Eating Makes Me Sick

[Kayleen007]

I don't know what to do anymore. I just started the gluten-free diet maybe a week ago. My symptoms have gotten so much worse over the last month. Attacks where I couldn't get up off the floor for a few hours because I would pass out if I did. Now I can't eat anymore. This has happened before. No matter what I eat, I get horrendous cramps, hot flashes, diarrhea, anxiety as well. I just tried to eat an apple and I couldn't make it even half-way through the apple. Someone please help me!! Does this happen to any of you, too? And what do you do about it?? I feel like I'm just plain going to die!

[travelthomas]

Hi Kayleen,

Cooked carrots are very easy to digest, and rice can help with the diarrhea. A nurse friend of mine would make her boyfriend

[kaylee]

Kayleen,

First, are you being followed by someone who is helpful to you (doctor, nurse, nutritionist, naturopath etc)? Reading about your current experiences makes me hope you have gotten or are getting some one-on-one help.

In addition to the above suggestions about cooking your foods well and needing to experiment to see what works for you as we are all different, I would just emphasize going with plain and simple. Try the kinds of things given to babies until you start to feel better. Recommended for lots of vitamins and (generally) easy digestion are: bananas (not apple!), sweet potato, squash, avocado, chicken (if you eat meat) and, of course, rice (keeping in mind the question about fruit sugars mentioned by TravelThomas).

Best,

Kaylee

[VAGuy]

I was gluten-free from Nov to April and still having a terrible time when I received my results from Enterolab. Not only did they recommend staying away from wheat rye and barley, but also dairy, yeast, and egg. Dropping those out helped, but I have found out that I am having problems with corn products too. High fiber, coarse fiber, coarse ground pepper, and guar gum are bad too, and guar gum is just terrible. It seems traces of corn syrup and guar gum are okay at dinner, such as in a light brushing of BBQ sauce.

Some of my blunders, and est. hours time to reaction

Corn products: corn syrup in blueberry syrup - 4 to 6

2 taco shells at lunch - 4 to 5

corn syrup/sweet pickles (today) - 5 to six

corn syrup in sodas, canned fruit,

popcicles (corn syrup and guar gum)

Yeast: "autolyzed yeast," Butterball turkey bacon - 6 or so

Louis Rich is OK

Cheese curls - torula yeast and whey - been a while

Guar gum/fiber: Van's Waffles(Orig)(gluten-free, casein, egg, dairy, yeast free)

and their Buckwheat waffles kill me

A lot of gluten-free breads and mixes have it in them

Dairy: watch out for milk products in stuff like Carnation Inst Breakfast

Juices: 100% juice or nothing - if it mentions anything other than juice - avoid it

I gave up on raw apples long before I went gluten-free, bananas are back in diet. Applesauce is okay. Watch out for Rice Dream Vanilla Rice Drink, hidden away from the ingred list it mentions it does contain gluten (that was a rough 3 weeks). Lifestream Buckwheat Waffles - www.naturespath.com - are gluten-free, Dairy, yeast, and egg free and are actually pretty good. They are my bread and desert.

My dietician has mentioned grapes and green peppers as bothering people. If you try Pamela's Baking mix sift it, there can be big chunks. Before I got results the bread mixes I tried had yeast, eggs, and guar gum. Dietician told me a long time ago it sounded like my blood sugar was fluctuating too much when I spoke of dizziness, I think recently when I asked about fat that some fat is beneficial in help regulating blood sugar.

When you went gluten-free you might have increased your intake of something you are also sensitive to. I not only keep a diet log, but I do a graph calendar - I can make notes on it about what I will try, or what I will delete, and it really helps spot problem foods.

All the label reading you have to do makes shoppinng harder, I found that I was more inclined to make mistakes if I was in the store when I felt really bad. Wrie and call manufacturers for gluten-free food lists, they are very helpful. I even got one from Safeway, now I'll try Giant and Harris teeter.

Stay with it, it's a tough problem to deal with and theres a lot of really good info on this site. Read back on previous postings similar to yours. Good luck.

VAGuy

[j9n]

I have been doing fairly well on the low residue diet that someone on this board suggested. Keep yourself from getting dehydrated. I drink gatoraide and have pedialyte on hand for emergencies. I seem to be living on potatos and baked chicken.

My doctor just switched me to donnatal, I haven't tried it yet so I don't know if it works. It has a sedative in it along with an antispasmatic. Has your doctor given you anything for the spasms and pain?

Also stay away from raw fruits and veggies, caffeine and carbonated drinks. Keep it simple but protein is a must. I find red meats are really hard on my stomach but chicken or turkey is ok. Let your stomach rest and slowly start to add foods back into your diet with a couple of days inbetween to see if you react to it.

I hope this helps and you feel better soon!

[Kayleen007]

I ended up having to go to the hospital for the apple incident. They loaded me up on Morphine, though that didn't really help much. For those who have asked..I had a gi doctor when I lived in Texas..but haven't been able to afford to find one here. I don't have any insurance.

I used to be on levbid, flexeril, and bentyl. They never did much good for me. Donnotal doesn't work much either. A combination of flexeril and vicodin generally make me feel closest to normal. The doctor said it's because the codein in vicodin generally makes people constipated, but for people like me it slows the system down for you.

I think the hardest thing about this is I don't even know if I have Celiac's disease...and I can't afford to find out! So sometimes I feel like I'm fighting a useless battle because I'm trying to do all this diet stuff and I still feel like crap and then I think you're wasting your time if it ends up you don't even have this disease.

BUT..here I go anyway. So..I guess I'll try rice (I've noticed a lot of flavored rices have gluten in them, so I assume just white rice). Cooked veggies and maybe a banana. I had just gotten excited to find I could still drink Cokes in another thread..but maybe I ought to get rid of them. Which brings me to another question. I drink Mt. Dew and it doesn't give me the shakes or make me pass out..so why would the sugars in an apple do it?

Also...VAGuy..where in VA are you because I live in Va, too. Maybe you could help me find someone if we're in close areas.

Hmmm...okay, I think I touched on most of the topics..sorry this was so long.

[j9n]

I had heard that carbonated beverages can make diarrhea worse and also the caffeine. But if it doesnt seem to affect you then enjoy! I have insurance and a GI but I still don't know what is wrong (almost a year now). He doesn't seem too interested in my diet ("Foods are triggers not causes" he tells me) and since he is trying to find the cause the triggers are at the bottom of the list.

Oh, as far as apples go I was told not to eat the skin.

My gp finally gave me some vicodin, it has been a life saver. At least I am able to have a restful, somewhat painfree sleep. Bentyl doesn't do squat and levsin makes me feel too weird, I dont like it.