When You Do Have A Reaction, How Do You Lessen The Damage Or Heal Faster?

[mpajor91]

Hey everyone,

As much as we all do our best to avoid gluten, the occasional reaction is inevitable. I've been trying to figure out any possible ways to lessen the damage. I don't mean the short term symptoms - personally, I get severe stomach pain for around half an hour to an hour, it varies - I mean the longer-term effects of being malnourished. A few days after a reaction, I can feel the starvation truly starting to settle in, and it makes me far less effective at doing, well... anything. So here's what I try to do to lessen the damage or to help my intestines heal faster. I'm no doctor, so I'm assuming a lot of things. Please criticize/give advice if you have any ideas different from my own. Here's what I do:

When the reaction starts

- Pop in some Ibuprofen. No idea if this does any good, but Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory, and inflammation is what causes the damage. Theoretically, then, Ibuprofen should lessen the damage if it starts to kick in before the reaction ends. It can't hurt.

When rhe body is recovering

- I make sure not to eat much shortly before going to bed, so that my damaged intestines aren't doing any intensive work while I sleep, and they can just get healed.

- I eat a lot of protein. I figure that's probably useful in building up the villi in the intestines.

- I make sure to chew my food extremely well before swallowing. I assume that biting food into smaller pieces means there's a greater surface area for the remaining villi to absorb the nutrients from the food.

Okay, that's what I do. What about you?

[Marz]

My symptoms deal with both C and D, so I usually take 1 or 2 Magnesium complex tablets for a few days after the D has stopped to try avoid the inevitable cramping/bloating/C that follows

Other than that, I've also tried Ibuprofen, and sleeping extra to sleep through the worst of it. In fact I usually pass out anyway because I get exhaustion/dizziness after gluten ingestion. Also taking it easy because I'm usually feeling pretty sorry for myself, so something to pick up my spirits can help a lot.

[Celtic Queen]

I drink lots and lots and lots of water. Plus I make sure to exercise to try and sweat things out of my system. Those are a couple of tricks I've learned from other people on this board.