Gluten challenge and Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

[Zuma888]

Hello,

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis about 3 years ago.

At that time I quit gluten and it really helped my symptoms. I hadn't known that I should've tested for celiac before doing so. 

Up till recently, gluten would cause my symptoms to flare up, although I never noticed anything with cross contamination, so I wasn't strict about that. But recently, I noticed I could get away with more gluten, and so I decided to do a gluten challenge to see if I had celiac and if I had to be strict.

Note that my thyroid antibodies had been decreasing steadily up to this point. My anti-TPO had reached 50 IU/ml from 250 IU/ml (reference range 0-5.6) when I had first been diagnosed.

After just a week of the gluten challenge, I measured my thyroid antibodies and they were at 799 IU/ml! I felt fine, but a few days after I started to feel the symptoms. Extreme brain fog, insomnia, diarheaa, fatigue, sleepiness yet cannot sleep, stomachache after eating gluten, nausea, swollen throat (probably due to my thyroid), burping, and gas. I cannot function properly. I'm also worried that I'm killing my thyroid.

Should I just quit the challenge? It's been almost two weeks, but the first week I wasn't tracking well, so that's why I didn't want to count it. I can't eat gluten anyway because of my thyroid, but I wanted the diagnosis to know if I should be strict about cross contamination or not.

 

[Scott Adams]

I’m so sorry you’re going through this—it sounds like your body is sending a clear signal that gluten is a major trigger for your Hashimoto’s. The dramatic spike in your anti-TPO (from 50 to 799!) and the severe symptoms you’re experiencing suggest a strong immune reaction, even if celiac testing wasn’t done earlier. While a formal diagnosis would clarify cross-contamination risks, continuing the challenge may not be worth the damage to your thyroid and quality of life, especially since you already know gluten worsens your antibodies and symptoms. If you need answers, you could discuss genetic testing (HLA-DQ2/DQ8 genes) with your doctor—this can rule out celiac predisposition without a gluten challenge. For now, prioritizing your health by quitting gluten again (strictly, given your sensitivity) and supporting gut healing (like probiotics, L-glutamine, or zinc carnosine) might be the wisest path. Your thyroid will thank you!

[Zuma888]

8 hours ago, Scott Adams said:

I’m so sorry you’re going through this—it sounds like your body is sending a clear signal that gluten is a major trigger for your Hashimoto’s. The dramatic spike in your anti-TPO (from 50 to 799!) and the severe symptoms you’re experiencing suggest a strong immune reaction, even if celiac testing wasn’t done earlier. While a formal diagnosis would clarify cross-contamination risks, continuing the challenge may not be worth the damage to your thyroid and quality of life, especially since you already know gluten worsens your antibodies and symptoms. If you need answers, you could discuss genetic testing (HLA-DQ2/DQ8 genes) with your doctor—this can rule out celiac predisposition without a gluten challenge. For now, prioritizing your health by quitting gluten again (strictly, given your sensitivity) and supporting gut healing (like probiotics, L-glutamine, or zinc carnosine) might be the wisest path. Your thyroid will thank you!

Thank you for your response.

You are right, this is not worth the damage to my thyroid since I know gluten is bad for me anyway. I stopped the challenge and did the IgA and tTG-IGA tests and am waiting for results, although I know it is likely they will be false negative anyway. I figured since I wasn't ever really strict about cross contamination, they might show positive if I do have celiac.

I did the genetic testing a few months ago and was positive for DQ8.

[Winnie-Ther-Pooh]

What were the results of the test?

[Zuma888]

1 minute ago, Winnie-Ther-Pooh said:

What were the results of the test?

Negative, although I had most of the symptoms of celiac disease.

I now eat as if I had a diagnosis.

[Winnie-Ther-Pooh]

8 minutes ago, Zuma888 said:

Negative, although I had most of the symptoms of celiac disease.

I now eat as if I had a diagnosis.

I am in a similar situation where I can't feasibly do a gluten challenge but have all the symptoms and I have 2 celiac genes. I'm curious if your doctor advised you to eat as if you had a diagnosis or if they were more dismissive about it. 

[Zuma888]

1 minute ago, Winnie-Ther-Pooh said:

I am in a similar situation where I can't feasibly do a gluten challenge but have all the symptoms and I have 2 celiac genes. I'm curious if your doctor advised you to eat as if you had a diagnosis or if they were more dismissive about it. 

I didn't ask a doctor about this actually. I did ask several doctors a long time ago and they told me gluten has nothing to do with hashimoto's. One of them told me to do a gluten challenge to test for celiac, but at the time I was in graduate school so couldn't afford to be even more ill than I was.

If you have the symptoms, I really don't advise you to do a gluten challenge. It messed me up mentally and physically for months. At the same time, I benefitted from doing the challenge in the sense that it convinced me that all my symptoms were truly from gluten - even stuff like insomnia! So now I am terrified to eat gluten, whereas before I would have a little once in a while and not notice anything dramatic.