KaleidoscopeDream

When your intestines start to heal, they can better absorb not just nutrients from your food, but medicines as well.  Perhaps you are now absorbing more meds than you need?

That is a really good point that I hadn't considered.  Before I went gluten free my doctor increased my lamictal dosage from 200 mg to 300, and today she wondered if that might be what was triggering this episode.  She had me lower the dosage back to 200 and increased my anxiety medication a little as a temporary fix.

You've given me some hope now!  I'm not delusional enough to believe I could eventually go off the meds altogether, but I do look forward to potentially decreasing the dosages.  Yet another encouraging reminder that I'm on the road to celiac recovery.

In addition to DH, I have had (what I've always assumed is) body acne since puberty that never went away (I'm 28 now) despite having extremely dry skin. Since going gluten free, I have also replaced all my bath and body products with gluten free alternatives, as well as moisturizing my DH lesions, acne (or whatever) breakouts, and my keratosis pilaris with organic virgin coconut oil. In the few weeks since I've started all this, the acne on my back has almost completely cleared up. I have absolutely NO acne on my face and neck now, for the first time in my adult life, and I'm even on my menstrual cycle right now.

I know there's some debate regarding topical gluten absorption, but using strictly gluten-free skin products has been amazing for me, personally. Because I started the gluten-free diet and the change in body products around the same time, I'm not sure which of these things are the actual source of my suddenly (nearly) acne-free skin, but I suspect it's a combination of all of it. My DH is still atrocious, though, so I'm going to get more serious about going low-iodine and try to ride this out till the antibodies are gone. That's where the coconut oil comes in though - I've found it helps the itch somewhat, especially where it dries and flakes off.

I'm quite new to this, but I think it's pretty obvious what's going on. Your 10 years gluten free healed your body. From what I understand, gluten has a cumulative effect, so it's only a matter of time before your antibodies are out of control again if you continue to gluten yourself. I don't mean to be offensive. It's just that I've suffered with DH for a long time now and only recently discovered what it was, and I would give anything to be in the position you were in before you started glutening again. I do miss the foods I used to eat, but it's not worth it to me to even think about them if I know they'll harm me. DH is my own personal hell, and I can't for the life of me fathom why anyone would risk allowing it to return.

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I'm not an expert by any means, and I only found out what I have is DH less than 2 months ago, but your spots look exactly the way mine did in the early stages. I've had this current outbreak for over a year now and have only been gluten-free for a few weeks at this point, but I've had some marginal relief after switching all my bath and body products to gluten free ones meant for sensitive skin. At the very least, my body wash has aloe as the first ingredient, so when the itching is really terrible I take a lukewarm shower and clean the rash gently and I have an hour or two of relief. It has also helped with the drying and peeling stage of some parts of my rash. I have also been trying to go low iodine as has been suggested on the forum here, but I think it's too soon to notice a change.

So, as I said, I can't diagnose you or anything, but the raised bumps and welts are very familiar to me, and I have confirmed DH with a dermatologist. I followed advice given here and asked the derm to biopsy healthy skin near the rash, so I definitely suggest making sure your doctor does that if you do decide to get a biopsy.

Good luck!

Thank you, Adalaide. I'm so glad I found this place, it has been a huge source of comfort and information.

The improvement on the C and D front is how I know I'm on the right track, really, so that's a relief. I was not aware of the iodine issue with DH. I'm going to go to the DH section and read up on it right now.