Going gluten free for a bit

so after speaking to my cousin, who was diagnosed with Celiac disease a year ago, I did a little research. Turns out a lot of my recent health issues COULD be symptoms of this Celiac disease. Rather than demand lots of tests (as I have done this on a whim before and of course, no helpful answers) I am going to try a Gluten-Free diet for a few weeks and keep track of my M.

I am not overly excited or expecting a miracle cure...but even an improvement would be welcomed at this point.

I'll keep yall posted.

There is a blood test to rule out celiac disease....may be easier then going gluten-free. I've done it...it's really tough and I can't say there were any effects on my migraines....health yes, but not my migraines.

I agree, I would get tested and then try the diet. I had the blood tests and the genetic tests. I did not have any antibodies, but apparently that doesn't necessarily mean I don't have a gluten problem. I did test positive for one of the genes that is common in those with celiac disease. I was counseled to try going gluten free and seeing if it helps. I have been gluten free for 5 months. My sister and my dad have been gluten free for 5 years. My daughter has been gluten free for over a year. You can do it. It is not as hard as it used to be. There are tons of restaurants out there that have gluten free menus. (Outback, PF Changs, Red Robin are a few national chains). There are tons of gluten free resources on the web. My favorite Gluten free blog is elanaspantry.com/ This woman is amazing. She lives near me and does the most amazing things with almond flour and coconut flour.

I might have some information that won't make you very happy. My sister sees the top celiac Dr. on the east coast and she suggested that I go gluten free for six to nine MONTHS to see if it helps my head. Apparently in chronic cases it can take a while to clear the body.

Honestly I have not seen any change. I have one more month to go before I eat gluten again to see what happens. I am looking forward to it.

Please do a lot of reading on what contains gluten. It is hidden in the most unlikely places. Anything that has "natural flavors" in it could possibly contain gluten. By the FDA's rules, that could be almost anything. Check out Celiac.com they have a great list of the "Not allowed".

And don't forget your medicines. A lot of meds contain wheat starch or some other form of gluten as a binder. You can check http://www.glutenfreedrugs.com/
They have a fairly comprehensive list. Otherwise you can call the manufacturer. I have found them to be very helpful in general. Wallgreens also has a list of their over the counter meds that are gluten free.

If you want to order some good premade stuff, there is an excellent bakery in NY that delivers by fedex. We LOVE the oatmeal raisin cookies. they also have a great cookbook out. www.babycakesnyc.com. I have ordered things from them for birthdays.

right, that was a lot of info. I hope it helps. I honestly hope that you find out that eliminating gluten fixes everything! That is an easy fix.

Mary Anne

oh, and i like the magazine "Living Without". they have great articles and great recipes.

I tried to go gluten-free for 2 months. No improvement, but I lost a few pounds

I agree, take the test. It is soooo hard to avoid gluten, its everywhere, I got caught out with mayo.
I was going without food in the end because I coudlnt find stuff I could eat.
You can have lots of fruits and veg, but i cant cos of IBS.
Good luck though.
P

MaryAnneLive has some good advice. You may need more than a week or two to see improvement, although some do see help in that time frame.

DH is a celiac, so the house is low gluten (I have sandwich bread and my own toaster). The diet is much more complex than typically thought. Since you have family who's following it, they can be a great help, since they'll know the common pot holes.

First off, you will need new tub/jars of all the condiments and spreads you've stuck a knife into, as they all have wheat in them. The only condiment I was able to keep was the squeeze mayo, since it never touched the bread. Don't forget the peanut butter (if you're able to eat it)

You'll want a new toaster, and yes, this is essential for gluten free breads. Most aren't very yummy until you've toasted them. Put away all your wooden spoons and cutting boards, and if you find out that gf helps, you'll want to re-home them, they're porous and hold onto gluten.

I could keep going for another 1000 words or so, but I'm transposing letters, since I've got some prodome due to the incoming front. Much of this is on the forum at celiac.com, a great resource to the gluten free world, and hosted by Scott Adams, who is a celiac (along with being the Dilbert creator)

Hope I helped a little!

PS, ignore the Elizabeth Hassleback book, a lot of her info is off.

Good luck! I think we were on the same wave-length, after recent posts I looked it up on the Internet too. I honestly think there a possiblity, but I took one look at the restrictions and decided to bury my head back in the sand.

I hate to cook and shop as it is!!!!

Let us know how it goes.

Charlotte

Some encouragement - I went gluten-free about 4-5 years ago after doing an food elimination trial to see if anything I was eating was causing my horrible abdomen bloating and pain. My doctor had already eliminated anything major at that point. Turns out that eliminating wheat, rye, barley from my diet made a huge difference in the pain.

So I have been essentially GF for that time. I never worried about the tiny bits of gluten I was probably getting eating out ( cross-contamination with anything fried in a common fryer, for instance) because it didn't give me symptoms. But finally my wife wanted me to be tested for celiac diesease as even small amounts of gluten can have long-term health consequences.

It turns out there are 3 or 4 different antigen tests needed to do this ( the other method is to take a sample of the small intestines). My doctor ordered all of them. But first, I had to eat gluten for 2 weeks or else there would be nothing to test.

Two pieces of good news.
1) After the initial thrill of eating french bread and decent toast and other things hard to achieve GF, I started thinking, "Meh, that's not so great". My GF pizza is actually better than most of the gluten-based pizza I have been eating for the last two weeks. Decent bread is really the only thing I don't think is good GF. I find myself wishing I could do a rice or polenta dish for dinner, but I need some more gluten. The only good thing about eating gluten is I can walk into any fast food, convenience store or restaurant and buy something to eat. Less home cooking is required. BTW, so far, my digestion has survived this gluten onslaught, but it often takes a couple of weeks of gluten to affect me after not eating it for a while. I just had the blood work done but won't know the results for a while.

2) About 5 days into this gluten frenzy, I had the worst migraine I've had in years, complete with the first "real" aura ever in 25 years. It blinded me and I wrote about it elsewhere. Then I had another really bad migraine about 3 days later and some smaller ones in the last few days. This is the worst spate of migraines I've had in years, since I found a relatively effective preventative. I'm beginning to think the gluten has a role. Even my doctor says there is often a connection between gluten sensitivity and migraines.


So....I have never found it that hard to stay off gluten ( mostly because I like to cook and bake) AND I think it might have some impact on your migraines.

Good luck,

Peter

Thanks for all of the helpful info.

I know it is tough to do...I did a Gluten Free Cleanse once for 2 or 3 weeks and it WAS tough....but not impossible. What I didn't think about is the toaster/tubs of condiments, etc, etc. I am sure, however, that I will do all that if I feel like GF starts to help.
I have had a hard time losing weight lately, so this should help with that as well, as well as lowering my cholesterol a bit. AS far as getting tested first....I just feel like I have blood tested and nerve tested and sleep tested and scanned and imaged and evaluated To DEATH the last 2 1/2 yrs...none of which ever produced concrete answers. I am leary to order another slew of tests. I have read what a pain it can be to have to go back and "re-gluten"..lol... to be tested, but I am thinking if I have a family history and I feel better after eliminating it, that will be enough for me.

Even if I do not get enough of a change to warrant keeping up the lifestyle, I imagine it can only be good for my digestion problems and bloating I've been battling the last couple of months.

Who knows.

I have done it before, but just to cleanse and jump start a diet...I didn't pay any mind to my H/A, as they were under wraps at the time. I just want to know I've tried it all before throwing in the towel. And this won't give me seizures, like my neuros last suggestion....lol.

Lot's of great info from the good folks on this site.

It is important to find out one way of another if you actually have celiacs. If you are gluten-sensitive, or allergic to gluten, then accidentally eating gluten is ok from time to time.

If you have celiacs disease, then accidently eating gluten has much more far reaching consequences.

That's why it is important to find out. There is nothing wrong with doing it the way you are doing it.

The hugest tip I can give you is to mix flours. One kind of gluten-free flour never taste good on it's own.

My favorite at the moments is brown rice flour mixed with fou fou flour (casava root flour). The casava flour is gummy and helps with texture. You can find it in Africa markets. **I can't promise it's gluten free though**

Ahhhh, and be very careful learning what key words to find on ingrediant lists as gluten hides in so many different words.

I also have had a lot of difficulty with foods from Asia, as the ingrediant list in english is often different in the original language and they leave out really important things like aspertame, wheat etc.

Whole Foods is one of the best places to get gluten free products in my area. THey have a relly good GF sanwich bread that is super easy to make. They have gf condiments and just about every kind of flour and starch for making your own GF flours. They have both a rice pasta and quinoa pasta that are very good. If you have a Whole Foods near you, check them out.

It isn't as hard to go GF as I expected since I already cook most of my food from scratch. It is more about substituting rice flour and rice cereal for coatings and using gf condiments. We eat a lot more rice and veges which is healthier for us. And since my daughter has real problems with protein, our diets seems to interact well.

Oh good one Ali....I didn't think of using rice cereal as a coating. Any ideas on how to make it stay on without using egg?

milo- I'd use water or a little oil to make it stick without egg