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Confused About The "healing Crisis"

loxleynew

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loxleynew Apprentice
loxleynew
Posted

Ok so Ive read about the herx reaction otherwise known as the healing crisis. I was wondering since everyone goes through it I suppose. Does it just magnify whatever symptoms you had prior to going gluten free? Does it also on top of that add new ones?

Like for instance I seem to have gotten new symptoms (diharea, headaches) along with magnifying my old symptoms that I had already. It just doesn't seem right to me that it gets THIS BAD before it gets better. Like my symptoms went from bad to 3x worse just 8-10 days on this diet.

I didn't quite find anything in search about this, sorry if it has come up before.

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Mother of Jibril Enthusiast
Mother of Jibril
Posted

I have several thoughts...

1. It takes time to heal on the gluten-free diet. Depending on your symptoms, the first few weeks (or even months) can be a roller coaster of ups and downs.

2. A lot of people get more sensitive to gluten once they cut it out of their diet. For example, after I was gluten-free for two months I started getting an itchy rash when I was cross-contaminated. This made me realize I needed to be a LOT more careful about restaurants and processed foods.

3. You could have the flu... or something totally unrelated to celiac :(

4. The "herx" is a reaction some people get during treatment for candida overgrowth... that might explain why you weren't finding the information you were looking for.

5. Maybe some of your symptoms are things you thought were just "normal" for you... only now you realize they're related to gluten and you're not willing to put up with them! This is a good thing.

6. Maybe gluten is not your only intolerance... dairy, corn, soy, eggs, nuts, and grains in general are problem foods for a lot of people. Is there anything you started eating a lot more of when you went gluten-free? For me, that was corn... and it was causing some of the same symptoms.

mftnchn Explorer
mftnchn
Posted

This seems to happen at times. I experienced after going gluten-free, and again after going on SCD 15 months later. I also have lyme disease, and the borrelia spirochete bacteria that is the main cause of lyme gives off toxins when it dies in the body and produces a herxheimer reaction. A few bacteria are known to do that.

A lot of people have described ups and downs during the healing process for months, and can be longer than a year.

In addition, with food allergies you can go through this type of thing. For example in the past, my allergist had me do a five day fast and then food challenges. He warned of this happening, but said it should clear by the fifth day, which it did for me.

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      Thank you for the clarification and for taking the time to explain the terminology so clearly. I really appreciate your insight, especially the distinction between celiac disease and NCGS and how anemia can point more toward celiac. This was very helpful for me.
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