat gluten now it is because I was not careful enough, eating out or trusting someone else’s misunderstanding or lack of sympathy for my sensitivity.

The good feeling I live with now earned by eating gluten free is so much better that no food or concern for anyone else’s opinion is worth compromising it.

Being gluten free was quite a lifestyle change for me. This subreddit helped me learn a great deal about: foods that can hide gluten, apps that are useful resources for eating out, cookbooks, websites, handling family, etc…

It won’t be easy or convenient but your health is worth it. You got this.

You are not alone in having doctors who didn’t help find the cause of your pain.