Missed Periods, Anxiety, Milk Of Magnesia...

[India]

Oh, it all seems such a mess.

I've been gluten-free since January. I posted messages recently when I tried an elimination diet. After two weeks, I abandoned the diet as I was becoming very weak and losing too much weight. Since then, I've been excluding FODMAPs from my diet and keeping a very detailed food diary. However, a couple of new problems have arisen:

Anxiety: I've recently had three night-time anxiety attacks. I had terrible anxiety for four years until giving up gluten and soy and I don't want to go back there. The attacks make my nerve/muscle pain go crazy too. Two attacks happened on nights I'd taken Milk of Magnesia. I can't find any other clues in my food diary, though I only have two weeks of notes so far. Can anyone tell me if Milk of Magnesia causes them anxiety or suggest other foods that do? I have been taking sublingual B12 supplements by the way. Also, life is quite stressful at present, but the attacks when I took Milk of Magnesia didn't seem to have any real trigger.

Missed period: one of my few signs of improvement after going gluten-free was the immediate return of my periods, every single month - except this month. I'm worried the elimination diet or the weight loss has caused this and it's really bothering me the way I'm messing my body around. Any thoughts?

Allie

[Chakra2]

I don't have any real ideas but just wanted to send encouragement. I've been gluten-free since January too and my health is definitely still a work in progress. Anxiety is one of my gluten symptoms. I don't know much about Milk of Magnesia but gluten contamination could be affecting your mental state. Corn causes serious neuro problems for me too. Not sure if that's a possibility for you? I hope you find some peace on this issue soon!

[India]

Hi and thank you for your reply. I've already given up corn too, plus dairy and some other things. I'll keep going with the food diary I guess. On the plus side, despite the sleepless night, yesterday was the most energetic I've felt in ages - not as good today, but hooray for the good days!

Good health to you

[Marz]

Two attacks happened on nights I'd taken Milk of Magnesia.

No idea if milk of magnesia contains gluten. Maybe as a thickener? But then it should state that... Googling "Milk of magnesia panic attack" didn't really bring anything up, one person had bad panic attacks after consuming "Maximun Strength Pepto-Bismol". I know certain medications do bring out bad panic attacks in me - namely Maxolon (Evil, evil stuff...)

Are you taking any other medication that's might be the problem, or the milk of magnesia is reacting with something else you're taking that's making side effects more potent?

Instead of milk of magnesia, try a gluten-free osmotic laxative like Fleet, or Miralax? Not sure if they're specifically gluten free, but they'll have the same effect as milk of magnesia.

Hmmm... Maybe you can post examples what foods you're eating ? Are you cooking whole foods you're preparing yourself - no commercial pre-packaged food? Is your kitchen completely gluten free, new gluten-untouched utensils?

Are you eating gluten-free flours like rice flour, tapioca, potato etc? Commercially produced gluten-free foods like pastas, crackers, biscuits made with gluten-free flours? I react to these for some reason, I suspect not as "gluten-free" as they claim, but I really don't know at this point. Maybe I'm intolerant to grains full stop.

Keep us posted on your progress

[India]

Hi Marz,

Thanks for your reply. Milk Of Magnesia is apparently gluten-free and was um, highly effective - so maybe I'll give it one more go and see if it happens again. I'm in the UK and don't know the other brands you mention unfortunately. I'm not taking any other medications though; also, I'm very careful about gluten and my house is gluten-free. I'm eating almost entirely whole foods, with no corn, soy, gluten or FODMAPs. I definitely react to millet and teff and, somehow, pretty much any gluten-free cake mix. I've not had any kind of baked goods for months, sadly... though I think about them a lot! Rice seems ok but I think, like you, most grains disagree with me.

I realised in the last couple of days how stressed I'm getting lately for various reasons, so maybe old anxiety habits die hard even once the evil gluten and soy are gone. I'm keeping an eye on it with my super-neurotic food diary though

The good news is that I'm having fewer drained-of-energy days so maybe I've cut out something that's bad for me... I just have to figure out what it is!

[Marz]

Sounds like you've got all your bases well covered. I'd say just keep it up, it sounds like you're still healing? Take it easy and keep the stress down. Even with being gluten intolerant we may have further issues like Chrons, "IBS" with a stress trigger etc.

By the way, if you're still struggling with anxiety/panic attacks, I highly recommend "The Linden Method", it really helped for my panic attacks. It's based on lowering your base anxiety level, distraction by immersing yourself in a new hobby (for coping with panic attacks/OCD) and has a lot of other good common sense techniques for coping. The focus is on getting back to living life normally, not focusing on symptoms and anxiety which ends up in a vicious circle. Just google it and you'll find the main site. A bit pricey but I found it worth it (Better than the psychologist I paid the same amount for).