How Many Months After Starting Diet Did It Take You?

[IrishKelly]

I would like to start a research poll for the newbies on here. I'm curious as to how many months of a gluten-free diet it took until some of us started to feel better? I know the first couple weeks i used to get a little paranoid wondering if this "d" would actually ever go away. I'm 3 months in (still a newbie) and i still sometimes experience "d" and once in a while constipation. I learned from people on here that i ended up with a dairy problem too. All of this has gotten about 50% better at this point but i am still defintitely not healed.

[carriecraig]

Hi Kelly,

It took me a good 8 months to feel better, and then a whole year to feel pretty much back to normal. I still get "d" because I am lactose intolerant and am too stubborn to not eat dairy. I have also noticed that I don't have severe reactions anymore when I do have a glutening.

Hang in there.

[IrishKelly]

  carriecraig said:

Hi Kelly,

It took me a good 8 months to feel better, and then a whole year to feel pretty much back to normal. I still get "d" because I am lactose intolerant and am too stubborn to not eat dairy. I have also noticed that I don't have severe reactions anymore when I do have a glutening.

Hang in there.

Wow, anyone else wish to leave their comments?

[ravenwoodglass]

I noticed a difference in the amount of D I had right away, perhaps because I had D every day multiple times for 15 years before I did the elimination diet. I was very, very sick for a very long time so even a bit of improvement was cause for great joy. That said it took almost a year for all of the gluten related issues resolve for the most part, I attribute some of this to my being clueless about issues like CC and nonfood gluten for the first 6 months. I am now 4 years into the diet and except for some residual neurological damage that is still slowly resolving I am healthier and have more energy than I have had since I was very young. Seeing as I have been celiac since about the age of 5 when neuro symptoms first appeared and had severe GI troubles (misdiagnosed as IBS, take immodium, have a prozac and learn to live with it) starting at 30 I consider myself very fortunate that I have recovered as much as I have. Healing can be a long process and for me it required going to a diet that contained almost no processed foods but heal I have.

[spunky]

I knew things were "different" after two careful weeks of totally gluten free...but I wasn't actually "better," if that makes any sense. My "intestinal" activity was behaving differently, different patterns, but I was messed up pretty bad. After 3 months, I started having good days that felt like a normal person, but not every day was good, some were as bad as ever, it seemed. I had trouble seeing the difference between just setbacks and accidental glutenings for a while, and I don't know if it's always possible to know the difference in the early months. Finally, now at 8 months, I am having a pretty long normal time, and I feel so good it's amazing. I've noticed major mood improvements too, recently. I used to have sort of a despair feeling, but have felt very optimistic and hopeful with this new normal, well-feeling stage. I hope it lasts forever! Eating just feels better too. I think my entire digestive system is vastly improved now and I love to eat (it just feels better to eat now than it used to) and just need the bathroom once a day, except for the multiple coffee-induced, bladder visits, of course.