When To Eliminate More Foods?

[Jill0711]

I am recently diagnosed and I have been gluten-free for about a month. I'm feeling remarkably better with one exception...my stool still shows evidence of malabsorption and I am still having intermittant D. According to the biopsy, my results showed early Celiac disease. I took that to mean that it wasn't very far advanced (in spite of the horrible symptoms ). At what point do I consider removing dairy or something else from my diet? I know that it takes time for the intestine to heal and maybe I am just jumping the gun. It is hard not being impatient I've been dairy light, but I haven't eliminated it entirely. How do you differentiate intolerances from the normal healing process?

[JenniLu]

Celiacs that I know also had lactose intolerance too, but were able to reintroduce dairy again after being symptom free for several months.

[mushroom]

Your biopsy showed damage to the small intestine. That means damage to the villi which make the enzyme lactase that digests the milk sugar lactose. Therefore you should cut out all milk, cream and ice cream, at the very least for several months until your intestine heals or the lactose will just produce gas and cause diarrhea. You can experiment by first cutting out all dairy and then when things settle down challenge yogurt and hard cheeses and see if you tolerate those.

This is the way you start finding your intolerances. Then you keep a food and a symptom diary and see if notice any correlation between the two. If you continue to have symptoms you can try cutting out the major allergens like corn and soy and continue on from there.

Good luck with this process.