Just Started Gluten-free Diet... Horrible Withdrawal

[nbachiri]

I just started myself and my two small children on a gluten-free diet to see if it will help with some of their behavorial issue with ADHD. I've done quite a bit of research on the subject. I went on it too to make it easier for them to understand. It has been six days and they are doing fine but I'm having horrible withdrawal. Three-day migraine, nausea, irritability, feels like morning sickness.

Does this mean I have a problem with gluten or does withdrawal happen to everyone? Since I'm not planning on staying gluten-free should I go ahead and restart gluten to feel better?

Please help!

[rinne]

Hi and welcome.

I'm thinking that the withdrawal shouldn't last that much longer and if you can stick with it it really will help with figuring things out with your sons.

Sorry, maybe not what you wanted to hear. I haven't had gluten for nearly three years now and don't miss it a bit so I might not be the most sympathetic ear.

[Jestgar]

Does this mean I have a problem with gluten or does withdrawal happen to everyone? Since I'm not planning on staying gluten-free should I go ahead and restart gluten to feel better?

Please help!

It should be just food. If your having this much of a reaction to not eating it, you might want to consider what it does to your body when you are eating it.

[Hummingbird4]

Maybe you have a virus and your symptoms have nothing to do with not eating gluten. Are you taking in carbohydrates in other forms? Going off all carbs suddenly can bring on headaches and irritability.

[Takala]

Tell us what you are eating so we can trouble shoot it.

I must be some sort of freak, I'm starting my 6th year of not eating it and I never had the withdrawals, but I was already supplementing with vitamins and minerals so I expect that had something to do with it.

I suspect you are not taking a B- complex vitamin and calcium/magnesium supplements, and are also using a lot of gluten free commercially prepared substitutes that has another ingredient(s) you are reacting to. Like many gluten intolerant people, if I eat too much grain carbohydrate and not enough vegetables and good fats, I don't function that well, and if I'm craving sugars I'm actually minerally out of balance.

[ravenwoodglass]

Some of us get withdrawl symptoms and some don't. Celiac is genetic so it certainly is not out of the realm of possibility that you also need the diet. If it is withdrawl it should be over soon. Stick it out and you will most likely wake up in a day or two feeling much better.