Gluten free with floating stools

[TomHidfanMel]

Hi folks. I’m a new member so apologies if I make any mistakes. After many years of having IBS with definite trigger foods, I decided to follow my daughter’s example and cut gluten and dairy foods out of my diet. I reintroduced dairy with no problems but when I tried to reintroduce gluten it became very apparent that I was gluten intolerant. That was 3 months ago, and around the same time I noticed my stools were floating. Has anyone else had this problem when they became gluten free?

[GFinDC]

Yes, some of mine floated up and hit a jet plane!  It was very embarrassing! Oh, you mean floating in water!  

Kidding.  It does sound like you have either celiac disease or gluten intolerance.  Floating stools (in water) can be caused by undigested fats/oils.   They even have a term for it, I think spelled something like steatorrhea.  Open Original Shared Link

 

Steatorrhea
Open Original Shared Link	Open Original Shared Link, Open Original Shared Link

Steatorrhea (or steatorrhoea) is the presence of excess Open Original Shared Link in Open Original Shared Link. Stools may be bulky and difficult to flush, have a pale and oily appearance and can be especially foul-smelling.^{Open Original Shared Link} An oily anal leakage or some level of Open Original Shared Link may occur. There is increased fat excretion, which can be measured by determining the fecal fat level. The definition of how much fecal fat constitutes steatorrhea has not been standardized.

 If you want to know if you have celiac disease you need to keep eating gluten until all testing is completed.   That means 2 weeks for the endoscopy and 12 weeks for the blood antibodies.  Since you already went gluten-free it may not be a good idea though.  Recovery from celiac damage can take over a year and slowing that process down is not a fun idea IMHO.

Another affect of celiac disease is malabsorption of nutrients.  So you might want to verify your vitamin and mineral levels are ok.