Swelling And Pain Associated With Celiac Disease?

[AndreaMelanie]

I am so glad to have found this forum. For months I have had tremendous swelling of my feet, ankles, knees, hands, fingers, elbows, wrists, you name it. It's not always in a joint. And I go red and itchy where i'm swollen. This summer I had a bad reaction to a skin cream with wheat in it. And I have found out that I also had a reaction as a child. I was dianosed with Crohn's 6 years ago at 21. Both of these things led me to request an antibody test from my Dr.

No Dr. can confirm my gluten suspicion and i am still (!) waiting for blood test results (although i know they are inconclusive).

Has anyone experienced these kinds of symptoms? I also get general pain throughout - especially arms and the pads of my fingers and toes, stiffness and red and swollen and itchy.

I am so sick of my own complaining and would love some light shone on all this.

THanks for reading. *sigh

[quentin]

If these were my symptoms I would suspect a food allergy. One thing you could try would be to eat only fresh boiled vegetables with grilled chicken, turkey, fish. No cooking oils, no salt. Only drink water. It's tough but it's healthy and keep it up for a few weeks and see if the symptoms improve. Then introduce one thing new into the diet like milk or cheese for a couple of weeks and see if the symptoms worsen. That way you'll discover the problem knowing that you can always return to your safe basic diet.

Hope this helps.

[mftnchn]

Could be an allergy, but could also be celiac. Hope you find the answers you need. You may improve on gluten-free, but might also need an elimination diet to determine the cause.

[AndreaMelanie]

Thanks for the information. My Dr is skeptical that it's an allergy adn wants to call it rheumatism. But I may ask for some genetic testing. Thanks for the advice - it's nice to know there is a whole forum of people here with much more insight than I. This elimination diet sounds pretty tough (going gluten-free was tough enough) but I my have to give it a try.