Celiac Disease Recovery Abdominal Pain? Please Help!

[Narziss]

Hello,

I've had a mixture of yellow diarrhea and yellow loose stools but NO abdominal pain for 2.5 months. I also had recurring headaches during this time. Additionally, though I've always drank whole milk, I seemed to become lactose intolerant during this time.

Then I went gluten-free at the suspicion of being a celiac. I've been gluten-free for four weeks. (I had two blood tests done. The first showed I had below the normal range of IgA, and now I'm still waiting for the results of the second test: tissue transglutaminase G.) In the first two weeks my diarrhea decreased in frequency and soon went away; also, my headaches decreased in severity and frequency. In the following two weeks, I've had no diarrhea, my stools have become darker, more brown, and less frequent, and I've only had mild and short lived headaches.

This is all great, and I think I've found the problem (gluten) and the solution (gluten-free diet) to my recent diarrhea, headaches, fatigue, and anxiety.

However, in the past two days, I've noticed that my stool has continued to get darker and darker brown and less and less frequent. This is great since four weeks ago they were pale or yellow.. However, in the past two days I've gotten really bad cramping and abdominal pain! Also, I feel like if my stool keeps getting darker and less frequent. I'm really losing my appetite as well, and I'm afraid I'm going to soon develop bad constipation!

Is this normal (or not an abnormal) part of celiac disease recovery? Please help me with your comforting suggestion because this new abdominal pain is making me really, really anxious.

Have my intestines just gotten used to easily pushing through diarrhea and loose stools for 2.5 months and now that my stool is healthy again, they have to get used to pushing normal stools again? Will I end up suffering for constipation for a while while my intestines adjust to this non-gluten diet and firmer stool? I'm worried that I might get another hunger headache, but I'm also worried that eating more might make my abdominal pain worse.. I'd appreciate any comforting remarks and any suggestions.

In this recovery process, I've mainly been eating rice, tofu, vegetables, and fruits, with the occasional nuts, yogurt, beans, and fish.

Thank you for your help.

[GFinDC]

There is no way a major diet change is not going to have an affect. We aren't made out of stone or iron, our bodies do react to things we eat. Recovery can have many ups and downs. It sounds like you may have been having some malabsorption issues for a while. You could try taking some liquid B-12 and a B complex for a while to help with nerve health. Certainly there would be an adjustment period also. How have you gone gluten free? The best way is to stop eating any processed foods and make all your meals from whole ingredients at home, No eating out, no boxes/cans of this and that crap, no fast food, no mutivitamins with questionable ingredients. Dairy and soy are good things to eliminate at first also. You need to verify all your pills, drinks, foods are gluten free. Oats should also be eliminated as some of us react to them. You should also cut down or eliminate sugar for a while. And taking a pro-biotic may be a good idea too.

You want to make sure to drink plenty of water. And if you have started eating lots of gluten-free processed products you should stop those for a while. You could also add some fiber with flax seed meal or psyillium husks to your foods. Rice and veggies and some kind of meat are a good starting out meal. I'd ditch the tofu and all soy if I were you. Keep going, it does get better as we learn!