Experimenting With Gluten & Gut Recovery

[mr-da]

Hello there,

New to this forum, first post, recently found and read with fascinated relief as three weeks ago I realised it could be gluten which, these past many years, has been the source of my troubles and ills; dark eyes, constipation, fatigue, bloating and itchy skin. I fasted for a few days then, ten days ago, cut out gluten completely and, so far, all is miraculous. I feel like I've just woken from a ten-year sleep - no exaggeration, as you fellows surely know. Indeed, I am - like others before me I believe - praying that I am gluten intolerant or coeliac; losing bread and biscuits and the like would be a tiny, insignificant price to pay for my wonderful state right now.

I could go on in raptures, of course but I'm sure these boards are bursting with such. I've got a couple of questions which I couldn't find here though, so if anyone happens to know...

...firstly up till cut-off point I'd been a regular normal consumer of all things gluten. A very "healthy" cereal diet indeed, full of spelts and ryes and whatnot, but with usual contingent of pasta and regular (albeit malted) wheat. Now that I've cut the gluten lot out, I'm a bit scared to experiment with the tiniest morsel of any of the sods. Any recommendations on whether I should take a nibble of Rye for example, to see if perhaps I can deal with occasional tiny dose of lower-gluten cereal? Could I end up back in sludge? If I do experiment, how should I go about it?

...and secondly, all my problems have gone away except constipation. I am still having bowel movements, but its all pretty sluggish. I'm not overly bothered as there is some movement, which is okay, and everything else is so good. Now - would I be right in thinking, do you think, that after years of villi-abuse my worn and ravaged gut will take a while to recover... and I can't expect a good service to resume for weeks, months or perhaps longer? Any ideas there?

That's it then. Thank you all - like I say its been a relief reading this forum. I'm grateful for the information I've already read, shared here.

All the best,

Darren

[ravenwoodglass]

After years of D that was pretty constant, like 10 to 15 times a day and at night I was concerned about C at first. The first 4 days on the diet I had no movement at all and then went to having one a day. That once a day has been consistent now for 8 years unless I get glutened. I will get C if I am consuming soy along with nasty stomach pain since I am also intolerant to that.

It does take us some time to heal and it sounds like the diet is working well for you. Make sure that you are getting enough fiber from fruits and veggies and if you are feeling well I wouldn't worry about it. If your having pain then that is a different matter though.

[FooGirlsMom]

Hi,

By the way - welcome - and congratulations. I hope this does the trick for you too.

To start by answering your questions...answer to #1...no. If you are Celiac or Gluten Intolerant, it's super important to stay away from all things gluten - forever. I'll give you the example from my own personal history. I was super sick in my 20s. Really sick. I "accidentally" happened upon 2 diets that helped. One was Body Ecolody (Gluten Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free, & sugar free with almost no fructose). In 3 months all my symptoms cleared. I thought I was treating Candida and hormonal imbalances. I was a healthy eater too (can you say whole foods and whole wheat??. Anytime symptoms re-occurred in any form, I'd go back on the diet for a month. Lo and behold the symptoms cleared. Then a couple of years later I wanted to lose a bit of weight. So I found Atkins - sugar free, dairy free, & gluten free. I felt like a million bucks. I stayed on this diet, sometimes a total of 6-8 months out of the year to control "symptoms". This went on for 13 years total. I had varying levels of "wellness" during this period because I didn't stay on these diets 100% all the time.

I come to 2008 and I am off the diets. For a year I'm glutening at a level I haven't in 13 years. Within months I'm not feeling too well. Within a year I am showing signs of auto-immune diseases. Each month thereafter I'm developing new symptoms by the month. I hit October of this year and I'm wondering if I'm going to see my next birthday. I feel like toast.

My point in telling you my story is this -- if gluten is your problem the only way to "recover" and stay "recovered" is to eat a gluten free diet. I look back now and I can see very clearly that "to the degree" I ate gluten-free was the degree of health I experienced for 13 years. I was still damaging my body and didn't realize it then. So I've had 2 episodes 13 years apart of extremely poor health with some years inbetween that varied from excellent to ok.

My conclusion? Go on the diet and STAY on the diet if you feel better.

I also want to add that I hope going gluten-free will do it completely for you, but many of us find that secondary intolerances kick in after the honeymoon period. Mine lasted a full 2 weeks. Then I discovered that dairy, soy & corn are bothering me while I heal.

To your 2nd question: Yes, it will take time to heal. Since you're a healthy eater, try taking a look at your green veggie intake and make sure it's high enough and that with it, you're drinking enough pure water. Probiotics can help restore good bacteria to your gut and get things moving often times. Beyond that, I'd experiment with food intolerances. See if one of the top 8 allergens (well lets make it 9 with corn added) is constipating you by eliminating the one at a time for a week or two each, then reintroducing them. Wheat is a top 8 allergen and that's gone. So at the 2 week mark, you could start with soy or dairy, 2 big culprits.

Good luck to you and hope you are feeling terrific soon,

FooGirlsMom

[mr-da]

Thank you both for your informative answers.

[mr-da]

Curses!

Spoke too soon. All symptoms have come back, and I don't know why

Could it be the oats I'm still eating? Could it be using a bowl used for pasta for a quick fry? Could it be, as FooGirlsMom suggested, another allergy?

It's pretty depressing!

[Wolicki]

Most celiacs cannot tolerate regular oats. Oats are grown in fields with wheat and stored in the same silos. As a matter of fact, many celiacs cannot tolerate certified gluten free oats (my son included). Gluten is in: wheat, barley, malt, rye and oats. I would guess that's the issue.

[Skylark]

I was looking at your original post. If you think you're celiac, testing with a nibble of wheat is not necessarily going to tell you much. Sometimes I react to traces, but last time I ate a wheat cracker by mistake (whoops, wrong box) I was perfectly fine. You also CANNOT be eating an occasional nibble of cereal even if you don't react. It will still trigger autoimmunity and damage villi again if you take enough nibbles. You'll get into gluten by mistake, since the blasted stuff is everywhere, so save your nibbles for mistakes and never consume the stuff on purpose.

Oats are a no-go unless they're certified gluten-free. Even McCann's which claims to be safe for celiacs on their website has been independently tested and came up over 50 ppm gluten. The only way to get safe oats is to buy from a company that is buying from wheat-free oat fields and testing the oats with R5 ELISA. Even then you may be one of the celiacs who reacts to oat avenin. Also, pay attention when you eat dairy, as many celiacs are cross-sensitive. I was until I healed.

[mr-da]

Good lord, this is a nightmare! Oats as well? What on earth can I have for breakfast? I'm living in a remote Bulgarian village at the moment - options are pretty narrow. Anyrate, that's my problem. My new strategy therefore is - cut out wheat, barley, malt, rye, oats, corn and soya. Wait and wait and wait to be sure that one of them is the cause and then experiment with some reintroductions to see if any can be tolerated under restricted or occasional doses. For now I'm going to assume for now - perhaps insanely - that lactose is okay.

Thank you all so much for your help during this trying time! You've all taken a lot of time to give me your good opinions, and I appreciate it.

Darren

[ravenwoodglass]

Good lord, this is a nightmare! Oats as well? What on earth can I have for breakfast? I'm living in a remote Bulgarian village at the moment - options are pretty narrow. Anyrate, that's my problem. My new strategy therefore is - cut out wheat, barley, malt, rye, oats, corn and soya. Wait and wait and wait to be sure that one of them is the cause and then experiment with some reintroductions to see if any can be tolerated under restricted or occasional doses. For now I'm going to assume for now - perhaps insanely - that lactose is okay.

Thank you all so much for your help during this trying time! You've all taken a lot of time to give me your good opinions, and I appreciate it.

Darren

If buckwheat is available Cream of Buckwheat cereal is one option. Other than that you could go with eggs and bacon or another meat, fruit and some nuts, pnut or another nut butter on apple slices, or anything you would eat for another meal. You could also post the 'what to eat for breakfast' in the coping or products section for suggestions from others.

When you are ready to start adding stuff back into your diet be sure to go with as pure a form as you can and add the items in one at a time for a full week before you consider them safe.