Grain free and low FODmap anti itchy eczema

[YoloGx]

Hi, I am re- discovering that a grain free diet is helping my eczema go away plus hits making me able to sleep way better. That along with a lower FODMap diet is reducing my bloating.
 

I realize this could be considered a controversial topic—however it’s really helping me even though I’ve had no great need to lose weight. Just getting rid of the itchy eczema is beneficial enough. Now I can sleep way better not being itchy. It also seems to be improving my nerves. Plus now I can eat more non grain foods. 
 

I have been completely gluten free since the end of 2007– and previous to that I had reduced gluten greatly for many years (I had erroneously thought it was just an allergy).
 

Being strictly gluten free simply hasn’t been enough. Even the pseudo grains bother me  unfortunately. 
 

Being grain free is actually reducing my other food sensitivities. Now I can eat eggs and peanut butter amazingly— both of which have been verboten for some years.
 

I was initially diagnosed with celiac when I was less than a year old. I was exposed to radiation from Hanford’s infamous Green Run experiments. I became ill with terrible bronchitis plus i stopped growing. This went on for several months.

Fortunately the doctor was from a research hospital back East. He figured out after I was put in isolation and got better after being taken off gluten and high fat milk. My mother had celiac but thought she had “grown out of it”— which no doubt gave the good doctor an important clue. I got way better being gluten free. Back then I ate a lot of Uncle Ben’s Rice. 

Unfortunately I was put back onto eating gluten grains when I turned five due to the ignorance of the 1950’s. At that time the docs figured one could grow out of it.

My mother also wanted to spare me the experience of appearing different at school etc— as she was forced to have a gluten free diet by her parents. 

The problem is that being severely sensitive to gluten all those years didn’t help my intestinal villi any. I thus still have leaky gut even though it probably isn’t as bad as it was ten or fifteen years ago. 

I am now eating more low FODMap squashes —mainly summer squash and delicati with small portions of Kabocha (which I am more sensitive to) as well as some root vegetables for my starch. Fortunately rutabagas work well for me. I also eat a bit of yams—after I peel, slice and boil them and then throw out the water to reduce oxalates. I’m allergic to carrots so I avoid them and their cousin parsnips.

I’ve yet to fully figure out which high FODmaps are ok for me—though onion and garlic appear to be fine. 

I’ve reintroduced chia seed pudding sweetened with stevia. And am glad to report I am fine adding a couple of tablespoons of ground sunflower seeds to it along with two tablespoons of blueberries—for now my one allowable fruit given how sensitive I am to fruit in general. 
 

so this is my journey. I’m wondering if there’s others here experiencing and exploring similar healing effects being grain free and perhaps low FODMap.

YoloGx

[YoloGx]

I’m actually wondering if scar tissue from a traumatic accident when I was six could have also created intestinal adhesions. I take serrapeptase regularly to counteract scar tissue. However it seems like I get bloated no matter what I eat, though some things like eating more than just a smidgen of cabbage or an excess of almond flour are worse.

Meanwhile despite all I’m going to try out having a very small amount (1/4 cup) of organic canned garbanzo beans. I used to cook up my own after a day of letting it soak and then cooking it extra—given all that there was no problem. This was also while I was eating grain free. So I’m hopeful.

I think eating the pseudo grains may have also contributed towards my having severe histamine sensitivity since it appears I wasn’t so awfully sensitive to eating lactose free yogurt in the past while also grain free—YoloGx

 

[knitty kitty]

@YoloGx,

Welcome to the forum!

I followed the Autoimmune Protocol Diet and found more health improvements than when I followed the Low fodmap diet.  

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/aip-diet-autoimmune-protocol-diet

Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, herself a Celiac, developed the diet for herself and her Celiac family.  scientific studies have shown this diet does help heal the small intestine.  Once healed and feeling better, you can include more foods.  

Nuts and beans are eliminated because they have hard to digest Lectins.  

Cabbage is a cruciferous vegetable like broccoli and cauliflower.  They produce lots of gas during digestion, so those are best avoided.  

I still have problems with alternative grains.  I recently came to the conclusion that buckwheat is a problem.  

Which alternative grains were problematic for you?  What prompted you to go grain free? 

[YoloGx]

Hi Knitty,

 I’m glad to hear that the autoimmune protocol diet has helped you. It really is good for a lot of people.

Unfortunately I developed severe histamine intolerance when I tried following that diet years ago. I was loving making sauerkraut and bone broth but it didn’t last long. It ended up increasing my histamine intolerance and thus migraines and insomnia etc. 

Since then I haven’t been able to eat fermented foods without getting a migraine. Am hoping that will eventually change by my being off the grains again. 

Years ago I was on an anti Candida diet— and found great relief following the so called Cave Man diet. Basically we ate everything made from scratch plus no grains or sugar etc. And instead we ate lots of vegetables including squash and roots as well as meat and fish. The one kind of fermented food I tolerated was home made yogurt.

I also finally had my silver amalgam fillings removed which both helped and for a time hindered me due to the mercury that got stirred up. My detox herbs really helped me slowly get past that plus taking food grade bentonite clay slaked in water regularly.

I reverted later on and began eating rice again after I was supposedly cured of candida overgrowth. At that time I thought I was allergic to gluten containing grains and thus mostly avoided them. 

so I had this old experience of eating grain free and feeling a lot better. And I now realize from reading an old post of mine from 2009 here on celiac.com that I briefly tried eating grain free again and felt way healthier—plus my eczema went away.

However I was going through an extremely stressful period of time right after the initial eczema free experience—so it came back. 

After that I soon went back to eating rice and started exploring using pseudo grains. In the process of all that I eventually discovered I had celiac rather than just an allergy to wheat and oats etc. 

The last three years I wasn’t eating any rice and instead just ate pseudo grains plus lots of vegetables and home made chicken soup.

Recently the eczema got really bad however and it finally occurred to me I should try out that old Cave man diet without even the pseudo grains again. 

So far it seems to be really working! The eczema is nearly gone. 

I’m also just now starting to experiment with sprouting legumes—so far so good! Though it’s just at the beginning stage now. Whereas otherwise I’ve had issues with legumes previously. 

similarly I now can eat pure peanut butter and also  eggs. I haven’t tolerated either in years.

The low FODMap diet in addition seems to be helping reduce my bloating and helps against insomnia. Thus I’m finding it’s ok for me to eat half a cup of broccoli but no more. Ditto with cabbage. But Bok Choi, kale and collard greens are just fine for instance.

Am excited since so far it seems that lactose free yogurt may turn out to be  fine for me.

And now by having blueberries only in small portions I am able to eat a little fruit again. I plan on trying out a little honeydew next. The idea is to freeze the rest in serving sizes. 

I’ve also just figured out that I am not only intolerant to all nuts but also to coconut—even the oil as well as the milk etc.

I plan to try out sprouting quinoa and maybe buckwheat. My hope is that by getting rid of the anti-nutrients I’ll be able to eat the sprouted grains (much like the sprouted legumes) without getting the itchy eczema back again. Or migraines. Or insomnia and jerky legs at night. So we’ll see by trial and error.

of course walking and yoga helps a lot too. And my kidney, liver, lymphatic balancing herbs

It’s still in the experimental stage. But so far it seems very promising.

my friend G is being helped by this combination diet too — though he feels like he’s getting too skinny. So he’s going to experiment and try out eating some buckwheat noodles again.

He seems to have more FODMap sensitivity than I do. He’s had terrible IBS with severe nausea. That is amazingly going away! Plus he’s sleeping a lot better. But it may be that the low FODMap diet has been helping him the most. His body will surely let him know if it’s ok for  him to eat the pseudo grains or not. Plus of course he intends to stay gluten free. 

My hope is that eating sprouted pseudo grains and legumes will make all the difference for me. 

So are you still on the elemental diet or have you gone more paleo or?

 

[knitty kitty]

@YoloGx,

Yes, I had histamine intolerance, too, when doing the Autoimmune Protocol Diet, so I skipped the high histamine bone broth and fermented foods.  I skipped the kefir, too, due to casein allergy.

How does the AIP diet without the high histamine foods differ from the Cave man diet?  The AIP diet cuts out sugar and all grains.  

Vitamins for skin health include Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, and niacin (the kind that flushes).  Healthy fats, omega threes, like flaxseed oil, are helpful, too.  

Thiamine (Benfotiamine and Allithiamine/Thiamax) helps with insomnia.  Tryptophan, magnesium, Pyridoxine B6, and L-Theanine help with insomnia, too. 

I'm so glad you're feeling better!

 

[YoloGx]

Knitty, wow—our experience with the histamine is so similar! That diet made me worse. What is it that you’ve done since?

But yes for me the last three years my diet was otherwise very like the autoimmune diet.  I’ve eaten an awful lot of zucchini and lettuce and cucumbers for instance. However I was also eating those pseudo grains every day. Plus coconut which I was eating almost every day apparently is a no no for me. It appears to keep awake plus makes me bloated —and who knows what else. 

I think it’s also helped that I avoided high oxalate foods for nearly four years. Now I can eat cruciferous vegetables again —though not in excess. 

I just tried out eating Green Valley lactose free yogurt and found it really agreed with me. It seemed to calm me down and allowed me to finally sleep after I had reacted to the coconut some hours before. It’s obviously too early to really tell but I’m speculating that my problem with milk has been the lactose and not the casein.

Interestingly Lactaid milk makes me feel ill. However I just learned there’s different ways they create lactose free milk. Lactose intolerance apparently can be a FODMap issue. I think that the way I used to make homemade yogurt may have reduced the lactose in it. 

It’s also possible that going off the pseudo grains and the coconut (which I’ve done this last month) is reducing my inflammation—thus allowing me to eat more foods. 

no matter what it’s all rather complicated. However I’m finally appearing to successfully thread the needle!
 

[YoloGx]

On 11/23/2022 at 2:44 AM, knitty kitty said:

@YoloGx,

Welcome to the forum!

I followed the Autoimmune Protocol Diet and found more health improvements than when I followed the Low fodmap diet.  

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/aip-diet-autoimmune-protocol-diet

Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, herself a Celiac, developed the diet for herself and her Celiac family.  scientific studies have shown this diet does help heal the small intestine.  Once healed and feeling better, you can include more foods.  

Nuts and beans are eliminated because they have hard to digest Lectins.  

Cabbage is a cruciferous vegetable like broccoli and cauliflower.  They produce lots of gas during digestion, so those are best avoided.  

I still have problems with alternative grains.  I recently came to the conclusion that buckwheat is a problem.  

Which alternative grains were problematic for you?  What prompted you to go grain free? 

Hi Knitty, I hope you survived Thanksgiving ok. I ended up getting a migraine from eating lactose free yogurt that also had sugar etc in it. I thought it’d be ok but clearly it wasn’t!!

you might want to consider sprouting your pseudo grains or at least soaking them overnight. It’s supposed to help get rid of a lot of the often offending excess phytates. Ditto with legumes (which apparently also digest better with greens and a little meat). Of course legumes also have other hard to digest lectins and saponins. Which again are reduced by sprouting —I think.

Am I right? For me fermenting my food seems to be no longer an option. 

Check out the Weston Price Foundation for more information. 

I am giving it a try. So am soaking a serving of hulled whole millet to cook up tomorrow.  

Right now am eating home grown mung bean sprouts with my greens, zucchini and liver. I made some up the other day and had no issues with the sprouts! 

Bea