covsooze's Blog

Now that I'm going public, I guess I'm committed to doing an elimination diet!

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I've been thinking of doing an elimination diet for a long time now, and thought it would be helpful to blog it - both for myself, and for others, as I know so many of us have issues with foods in addition to gluten.

A little bit about me and how I got to this stage.

As a child, I couldn't 'stomach' milk. I got depressed (although not really badly) quite often and had quite a few allergies. When I went to college, I had glandular fever (mono) and have never felt properly well since, although for a long time was made to feel I was just a hypochondriac or 'just' depressed.

About 8 years ago, my stomach problems started following using ibuprofen and going on the bc pill. A couple of years after that, my sister was diagnosed as coeliac. I had the blood test, but it was negative. Because it was negative, the drs wouldn't entertain the possibility that I was coeliac too. I had an endoscopy, but no biopsy. I was diagnosed with IBS, even though my syptoms were not typical IBS symptoms, and I was told to chill out.

DS was born in April 2003 and I experienced worsening depression after that. In August 2005, I ended up in the ED with horrendous stomach pain. Tests showed I was very anemic. I was referred to a gastroenterologist who thought I probably has an 'oozing gastritis' despite the fact I said I'd seen no evidence whatsoever that I was losing blood. I insisted on having the coeliac panel, and lo and behold, my scores were off the scale. The biopsy which followed in January 2006 showed total villous atrophy.

I went gluten free and dairy lite on 10 January 2006.

Symptoms that have improved since going gluten-free:

bloating, foul wind, alternating D & C, easy bruising.

Symptoms that remain:

extreme fatigue, raw stomach, aching muscles, depression & irritability (these are the worse ones, it would take me too long to post them all )

I took York's test, but it came back as positive on nearly all the 113 foods, so I've been wrestling with the idea for a while that I need to do an elimination diet. I find the idea very difficult for 2 reasons: I'm always hungry, so I don't know how I'll find enough to eat, especially snacks; I'm very emotionally involved with my eating, so no 'comfort foods' scares me.

As of now, I'm going to cut out nightshades (they all irritate my stomach, tomatoes give me mouth ulcers and I think potatoes are giving me hives) and chocolate (which gives me headaches and triggers my depression). Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to adjust myself to the diet by cutting out added sugar, processed food (I don't eat much of it) and tea. Then I'll start properly.

In my next entry, I'll explain what I'm going to eat and why.