How Long On A Gluten-free Diet Before Trying To Conceive?

[Heidi Kelly]

Hi! I was diagnosed with celiac in May of 2005. Went gluten free right away but fell off the wagon at Thanksgiving and stayed off until 2 months ago. I was in denial, first (and only one) in family to be diagnosed, no family history and was completely asymptomatic. So I had the biopsy and I do in fact have it and have been gluten free again since September 2006. My question is: How long until you are healed enough before it is safe to start trying to conceive? my son just turned 3 and I would like to remove my IUD at the end of this month...my endo (have Graves disease too, but thyroid was killed) is running a full panel, including the celiac panel to make sure my gliadins are down but I though I would ask my fellow female celiacs about their experience and get some advice.

Thank you!

[Guest cassidy]

The recommendations I heard have been about 6 months. If you had positive blood work then you could have the blood test again and see if your levels have returned to normal, if they have you should be good. It really depends on how you are feeling also. You will definitely need to stay gluten-free when you are pregnant so I would make sure that you are totally committed to the diet. It must be hard not to cheat if you don't get sick from cheating and if no one else in your family has it.

I waited 8 months until we started trying. I have felt so crappy being pregnant that if I knew it would be this hard I would have waited a little longer. I felt bad from celiac for so long that to only have a few good months before feeling crappy again has been hard. Since you already have a child you know how your body reacted to being pregnant and hopefully it wasn't so hard on you. I know it will all be worth it in the end and I am lucky that I got pregnant so quickly.

[happygirl]

heidi,

just a quick post (see my pm!) but wanted to add:

make sure when your doctor runs your blood panel, that he runs the FULL panel, not just the anti-gliadins. Some doctors only run some, not all, and I just wanted to make sure you get all the answers you need.

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You might want to read Dr. Peter Green's book "Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic" (he is a leading researcher and physician at the Celiac Clinic at Columbia University). He includes at least one big chapter on pregnancy and fertility (he covers EVERYTHING! including thyroid probs, which I see you have). I highly recommend his book.

Hopefully this will help you some in your quest to make the best informed decision! Best of luck.

Laura

[hannahsue01]

That's a great question to ask. Some of us here including myself have had babies prematurly due to this disease. Our last daughter was born 3 months early......trust me that you want to prevent this if at all possible. I think your going the right route with getting some blood tests done. I would make sure that your things like iron and calcium levels are good so that you know your obsorbing them......vitamens don't do much good unless they are being obsorbed. Good luck with your next baby and hope everything goes well!

[Heidi Kelly]

Thank you all for your wonderful advice. I am definitely committed to the diet now that I know I for sure have it...it is easy to deny with just the blood test (could it have been a false positive?) but there is no denying the biopsy! I am actually really loving the diet....I did a Thanksgiving "dry run" last week and it was awesome, even all of my friends and family that attended loved it...could not tell the difference! By the way...(totally off original topic here) but I made my own green bean casserole with my own homemade "condensed" cream of mushroom soup and french fried onion rings...better than the canned stuff for sure! Also, I have found a flour that is almost like all purpose flour...no crumbs, no falling apart, no gritty taste. It is by Tom Sawyer. www.glutenfreeflour.com It has the xanthan gum already in it so no need to buy a ton of different flours and make your own mix!

But back to the topic at hand, my doctor is running a full panel, including all the celiac tests, iron, calcium, folate, blood sugar, cholesterol and thyroid screen so hopefully it will come back good. It has been such a long journey since having Sam 3 years ago....never in a million years would I have thought that having a baby could "flip the switch" on 2 autoimmune diseases! Although I would do it again in a heartbeat as it was totally worth it for my son....I am hoping nothing new comes up with the next baby!

Hope you all have a great weekend!