Pyroluria?

[Nads]

Hi,

My daughter has been gluten free for about 4 months and her panic attacks have gone away but she still has anxiety especially under stress. I was reading about pyroluria a condition which causes extreme deficiencies in B6 and zinc and is seen a lot in people who are also gluten intolerant. She seems to have many of the symptoms. Does anyone know about this? Where to get good testing etc?

Thanks, Nadia

[jebby]

Hi,

My daughter has been gluten free for about 4 months and her panic attacks have gone away but she still has anxiety especially under stress. I was reading about pyroluria a condition which causes extreme deficiencies in B6 and zinc and is seen a lot in people who are also gluten intolerant. She seems to have many of the symptoms. Does anyone know about this? Where to get good testing etc?

Thanks, Nadia

Hi Nadia,

I have never heard of pyroluria, and it is not in my medical textbooks. If it is a Latin based word, like most medical terms, it would translate to something along the lines of "fire urine" as pryo means fire and uria refers to urine/urinary tract. Are you talking about polyuria? If so, that means that person makes too much urine, usually due to diabetes.

J

[contrarianrevolution]

pyroluria isn't a condition that's recognized by the scientific community.

[Skylark]

Yeah, it's a bad sign when you type "pyroluria" into PubMed and only get one '70s article. It looks like one of those whacky orthomolecular psychiatry pseudo diagnoses. A lot of quacks writing about something on the internet does not make it real.

A LOT of gluten intolerant people have anxiety and four months into the diet is not always long enough for it to go away. I manage mine by taking lots of vitamins and minerals, including a fair amount of B12. I also absolutely have to take fish oil every day, 1-2 capsules of double or triple strength. If I slack on the fish oil or B12, the anxiety creeps back.

Also make sure her food isn't getting cross-contaminated with gluten. Even small amounts of gluten are enough to set off anxiety reactions in a lot of us. Is your kitchen gluten-free or is the rest of the family still eating wheat?