Jump to content
This site uses cookies. Continued use is acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. More Info... ×
  • Welcome to Celiac.com!

    You have found your celiac tribe! Join us and ask questions in our forum, share your story, and connect with others.




  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A1):



    Celiac.com Sponsor (A1-M):


  • Get Celiac.com Updates:
    Where Your Contribution Counts!
    eNewsletter
    Support Us!

How Long After Gfcf Diet Did You Start To Feel Better


terps19

Recommended Posts

terps19 Contributor

How long after Gluten-free Casein-free diet did it take for you to start to feel better?

I have no damage of my small intestines as we caught this early (about 2 yrs after starting to feel symptoms).

Thank you!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):



Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):



tarnalberry Community Regular

It varies greatly from person to person. Some start feeling some improvement in days, some in weeks, and some take months. Statistically, most see noticable improvement within two weeks, but many still take longer than that, and many don't see full recovery for months.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
terps19 Contributor

bump

Link to comment
Share on other sites
flagbabyds Collaborator

When i started CF i started to feel better the next day, my Cf symptoms were just heartburn this went away almost instantly and i noticed that night that it didn't wake me up that night for the first time in a long time, and sorry don't know about gluten-free was too young to remember it...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
terps19 Contributor

bump

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jerseyangel Proficient

I was sick for probably 20 years before finally being diagnosed. When I went on the gluten-free diet, I had already been dairy free for about a year. My GI issues began to improve very quickly. Other things like fatigue, brain fog, neuropathy, anxiety, and the anemia took longer. I feel I "turned a corner" around the 4th month. I had a few really good weeks, and then the other food intolerances began to show up. Now, at a year, I'm finally feeling somewhat normal (unless, of course I get CC!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sillyyak Enthusiast

It took me about 6 months to really feel better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):



Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):



dionnek Enthusiast

I'm in my third week and still no improvement - actually feel worse (headaches and sinus problems now, and ear aches) and have lost several pounds (not a problem since I'm not too skinny to begin with) b/c of cutting out the carbs. I haven't tried the gluten-free breads, etc. yet - I will do that when I need to put some pounds back on :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ursa Major Collaborator

I showed a marked improvement by the next day. Until my other intolerances reared their ugly heads three months later. I am much better now, but may never get completely well due to being diagnosed so late in life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
emcmaster Collaborator

I noticed a huge improvement on the 3rd day and have gotten even better since then. Once being glutened (which has happened several times due to CC and accidental glutening), it takes me about a week to get back to "normal."

Link to comment
Share on other sites
deco2339 Newbie

Hi everyone:

I have had a history of ulcers since I was 18. In the last5 years they have bled 3 times. Came close to buying the farm. 5 months ago a blood test showed I had iron deficient anemia. I thought my ulcer was bleeding again. important to note that I have never had GI symptoms my entire life....no pain, no diarrhea or constipation. Stomach has been fine. The only way i knew my ulcers were bleeding was that I would faint due to having 1 pint of blood in me. My doc did an endoscopy and colonoscopy and only checked for celiac because I asked him to. A woman I worked with had just been diagnosed. Turns out I had it bad with my blood test showing levels over 100 but not sure of exact count. Is over 100 considered very high? Started diet immediately. Used to get very bad migraines every day, my guess is from malnutrition as I was eating wheat like crazy. I looked like crap with dark circles under my eyes. After 5 months on a gluten-free diet I can't really say I feel that much better on a day to day basis. My migraines are fewer and farther between but when I get one now it takes about 4 shots of Immitrex to get the sucker to leave me alone. I just started juicing every day. I think its helping. Thank God for Real Foods corn cakes. they are thin and crisp and much better than rice cakes. They satisfy my craving for something like a cracker. After about 2 months on the diet my blood tests come back normal so that's good but I have been suffering from severe depression. Not sure if it's menopause (I'm 48) or a result of having had celiac. Anyone else suffering from depression? I do have one weird symptom since I was diagnosed. If I lay on myleft side after I eat something small my stomach starts to growl really loud. Sometimes this happens after a meal. I did not have this problem prior to the endoscopy. anyone else experience this? It's driving me nuts!

Anyway, nice to talk to all of you. All my best

debbie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A19):



  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      120,501
    • Most Online (within 30 mins)
      7,748

    fine one
    Newest Member
    fine one
    Joined

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A20):


  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      120.2k
    • Total Posts
      1m

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A22):





  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A21):



  • Upcoming Events

  • Posts

    • SuzanneL
      It was tTG IGG that was flagged high. I'm not sure about the other stuff. I'm still eating my normal stuff. 
    • cristiana
      Thank you for your post, @Nedast, and welcome to the forum. It is interesting to read of your experiences. Although I've not had TMJ, from time to time I have had a bit of mild pain in my jaw, sharp stabbing pains and tingling in my face which appears to have been caused by issues with my trigeminal nerve.  I read that sometimes a damaged trigeminal nerve in coeliacs can heal after adopting a gluten free diet.  I try to keep out of cold winds or wear a scarf over my face when it is cold and windy, those conditions tend to be my 'trigger' but I do think that staying clear of gluten has helped.  Also, sleeping with a rolled up towel under my neck is a tip I picked up online, again, that seems to bring benefits. Thank you again for your input - living with this sort of pain can be very hard, so it is good to be able to share advice.
    • Julie Riordan
      I am going to France in two weeks and then to Portugal in May   Thanks for your reply 
    • Nedast
      I made an account just to reply to this topic. My story resembles yours in so many ways that it is truly amazing. I also suddenly became lactose intolerant, went a little under 10 years attributing all my symtoms to different body parts, never thinking it was something systemic until much later. I had the same mental problems - anxiety, depression, fatigue, etc. In fact, the only real difference in our story is that I was never formally diagnosed. When I discovered that my myriad symtoms, that had been continuous and worsening for years, all rapidly subsided upon cessation of consuming gluten, I immediately took it upon myself to cut gluten out of my diet completely. I live in America, and had lost my health insurance within the year prior to my discovery, so I could not get tested, and I will never willingly or knowingly consume gluten again, which I would have to do in order to get tested now that I have insurance again. But that is not the point of this reply. I also had extreme TMJ pain that began within months of getting my wisdom teeth out at - you guessed it - 17 years old. I was in and out of doctors for my various symptoms for about 5 years before I gave up, but during that time I had also kept getting reffered to different kinds of doctors that had their own, different solutions to my TMJ issue, an issue which I only recently discovered was related to my other symptoms. I began with physical therapy, and the physical therapist eventually broke down at me after many months, raising her voice at me and saying that there was nothing she could do for me. After that saga, I saw a plastic surgeon at the request of my GP, who he knew personally. This palstic surgeon began using botox injections to stop my spasming jaw muscles, and he managed to get it covered by my insurace in 2011, which was harder to do back then. This helped the pain tremendously, but did not solve the underlying problem, and I had to get repeat injections every three months. After a couple of years, this began to lose effectiveness, and I needed treatments more often than my insurance would cover. The surgeon did a scan on the joint and saw slight damage to the tissues. He then got approved by insurance to do a small surgery on the massseter (jaw) muscle - making an incision, and then splicing tissue into the muscle to stop the spasming. It worked amazingly, but about three months later it had stopped working. I was on the verge of seeing the top oral surgeon in our city, but instead of operating on me, he referred me to a unique group of dentists who focus on the TMJ and its biomechanical relationship to teeth occlusion (i.e. how the teeth fit together). This is what your dentist did, and what he did to you was boderline if not outright malpractice. There is a dental field that specializes in doing this kind of dental work, and it takes many years of extra schooling (and a lot of money invested into education) to be able to modify teeth occusion in this manner. Just based on the way you describe your dentist doing this, I can tell he was not qualified to do this to you. Dentists who are qualified and engage in this practice take many measurments of your head, mouth, teeth, etc., they take laboratory molds of your teeth, and they then make a complete, life-size model of your skull and teeth to help them guide their work on you. They then have a lab construct, and give you what is called a "bite splint." It looks and feels like a retainer, but its function is entirely different. This is essentially a literal splint for the TMJ that situates on the teeth. The splint is progressively modified once or twice per week, over several months, in order to slowly move the joint to its correct position. The muscles spasm less, stress is taken off the joint, as the joint slowly moves back into its proper position. The pain reduces each month, each week, sometimes even each day you go in for a visit. The joint has to be moved in this manner with the splint BEFORE the modification to the teeth begins. They then add to your tooth structure with small bits of composite, to keep the joint in its proper place after it has been sucessfully repositioned. Subtracting from your teeth, by grinding down bits of your natural tooth structure, is done very conservatively, if they have to do it at all. This process worked for me - after six months, my face, jaw, neck all felt normal, and I had no more pain - a feeling I had not had in a long time. It also made my face look better. I had not realized the true extent that the spasming muscles and the joint derangement had effected the shape of my face. The pain began to return after a few months, but nowhere near where it had been before. This immense reduction in pain lasted for a little over two years. The treatment still ultimately failed, but it is not their fault, and it is still the treatment that has given me the most relief to this day. Later on, I even went about three years with very, very good pain reduction, before the joint severely destabilized again. This field of dentistry is the last line treatment for TMJ issues before oral surgery on the TMJ. There aren't as many denists around who practice this anymore, and the practice is currently shrinking due to dentists opting for less espensive, additional educations in things like professional whitening, which have a broader marketability. Getting this treatment is also very expensive if not covered by insurance (in America at least). My first time was covered by insurance, second time was not, though the dentist took pity on me due to the nature of my case and charged like a quarter of usual pricing. Most cases seen by these dentists are complete successes, and the patient never has to come back again. But occasionally they get a case that is not a success, and I was one of those cases. A little over a year ago, I began seeing the second dentist who keeps my TMJ stable in this manner. The first dentist retired, and then died sadly. A shame too, because he was a truly amazing, knowledgable guy who really wanted to help people. The new dentist began to get suspicious when my joint failed to stay stable after I was finished with the bite splint and his modifications, so he did another scan on me. This is ten years after the first scan (remember, I said the surgeon saw "slight" damage to the tissue on the first scan). This new scan revealed that I now no longer have cartilage in the joint, on both sides - complete degeneration of the soft tissues and some damage to the bone. The dentist sat me down and had a talk with me after these results came in, and said that when he sees damage like this in cases like mine, that the damage to the joint is most likely autoimmune, and that, in his experinece, it is usually autoimmune. He has sent patients with cases like mine to Mayo Clinic. He said he will continue to see me as long as the treatment continues to offer me relief, but also said that I will probably have to see a dentist for this type of treatment for the rest of my life. He is not currently recommending surgery due to my young age and the fact that the treatment he provides manages my symptoms pretty well. I still see this dentist today, and probably will see this kind of dental specialist for the rest of my life, since they have helped with this issue the most. I did not inform him that I am 100% sure that I have celiac disease (due to my complete symptom remission upon gluten cessation). I didn't inform him because I thought it would be inappropriate due to not having a formal diagnosis. I was disappointed, because I had believed I had caught it BEFORE it had done permanent damage to my body. I had never suspected that my TMJ issues may be related to my other symptoms, and that the damage would end up complete and permanent. Luckily, I caught it about 6 months after my other joints started hurting, and they stopped hurting right after I went gluten free, and haven't hurt since. I of course did the necessary research after the results of the second scan, and found out that the TMJ is the most commonly involved joint in autoimmune disease of the intestines, and if mutliple joints are effected, it is usually the first one effected. This makes complete sense, since the TMJ is the most closely related joint to the intestines, and literally controls the opening that allows food passage into your intestines. I am here to tell you, that if anyone says there is no potential relationship between TMJ issues and celiac disease, they are absolutely wrong. Just google TMJ and Celiac disease, and read the scientific articles you find. Research on issues regarding the TMJ is relatively sparse, but you will find the association you're looking for validated.
    • trents
      Welcome to the forum, @SuzanneL! Which tTG was that? tTG-IGA? tTG-IGG? Were there other celiac antibody tests run from that blood draw? Was total IGA measured? By some chance were you already cutting back on gluten by the time the blood draw was taken or just not eating much? For the celiac antibody tests to be accurate a person needs to be eating about 10g of gluten daily which is about 4-6 pieces of bread.
×
×
  • Create New...