Symptoms Worse With Stress?

[ryeanddiet]

Hi,

I seem to have inconsistent abdominal discomfort after ingesting gluten. Sometimes a half a bagel is a bit of discomfort, sometimes I'm out for a few hours.

At first I wondered if it was related to having other food to digest still in my system/how empty my stomach was..but now I'm wondering if it's worse when I'm stressed.

anyone notice any patterns?

[Guest Lindam]

My first question, dumb as it may be, is the bagel gluten free?

I do notice that my stomach hurts alot when I am stressed. My doc also told me that stress can bring on symptoms which seem like a celiac disease reaction. His answer "Don't have any stress!" Give me a break.

Linda

[Carriefaith]

Yes, my symptoms are way worse when I'm stressed.

[dragonkingbc]

I have also found that stress can bring on the symptoms. Makes me wonder if I can't reverse that mind flow and remove the symptoms. Has anybody ever heard of someone being healed of Gluten Intolerance of any kind?

[tarnalberry]

Unless "reversing the mindflow" can change your genetics, no.

I'm not really saying that in a smart-aleck sort of way... While I'm not an advertiser of eastern medicine, I respect that much of it has it's place in the world of medicine, and do think that meditation and body self-awareness is downplayed, to our detriment, by western medicine. But, despite the potential strength of the mind-body connection (I say this as someone who internalizes stress as tendonitis - a bad thing for an engineer who sits in front of a computer all day and has a touchy wrist ;-) ), there is still the limitation of our physical body. In the same way that no amount of mental effort will reverse the loss of a limb, we can't "cure" gluten-intolerance. We may well be able to reduce the symptoms we get, and I could see someone claiming that we could speed healing (meditation has been shown to help boost the immune system slightly, which could aid healing after the accidental ingestion of gluten), that's not a cure.

[jendenise]

I'm starting to really think that my stress levels affect how severely I react to gluten. I had lemon tea last night w/ a pineapple orange honey in it. Well, I didn't read the label first. (DON'T ask me why!) It had caramel coloring in it as well as "natural flavoring" (in honey! I mean really, it comes from bee's!) But, I got sick from it, about 3 in the morning I started dry heaving and didn't stop until almost 9 a.m.! From a half a cup of tea, I couldn't believe it! Well I think I reacted so severely to it because I have been ultra stressed at work, at home (my step daughter just started 2nd grade) and my fiancee and I are starting a new business too. Usually if I eat something "glutened" and realize right away therefore only consuming a little bit I might only feel nauseaus, or throw up for an hour or so. But last night was so severe that I'm still not feeling well today. Practically every time my phone rings my stomach hurts. So, YES, I do think stress makes it worse.

[celiac3270]

Stress levels are very important with symptoms and health related to celiac disease and your body as a whole. One of the main things Anne Lee (a nutrionist who works with the famous celiac doctor, Dr. Green) said to my mom after I was diagnosed, besides offering food suggestions, was that my symptoms may get worse before they get better and that the #1 thing is not to stress. Stress is really bad for your health as a whole, especially your intestines, and can make symptoms worse............

[Guest ~wAvE WeT sAnD~]

I agree with everyone...personally, I was my "most ill" when I had excess levels of Cortisol in my body (the stress hormone). I still get stressed out over the smallest things--because malnutrition has changed the chemical structure of my brain and other hormones produced.

Hang in there...the gluten-free diet always helps

[GEF]

This is an interesting topic.

My antibody levels have been consistently on the rise and I have made no changes yet to my diet (I'm still gettting tests done). But, I have found that my symptoms have been getting better and almost reversing. Where I had "D" frequently, I know have bloating. Talk about confusing! Also, I'm less sensitive to milk products than I have been in the past few years. I have been very happy, I'm getting married, my job has been great, etc, etc... I have had very little bad stress. But, now that things are gettting very stressful at work (too many deadlines and no time) and with the wedding quickly approaching, my symtoms are back. I had a cheese stick today and I'm getting the lactose intolerance symptoms again too. It does appear that stress is quite a factor in my symptoms. I also know that my problem with gluten was stress-onset to begin with... so it doesn't suprise me that my body reacts in this manner. I seriously doubt that being non-stressed could eliminate my gluten problem, since my antibody levels are still high with minimal symptoms.

If only we could not stress!

Gretchen