Bloating?! New To Diet...

[nmorris087]

Hi everyone! I'm Nancy, age 32, in NJ. Have had on and off tummy issues whole life and lately feeling very "brain fogged", lots of headaches, feeling "drugged" at times and lots of mouth sores. I have 2 children with a variety of food related issues (not celiac) so I am not new to extreme food restrictions (had a child who was NO food for years)...anyway, I just started trying to go gluten-free 3 days ago. day 1 and 2 I was home so all was great. Day 3 (yesterday) was my nephew's graduation party and i forgot my safe food, so I ate wheat....I dont feel sick to stomach BUT like I got hit by a bus, and my stomach looks 3 months pregnant...is it possible that my body could have started to detox in as little as 2 days and is protesting now? Or do things get worse before they get better? I feel so lousy today, I only drank water and ate boiled pork chop and a sweet potato...I just feel so sleepy and bloated....I don't even want to eat!!

Thanks for listening!!

[kpryan]

Hi there! I think you could feel that even that short a time after giving up gluten. And those are the exact symptoms I get too. Have you been tested? If not, you might want to consider that before you go gluten free......b/c once you are gluten-free, you won't want to go back....

I am in NJ too....where are you located? I'm in Union County.

[GlutenFreeManna]

Welcome to the board! Many people that had neuro symptoms before going gluten free have the gastro symptoms also after going gluten free and getting glutened. You just gave your body its first test and saw the results of how bad gluten can hurt you. Fortunately, you figured it now so you will start to want to avoid it at all costs. I knew gluten was my problem, but I was in denial and decided to try some pizza after 2 months gluten free. I had been feeling good and decided to test my body. I was sick for a week from just two slices. It's a great motivator now when I want something I used to eat. The amount of pain and suffering that occurs is not worth eating something familiar, nor is it worth it just to socialize or "not be rude". Now that you know how much you need to eat gluten-free to be healthy you can start planning for events like that. I take food with me whenever I go to a party. If I can't take something that's gluten free to share with everyone (like if it's a catered event or I don't know the hostess) then I at least make sure I bring something I can discretely eat on my own when I get hungry. others have posted here they take a jar of peanut butter in their purses. Since you know about having to plan to feed you kids safe foods, I'm sure you'll have no problem planning to have safe food on hand for yourself. Just know that if you plan on getting tested for celiac's disease later on you will have to go back to eating gluten to get a positive test result.

[Mari]

The problem as I understand it is that what you ate - maybe the gluten or something else - caused a reaction which slowed down the partly digested food in your small intestine allowing the carbohydrates in the food to ferment producing the gas and bloating. Gluten is a very high carbohydrate food and it seems you have an imbalance of bacteria and yeasts in your upper intestine. Then you ate a yam which is another high carbohydtate food and fed these organisms more. If you look at the Specific Carbohydrate Diet you can learn to choose foods which don't feed these organisms. Even after 4 years gluten-free I kept having episodes of bloating until recently when I took Candida herbs and Neem.