RollingAlong

I think that you may need a more comprehensive thyroid test panel; because of the celiac you are at risk of autoimmune versions of thyroid problems.  If your thyroid is not working well, you could have trouble with iron. I'm sorry, I don't remember the details; please read over at the Stop The Thyroid Madness for some top quality info. They can help you if you need to encourage your doc to get a clue.

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/

This website is also helpful:
https://eaware.org

I am not celiac, but I am hypothyroid and I've been big time anemic. I can relate to all of your symptoms except the stomach pain. I think your hunt for traces of gluten is very important also; but it could easily be both trace gluten and a thyroid issue.

Your 2 hour #'s from Wednesday look good and I am so glad to hear that you are feeling a bit better.

Next time, how about a set of 1 hour #'s? That's 1 hour from the first bite of the meal or snack.

thanks!

"mission mode"  - I like that!

fat is your friend!  

I really like spaghetti squash. It also freezes well so I can cook once, eat many...

I agree that docs should be a little more forthcoming. If I am walking on the edge of a cliff, I'd like to know!

There is a "magic formula" for diabetics, according to Bernstein. It is a Way of Eating abbreviated 6-12-12. In other words, 6 grams of carb at breakfast, 12 at lunch and dinner. no snacks.  

I think this is a way too  much for you as a non-diabetic, recently diagnosed and healing celiac, whose thyroid isn't necessarily at full function.  But I also think you might find the menu ideas and recipes over the Bernstein forum helpful because it is much easier to start low carb and add them back.

Another way you can start is to get an idea of how many carbs you eat at each meal now and which meal makes you feel the worst. It might be breakfast, which would not be unsual. For one thing, that tends to be a pretty carby meal and it is also the meal where most people's glucose tolerance is lowest. (The blood sugar 101 book is full of interesting trivia like that).

Anyway, if you currently eat 100 grams of carb at breakfast, you could try cutting that by 20%.  That would be 20 calories fewer from carbs. You would need to replace those 20 calories with 2 g of fat (18 calories) or nearly an ounce of protein (20/4 = 5 and an ounce of meat or an egg is about 6 grams of protein.

Use your meter and also note how you feel. If you want to reduce calories, try that at another meal, but I would advise you to wait until you get the thyroid tests done and more information about your thyroid condition.  (Just my opinion; I don't have an autoimmune thyroid condition, just hypo.)

In other words, cutting the carbs down too fast can also make you feel pretty weak. A slower transition gives you time to gather some data, clean out your pantry, make some plans and hopefully have a smooth transition. On the other hand, if you're feeling bad all day, you may want to speed up the transition. Your meter can give you an idea where to focus your efforts.

Be sure to keep us posted; love to brainstorm!

My spouse felt the same way about buying a meter. He ended up giving his a name, Audrey, after the blood sucking plant in Little House of Horrors.  

You hang in there, you are doing great things for your health!

I think that focusing on your blood glucose levels is a great way to tackle a stubborn candida infection. In my opinion, it is much easier to be concerned about and to remedy a blood sugar issue before it hits the ADA's idea of a problem. At the very least, using your meter to get some more information is a prudent things to do.

The meters aren't perfect, but they can show a consistent trend. If you prefer a more accurate meter, Dr Bernstein (Bernstein Diabetes Forum) currently recommends the Accucheck Aviva. His diet is very low carb and gluten free friendly. The forum is a great place if you have questions specific to blood glucose and there are several people with celiac and other food intolerances posting there.

But you may not need to get quite that far into it. For starters, getting  a baseline A1c is fine, and you can use that opportunity to test your meter against your doctors.

But if you don't want to or can't see a doc right away, read one more page over at Bloodsugar101 - How to lower your bloodsugar:
How To Lower your blood sugar
It is basically a summary of Doc B's approach. You see, when your blood sugar is high is almost as important as how high it goes.

A fasting number indicates one thing, but you also want to see what happens:
right before you eat
and again 1 hour after the first bite of the meal
and again 2 hours after the first bite of the meal

So this is a lot of testing, and a manageable way to do it is to rotate though the week.

So on Sunday you test in the morning, which gives you a fasting #, and again 2 times after breakfast.

On Monday, you check before lunch and 2 times after

Tuesday, before dinner and 2 times after

Wednesday brings you back to breakfast

You'll be recording what you ate and noting exercise can help to. Snacking will cloud the picture, but if you do, just keep track of times.

You'll soon know if you need the pre-meal checks at all. You can then just check fasting once a week, but rotate it between weekdays and weekends for more accurate picture.

And you can see which meals or foods may be part of the problem, if there is one. in other words, this is a lot of trouble, but it is possible that your BG is reacting to just one food or food group.  Even casein can raise your BG levels, but it may not ever spike them.  In other words, BG responds to inflammation; food intolerances can cause inflammation even in the absence of the symptoms we usually notice, such as digestive distress.

If you decide to try this, feel free to post some of your meals and results here or to PM me or post over at Bernstein's - lots of help there!

Based on my husband's experience, it seems like anything can happen in the first 6 months or so without it meaning anything in terms of your long term reaction to gluten. What I am trying to say is that it would be perfectly normal for you to be "super sensitive" to just about anything at this point. Some examples - coffee, pepper, spices, too much fat in one meal, etc.  He did better on a plain simple diet, the Paleo diet.

You're healing up and you just have to be careful about gluten and hang in there. You sound terribly uncomfortable. Perhaps a version of the BRAT diet for a few days or some home made chicken broth?

I hope you feel better very soon.

My spouse would agree with your assessment; gluten is a big factor in his mood.

I can almost date when he started having trouble with gluten, because he became anxious and I had never seen him that way (known him 3 decades). He was a volunteer firefighter, so definitely not the anxious sort!

He also saw improvement after removing eggs. He added them back after 1 year.

My spouse felt loads better when he stopped the vitamins. I bought them carefully, they were high quality and  free of gluten, casein and soy.

You might like to check over at the Bernstein Diabetes forum; people there who are working with insulin and food intolerances, including celiac, may have some advice for you.  Could delayed digestive transit (gastroparesis) be part of the problem? It could create a mis-match between the carbs and the insulin.

http://www.diabetes-...n/yabb2/YaBB.pl
Most of Bernstein's book is available online for free. It is well worth a look even if you do not want to follow his diet plan, which is very low carb. Dr. Bernstein is a T1 diabetic and in very good health after many, many years. http://en.wikipedia....rd_K._Bernstein

>Strangely I have not had any trouble with popcorn or fresh corn on the cob

If you can eat corn on the cob, then it is unlikely to be a corn intolerance. It is more likely to be very low level CC with gluten or another ingredient in the processed food. It would be very interesting to use a home gluten test kit on the items that are causing difficulties. There are 3 different forums on the web that compile gluten test results.

I wouldn't worry about your fillings yet.
Consider B-12 and other supplements in a sublingual form (under the tongue)
Get some sun if at all possible

Look into the Paleo diet.

What kinds of things have you been eating?