What Was Your First gluten-free Week Like?

[futuredvm24]

I have been gluten-free for a week now. Some days I feel great, I almost forgot that I could feel this good! Other days not so much. I'm not sure if I'm accidentally glutening myself or if this is just a normal process?

[Skylark]

I don't think I even noticed a difference the first week! By the end of two I wasn't having stomach-aches and diarrhea any more.

[pricklypear1971]

The first week was just weird. I remember having raging emotions - like PMS on steroids.

Week 2 the brain fog lifted and I had stamina. That's when I knew I was on to something.

[AVR1962]

A week was not enough for me to notice a difference. My stomach was a mess. It was at the 3 week point I started noticing change for the good.

[kitgordon]

My GI issues stopped within the first couple of days, with a mild relapse or two in the first 2 weeks. However, I went gluten free before I was as ill as some people here. A lot of my family were already diagnosed, so when I began seeing semi-frequent symptoms, I knew what it was, and what to do. As long as you are being very careful, I think it's probably just normal recovery.

[alex11602]

I actually felt great after two days with a few bad days mixed in over the next few months, but my youngest daughter didn't feel better until we figured out the other foods that she couldn't have. My oldest daughter doesn't have GI symptoms so we didn't notice a change until we gave her potatoes one night and she could eat them without being sick (she always had a major texture thing, she would gag if something gooey, wet or slimy touched her hands or mouth) and we figured out that my husband had problems the same way...he noticed after about a week that he hadn't been as gassy, but it came back when he had a sandwich at work.

[mommyto2kids]

I had dreams that I was eating angel food cake and then I'd realize I could never eat it again. I also got super freaked out and depressed that so much of Costco was done for me. My son kep asking me when I could be done with this. It was hard, but we have all gotten used to it. It is better than being sick.

[pricklypear1971]

My son asked me "when will we be done with the gluten-free thing?", too.

Yeah, it's tough.

I think it would be tougher if I hadn't already weeded out a lot of crappy foods, prior. Don't get me wrong - we ate plenty of junk and probably still do. But going gluten-free is hard-core when you can't "slip" and be ok.

[futuredvm24]

I know it will take some time before I really start to feel better. It's just great to know that there are lots of people who know what I'm going through. I'm having my good and bad days but the bad days seem worse than the bad months I was having. Maybe it's because I forgot what it felt like to not have problems. Luckily, I had cut out a lot of processed foods beforehand so going gluten-free hasn't been too hard but it's definitely something to get used to!

[T.H.]

First 2 weeks were really bad, actually. On day two, I started having nausea, headaches, and dizziness all the time. Could barely think, sick all the time, and it just kept getting worse.

Turns out that I have allergies to potatoes, sugarcane, dairy, and eggs - all of which I don't eat much of normally, and all of which I was eating a lot more of in my gluten-free food, so it was making me sick. Really crazy.

The entire experience made me much more careful with my daughter (diagnosed 2 weeks after me), trying to remember that familiar 'looking' food didn't always mean familiar ingredients or familiar tolerance to those ingredients, you know?