Newbie With Significant Challenges

[I miss cookies]

Hi everyone,

I have not been *officially* diagnosed yet but expect to be on Monday when the bloodwork results are in. I am 53 and have been sick for decades. Literally decades. I was constantly going back to the doctor maintaining I had ulcers and he just kept upp-ing my Prevacid dose. I am a little angry because now I expect I have been lacking important nutrients for decades and am probably at risk for osteo, etc.

My problem now is...... I am a 30+ year vegetarian and I am not willing to start eating meat. So what the heck can I eat now? Do I just live off plain vegetables and fruit? Seriously, that's not very realistic. Also, is there any hope of having my intestines recover at all after 53 years of eating gluten? I am quite depressed.

[Bryan E]

I haven't been sick as long as you but I am in the same boat. I am also a vegetarian and I have no idea what to eat. I can't eat gluten, dairy, or meat. There's not much left. If you don't mind I am going to follow this thread and try some of the suggestions that you receive.

[tictax707]

1. Ok, Mr/Mrs "I miss cookies," first thing you should do is go out and find some gluten free cookies from liz lovely. They are fantastic, not just "fantastic for being gluten free." Make sure you get the gluten free kind as they make some gluten ones too.

2. I am pretty sure if you want to be a meatless celiac, you can do that just fine, provided that is really all you are not removing from the diet. If you can still have rice, corn, potato, quinoa, as well as dairy, soy, nuts, eggs you can totally do this.

3. The body is an amazing place. Be good to it and it will be good to you and I think you can heal. I went from flat villi (from 30 years of gluten) to perfectly healthy villi in 8 years, maybe even sooner.

It's ok to be sad!! This is a big scary change, but it will be ok. Things will get better, I promise.

HUG!!

[kareng]

I used the Google search at the top right corner. Once I spelled vegetarian correctly, lots of past post showed up.

[I miss cookies]

I haven't been sick as long as you but I am in the same boat. I am also a vegetarian and I have no idea what to eat. I can't eat gluten, dairy, or meat. There's not much left. If you don't mind I am going to follow this thread and try some of the suggestions that you receive.

Oh that's so funny because I was just reading your thread, and thinking the very same thing! I'm still eating dairy but I'm paying a heavy price for it

[I miss cookies]

1. Ok, Mr/Mrs "I miss cookies," first thing you should do is go out and find some gluten free cookies from liz lovely. They are fantastic, not just "fantastic for being gluten free." Make sure you get the gluten free kind as they make some gluten ones too.

2. I am pretty sure if you want to be a meatless celiac, you can do that just fine, provided that is really all you are not removing from the diet. If you can still have rice, corn, potato, quinoa, as well as dairy, soy, nuts, eggs you can totally do this.

3. The body is an amazing place. Be good to it and it will be good to you and I think you can heal. I went from flat villi (from 30 years of gluten) to perfectly healthy villi in 8 years, maybe even sooner.

It's ok to be sad!! This is a big scary change, but it will be ok. Things will get better, I promise.

HUG!!

Thank you Tictax, that gives me hope, which I'm sorely lacking right now. And thank you for the hug, I needed that too

[I miss cookies]

I used the Google search at the top right corner. Once I spelled vegetarian correctly, lots of past post showed up.

Oh! I didn't even see that! Thank you! My name is Karen too. I'm thrilled to know there's a few of us veggie-celiacs on here.

[Skylark]

There's still plenty we can eat. You will have to cook more, though.

Can you tolerate soy? If so there's tofu and tempeh. I've also found miso that wasn't made with gluten grains. Also, check out Indian cooking. There are lots of great vegetarian bean or lentil dishes you can have with rice.

As far as cookies, I don't know whether they're vegetarian but I just got the most awesome container of Udi's snickerdoodles. The Betty Crocker chocolate chip mix is very good too.

[Takala]

Yes, there is hope of having your intestines recover after 53 years of eating gluten, but you have to actually want to recover. Eating gluten, when you are not able to because it triggers a severe intolerance or auto immune reaction, affects the function of your brain, as well. Besides subtle malnutrition, which affects mood, there can be actual brain damage, called "bright spots" or "white matter lesions" see link here https://www.celiac.com/articles/112/1/Brain-White-Matter-Lesions-are-Common-in-Celiac-Disease/Page1.html

If you really are either celiac or gluten intolerant ( a person who really does react to gluten, but who for whatever unknown reason doesn't have a reaction show up on the blood tests) and you want to continue to be a vegetarian, you will just have to do more work and meal planning. If it turns out you are also reacting to soy, which is common with celiac, that is going to make it trickier, and if you are insulin resistant or carbohydrate intolerant, and do better on a low sugar, low grain, higher protein diet, that is going to require more care, and may be very, very difficult. The commercially made, gluten free replacement foods like bread tend to be rice based and high glycemic index, and that just wipes out some of us when we eat very much of it. It is possible to bake gluten free without that stuff.

You would have to plan to eat whatever kinds of grain/seeds you could tolerate, plus nuts, beans/legumes, good fats such as oils from olive, coconut, and avocado, vegetables, and fruits. Any processed foods you ate, you would have to make sure they were "gluten free." I have found that things that cater to the vegan market may tend to not be gluten free, because the manufacturer is assuming the consumer is a bread eater - I've reacted to "organic" "vegan" stuff made of "naturally gluten free ingredients" because we don't have a coherent national standard, but have been okay with some manufactured goods which are made with more care, but the maker doesn't use the gluten free label.

For recipes, you can google search "recipes gluten free vegetarian" and that will pull up blogs with these kinds of recipes, and there are some here in the baking section.

edited to add: you may be able to regain the ability to digest very low lactose or lactose free dairy such as yogurt, sour cream, and aged cheese once you have been gluten free long enough for the villi in the gut lining to heal. There are also more gluten free cheese substitutes available now, such as Daiya. In the meantime, coconut milk has the fat to be hunger- satisfying, and there are also other nut - milks.