To Get Tested Or Not?

xMichellex · February 19, 2011

How important is it to get a diagnosis? What are the benefits of getting a diagnosis versus not getting one? I am a grad student on my school

eatmeat4good · February 21, 2011

Since you are already having some success with being gluten free, I would not worry about testing.

You would have to be eating gluten pretty heavily to test positive and still you might test negative even if you have Celiac. It seems to me that you may not want to pay that price while you are in grad school.

The fact that you are also realizing cross contamination is an issue is another clue that you are either gluten intolerant or Celiac.

I had a similar experience in gaining a huge amount of weight and yet I was unable to eat. I don't know why they continue to think that Celiacs are only skinny emaciated people when there are plenty of us who had severe unexplained weight gain.

My weight has gone from 180 to 120 in 5 months. I think it was swelling, inflammation, and low metabolism due to Celiac. I am eating more than I ever have and am healing well and my weight is stabilizing.

I think you should stick with vigilant gluten free eating and see if there are more improvements. For me the 4th month showed the most significant improvement. Hang in there. I know it is hard to cook everything and be in grad school. But if you feel better it will be so worth it in the end. Hope you feel better soon.

xMichellex · February 21, 2011

On 2/21/2011 at 6:13 AM, eatmeat4good said:
My weight has gone from 180 to 120 in 5 months. I think it was swelling, inflammation, and low metabolism due to Celiac. I am eating more than I ever have and am healing well and my weight is stabilizing.

I think you should stick with vigilant gluten free eating and see if there are more improvements. For me the 4th month showed the most significant improvement. Hang in there. I know it is hard to cook everything and be in grad school. But if you feel better it will be so worth it in the end. Hope you feel better soon.

Thank you for sharing that with me. It sounds like you have had a rough time yourself. I know this is not much consolation, but your advice has gone a long way to motivate me to keep this up.

I think what I find absolutely overwhelming is trying to diet and trying to go gluten free. Perhaps I should give myself permission to just go gluten free for several months and give myself a chance to heal, then incorporate a diet. Baby steps, right?

Thanks again for sharing and for the advice.

eatmeat4good · February 22, 2011

Thank you for saying I was helpful! That makes me feel good.

Yes, I wouldn't try to diet at all right now. Just be sure you eat a lot of protein as that helps cells repair themselves quickly. I didn't start dropping weight right away, but once my body realized there would be food coming in on a regular basis, I just started melting away. I was so relieved. When you try to diet and you are still sick from gluten, your body tries to hang on to everything you eat and stores it as fat.

My biggest secret to losing weight is to NOT diet. Eat as much meat and nuts as you can. Both are good protein and the nuts are good fats. Then, if you tolerate veggies and fruit you can eat them too. Keeping yout grain intake low will also help. When I eliminated grains and increased my nut and meat intake I really saw a big difference fast.

If you try that let me know how it goes. I wonder if it will help you.

You should never ever let yourself get hungry. I think you will quickly find that your mental functioning is improved if you increase protein and good fats. It sure did for me.