Healthy diet leading to terrible bloating

[cristiana]

Hello fellow coeliacs and a Happy New Year

I'd appreciate some advice.

In December I gave up junk food and ate a new healthy diet, which had a lot of gluten-free oats, nuts, oranges in it, and a quite a lot of black coffee, rather than my usual lattes etc.  After a week or so I felt awful bubbling and bloating in the area which I would say is the ascending and transverse colon.  Earlier in the day it might start with stabbing pain, maybe just two or three 'stabs', or a bit of an ache in my pelvis area, and then by the evening replaced with this awful bloated feeling.   I can still fit into all my clothes, there isn't any visible bloating but a feeling of bloating builds from early afternoon onwards.  The pain and bloating has always gone by the morning.  BMs normal.  

I went back to my normal diet over Christmas, for a couple of days things improved, but the bubbling and bloating then came back with a vengeance.  I'm having an ultrasound in a couple of weeks to check my pelvic area and if that is clear I suspect may have to have a colonoscopy, but is there anything anyone can recommend to calm this bloating down.  I have been given an additional diagnosis of IBS in the past but it has never been this severe.   I have to confess that I might have had some gluten over Christmas, I ate a lot of Belgium chocolates which were meant to be gluten free but the small print reveals that they were made in a shared facility, so I have probably brought this all on myself!

Edited January 3 by cristiana

[trents]

Making significant changes in our diets, even when it is in, what would we are told by the experts, a healthy direction, can be upsetting to our system until it adjusts. To make an analogy, it's like beginning an exercise regiment when we don't ease into it gradually. That's one thing that occurs to me as a response. And I think as we get up in years this becomes more and more true. We become less adaptable to change.

The other thing that occurs to me is that you may have added in things, that though they are nutritionally dense, may be things that you as an individual may have some degree of intolerance to. You mention nuts and citrus. Those are packed with nutrition but also high in histamines. And citrus is not only high in histamines but is also a histamine liberator. I know from personal experience there are some things I can eat occasionally, in limited amounts and I'm okay. But if I eat them too often or consume large servings they will give me an upset tummy or a migraine attack or both.

And you might also look at the possibility that you have developed diverticular disease. Nuts and seeds are a no no for that I understand.

Edited January 3 by trents

[cristiana]

@trents - THANK YOU, that is a really helpful and interesting post.

I have had fairly extreme symptoms. Being a veteran hypochondriac I've been imagining all sorts and what you say makes me think I've probably been up to my usual catastrophizing!    That said, I foresee another colonoscopy appointment if things don't settle down soon., and if I have got diverticulosis I guess that is how they will find out.

I've just checked some statistics and I had no idea until I googled the condition that such a large percentage of the UK population has diverticulosis, i.e. 50 per cent by the age of 50, and that diverticulitis itself - i.e.  inflammation of the diverticular - affects 5-25 per cent of the population.

 Oddly enough I knew a young woman with it and she told me years ago that it felt like there was a baby's foot wedged into her stomach at times, just like when she was expecting a baby, and this is exactly how it feels to me at times (although I realise as a man you will not be familiar with this sensation!)   I also do have an umbilical hernia which I think plays me up.

On your other earlier points - I have read elsewhere that sudden intake of fibre can cause a lot of discomfort.  It reminds me of the time I swapped a chocolate bar with a muesli bar with apricots in an effort to be healthy, and there was a stone in it which broke my tooth!  No pain no gain I suppose! 

And re: new intolerances, that too is very likely.   I will start keeping a food diary and my husband has today bought me some peppermint tea, hopefully that might help disperse some of the bloating!

Thank you.

 

 

Edited January 3 by cristiana

[Scott Adams]

I had double hernia laparoscopic surgery two months go to repair both an Inguinal hernia (a recent home project injury) and an umbilical hernia (which I had for many years, but fixing it at the same time made sense), and am now more or less fully recovered. Recently on the forum someone mentioned the idea of hernia induced IBS, which I now believe was a real for me, but was a fairly minor issue overall, which got worse after getting the more recent Inguinal hernia. My doctor never mentioned this as a possibility, even though I directly asked him about it during my office visit: Me "can my hernias cause any digestive issues?" My doctor: "No, I doubt that."

I still need to learn more about hernia induced IBS, but I realize now that I might have been affected by this to some degree in for a while. 

[cristiana]

@Scott Adams  Strange question but can you actually feel your hernia?  I have so many abdominal lumps and bumps of longstanding (my GP said it's fat!) that I sometimes wonder if an inguinal hernia could be missed.  I am quite sure some of my pain is from my umbilical hernia but that first came about courtesy of my second pregnancy.

[Scott Adams]

For the Inguinal hernia I could definitely feel it, and it came with an obvious bulge that appeared soon after doing a project where I was drilling holes on concrete using a very old school regular hand drill with mason bit, instead of a hammer drill with mason bit--this left me squatting over the drill putting my weight on it for several hours (the hammer drill would not have required this level of stress, nor the time it took). Bad idea--learn from my mistake in being "lazy" and not renting (or buying) the proper tool for the job.

My umbilical hernia was around for many years, and I didn't feel that one at all, so never worried about it. My doctor basically recommended doing both in one surgery, which seemed like wise move. 

As far as the possible IBS connection to either, it was definitely apparent after getting the Inguinal hernia, which is why I asked my doctor about that, but after getting both fixed I realize that the umbilical hernia likely also had mild IBS effects over the years.

[cristiana]

That sounds very hernia inducing work!

You confirm what I have suspected, I get pain just to the right of the umbilical hernia, I am sure there is a connection.  If do see my gastroenterologist I'll mention it again.   I can't help thinking I've also got an issue in my groin, perhaps a hernia threatening, I guess an ultrasound would be needed to confirm it.

[Stegosaurus]

The proteins in all the grains are similar enough to gluten to cause me to cross react.  Oats slaughter me.  Plus, all the grains have prolamines, which are toxic to humans.  The official recommendations for grains are not good for anyone, let alone celiacs.  I do best on a high fat diet, including lots of saturated animal fat.  Saturated fat does not cause cardiovascular disease or high cholesterol; high carb diets do.

[Aretaeus Cappadocia]

...but, but, you are a Stegosaurus?!

[trents]

Stegosaurus, one size doesn't fit all. Most celiacs do fine with oats and other non-gluten cereal grains. Grains can contribute important nutrients to the diet and are a relatively inexpensive food energy sources. I don't agree with the position that all celiacs should eliminate all grains from their diet. This line of thinking has been promoted for years by books like Dangerous Grains which make the case on logic rather than actual real world data. Like many biological phenomenon, what would seem to be logical doesn't pan out to be true in the real world.  But if you are one of those in the minority of celiacs who cannot tolerate cereal grains at all, I'm glad that you were able to sort that out.

Edited April 15 by trents

[cristiana]

Quick update.  I saw the title of this thread and forgot that I'd actually started it!  Oh dear!

It seems my new healthy diet was the cause of these symptoms,  I had a clear colonoscopy, thankfully. Now I know what it is I shall try to resume the healthy diet - the symptoms are annoying rather than painful, and I think it was doing me a lot of good, I certainly lost some pounds around the waistline (pity they piled back on again at Christmas!)