Stools Changes After Not Eating Gluten

[Sandyo]

I've just been tested for celiac disease and am waiting for my test results. Should be by mid week. I stopped eating gluten for three days and then started eating again before the blood test. I don't have any of the "allergy" symptoms just stomach issues. I've been constipated for years with very hard, dark stools. I've been taking stools softners and softner with laxative, and fiber pills for years. They help for a day or so. Three weeks ago I started getting stomach pains, nausia when eating, excesssive gas, hard extend belly, gained 5 pounds that running 25 miles a week won't get rid of. I noticed a link between feeling bad and my increase in eating whole wheat items to be healthy. So now that I've been test, I thought I be gluten free to longer and see what happens. Well, the first thing I notice is that my stools are lighter in color, softer and happen more often. But they float more. This puzzles me. When they were hard, on the little ones floated. Now that I'm not eating gluten, they all float. Is this just my body getting used to not eating the gluten? Oh, and my mother has not been tested, but has much more problems with gluten than I, including the "allergy" symptons. We're both lactose in tolerant and she is allergic to many medications, while I'm not allergic to any and have no other allergies. Does it sound like celiac disease and can anyone tell me why my stools are floating more now without eating gluten? Thanks for your help!

[CMCM]

  Sandyo said:

I've just been tested for celiac disease and am waiting for my test results. Should be by mid week. I stopped eating gluten for three days and then started eating again before the blood test. I don't have any of the "allergy" symptoms just stomach issues. I've been constipated for years with very hard, dark stools. I've been taking stools softners and softner with laxative, and fiber pills for years. They help for a day or so. Three weeks ago I started getting stomach pains, nausia when eating, excesssive gas, hard extend belly, gained 5 pounds that running 25 miles a week won't get rid of. I noticed a link between feeling bad and my increase in eating whole wheat items to be healthy. So now that I've been test, I thought I be gluten free to longer and see what happens. Well, the first thing I notice is that my stools are lighter in color, softer and happen more often. But they float more. This puzzles me. When they were hard, on the little ones floated. Now that I'm not eating gluten, they all float. Is this just my body getting used to not eating the gluten? Oh, and my mother has not been tested, but has much more problems with gluten than I, including the "allergy" symptons. We're both lactose in tolerant and she is allergic to many medications, while I'm not allergic to any and have no other allergies. Does it sound like celiac disease and can anyone tell me why my stools are floating more now without eating gluten? Thanks for your help!

There truly do not seem to be any particular set of symptoms which apply to all people with celiac disease. I always thought I was lactose intolerant, and I had terrible problems with any dairy, but thru testing for celiac I discovered I am casein sensitive, which is a whole different thing, and means you must always avoid casein same as gluten. When I stopped eating all gluten/casein I found constant changes in stools were happening....perhaps your observed change is due to eliminating gluten but not eliminating dairy, which is not exerting its own effect on everything. It takes a long time sometimes for your body to get regulated, too.

[Sandyo]

  CMCM said:

There truly do not seem to be any particular set of symptoms which apply to all people with celiac disease. I always thought I was lactose intolerant, and I had terrible problems with any dairy, but thru testing for celiac I discovered I am casein sensitive, which is a whole different thing, and means you must always avoid casein same as gluten. When I stopped eating all gluten/casein I found constant changes in stools were happening....perhaps your observed change is due to eliminating gluten but not eliminating dairy, which is not exerting its own effect on everything. It takes a long time sometimes for your body to get regulated, too.

Thanks for the info. I have been lactose intolerant for 7 years now. At least I have bad reaction to ice cream and milk. I've not been tested for it. What is casein? I have a friend with a child how has Autisum and she can't have casein or gluten. But I'm not sure what casein is? I can eat cheese and yogart and the little bit of milk used during cooking. I've been wondering if I'm becoming more sensitive to lactose or maybe I should be looking in elliminating casein. Thanks for the info.

[CMCM]

  Sandyo said:

Thanks for the info. I have been lactose intolerant for 7 years now. At least I have bad reaction to ice cream and milk. I've not been tested for it. What is casein? I have a friend with a child how has Autisum and she can't have casein or gluten. But I'm not sure what casein is? I can eat cheese and yogart and the little bit of milk used during cooking. I've been wondering if I'm becoming more sensitive to lactose or maybe I should be looking in elliminating casein. Thanks for the info.

Casein is the milk protein, whereas lactose is the milk sugar. Two completely different things. I supposed you could actually be both at the same time. I also had my worst reactions from milk and ice cream. In fact, the thing that made me the sickest was milk and cereal (I loved Wheat Chex!). Sometimes I did ok with low fat yogurts, and some cheese seemed OK. In any case, if you are casein sensitive, eating dairy can also damage your intestines same as gluten does. I'm finding that eliminating casein is almost harder than eliminating gluten....casein is in sooooo many things.

[Sandyo]

  CMCM said:

Casein is the milk protein, whereas lactose is the milk sugar. Two completely different things. I supposed you could actually be both at the same time. I also had my worst reactions from milk and ice cream. In fact, the thing that made me the sickest was milk and cereal (I loved Wheat Chex!). Sometimes I did ok with low fat yogurts, and some cheese seemed OK. In any case, if you are casein sensitive, eating dairy can also damage your intestines same as gluten does. I'm finding that eliminating casein is almost harder than eliminating gluten....casein is in sooooo many things.

that's also how I found out I'm lactose intolerant by suddently eating cereal in the mornings. How do I know if I can't handle the lactose or the casein? It seems like I can eat Lactaid Milk and reading the ingredients I'd say it doesn't have any lactose but probably still has casein. Am I correct?

Sandy

[aikiducky]

Yup, Lactaid milk has casein. Pretty much anything that originally was cow's milk has casein. If Lactaid milk doesn't give you problems you're probably just lactose intolerant.

You can expect your symptoms to change, and to go from better to worse and to better again, after going gluten free. It takes a long time before everything stabilizes so to say.

Pauliina

[prinsessa]

This is strange. I have been trying to not eat any foods with gluten for the past week (I say try because it is hard figuring out what has gluten in it). I have the same symtoms as you...my stools are much lighter and float more.

[Sandyo]

  prinsessa said:

This is strange. I have been trying to not eat any foods with gluten for the past week (I say try because it is hard figuring out what has gluten in it). I have the same symtoms as you...my stools are much lighter and float more.

I do find that strange...but people have told me that it will take a while our bodies to get acustom to the change. My doc said it mean excess air or fat in the stool and it wasn't a big deal. It doesn't mean malabsorption. I don't know what to think. The whole reason I started to look into this was because after being contipated for sooooo long, I figured I was doing damage and I should do something. So I guess as long as I'm going more and they are bigger and softer, then I'm accomplishing what I set out to do. I know as soon as I do accidently eat gluten because they will turn harder, darker and sometimes float and sometimes not (even at the same time). Hell, sometimes they are vertical!! Now how crazy is that!!!

If you learn more about this, please let me know because like you I thought the whole idea was to have them not float...but maybe it means we're just getting all the gluten out of our system.