Stomach Symptoms After Going Gluten Free

[Jmartin22]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to the forum, and to the gluten free diet. For the last few years Ive been suffering from symptoms of low testosterone, and Doctors have not been able to figure out whats causing it. I've read that gluten may actually be a cause of this, So here I am. I'm 5 weeks into the diet and I haven't really noticed any positive results. Symptoms have actually gotten worst. My stomach will bloat after I eat, which will last for the entire day. My stomach is also making weird digestive noises, and feels like its in knots. I haven't added anything new to my diet. I simply cut out gluten. I never experienced these stomach issues when I was eating gluten, So I'm a little puzzled as to why its flaring up now. Does anyone have any insight as to why I'm experiencing this?

[GFinDC]

Hi Jmartin,

Going gluten-free is probably a big change in your diet. Your whole digestive system needs to adjust to a new diet and that can take some time. Our digestive system includes lots of bacteria that helps us process foods and break them down too. So sometimes there is a die off of some bacteria and colonization of new bacteria that fit the diet better. Taking some probiotics may help.

Also it is very easy to overlook gluten in processed foods. There are quite a few names it can be labeled as other than gluten. We need to avoid wheat, rye and barley, and oats are bad for some people too.

Try to be patient with your body as it adjusts to the change. But also try to learn safe foods to eat that are low stress to digest. Things to avoid are processed foods with lots of ingredients and chemicals, dyes etc. Eat mostly whole foods that you cooked from scratch yourself. Also raw vegetables bother some people at first and dairy. Soy is another possible problem.