Is gluten detox a thing?

[ErinRiel]

Hi all! I was diagnosed with Celiac 3 weeks ago and cut out gluten immediately. I am trying to be as diligent as possible, but I feel like my gastrointestinal issues have gotten more frequent since I cut out gluten. Is this my body detoxing the gluten? Is this normal? Any and all thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thank you :-)?

[GFinDC]

Hi Erin,

Yes, The initial recovery phase can be rather unpleasant.  Imagine you beat a horse until it's unconscious.  And then it starts to recover and wake up.  It will thrash around some and then struggle to get up and take off in a hurry.  You gut is now in the recovery/healing process.  New villi are beginning to grow to replace the damaged ones.  That growth is like a forest growing.  Thousands of little trees growing at the same time.  That makes a huge increase in surface area of the gut, which is habitat for millions of bacteria to colonize.  All that change is a possible cause of upset.  There is now a forest of fresh villi that are sensitive to stuff.

It can help to avoid carbs and sugar for a while.  Also dairy and oats.  Try to stick with whole foods cooked at home by yourself.  It's important to know what you are eating now.  Some people may have lots of food reactions at first that will possibly disappear later on.  While you may have eaten lots of gluten before. You will probably find that even a tiny amount of gluten can cause a bad reaction now.  Our immune systems are very sensitive and get spun up easily.  It can take weeks to months for the immune reaction to taper off.  So every exposure matters.

[kareng]

You aren’t really “ detoxing” gluten.  It doesn’t sit around in your cells or your intestines and have to be released.  The whole faddish notion of “ detox” is not really correct.  

But - it can take quite a while to heal.  As you heal, your GI response to foods might be a bit different over time.  Also, many people drastically change what they eat - more fiber, or less fiber, more fat, more of an ingredient they never had much of before, etc.  That can change your GI issues, too.