Vertigo, Ataxia After gluten-free

[ctenny]

I've been Gluten free for 3 and a half weeks. In my opinion, I've been pretty careful to only eat gluten-free products.

Just this past week, I've had vertigo a couple of times after sitting down/sitting up. I am also a college student and just during this past week have I noticed a couple times where I feel very uncoordinated and it feels as if my body is wobbly and with each step I have to additionally reassure myself to keep myself "up straight" so as not to fall over (left or right).

I had vertigo and ataxia a couple times before going gluten-free, but they were sporadic and few (maybe twice a month for vertigo but nearly daily for weird unbalanced walking).

Why do I still feel like I can't walk a staight line? I actually can walk a straight line but I have to focus on not teetering to the right or left.

What about the vertigo? Could it just be from vitamin deficiencies since going gluten-free? I think I'm eating a pretty balanced diet still.

[Bubba's Mom]

Gluten gives me that effect. I got some gluten-free deli lunch meat 6weeks ago that *might* have been cc? I've been dealing with the off-balance issue since then. It is getting less in intensity though. Neurological symptoms can take a while to heal.

Double check to make sure there's nothing that's sneaking into your diet.

[ctenny]

Thanks Bubba's Mom! I appreciate your answer. I suspect it may have been cc'd. It's a shame... as careful as you can be, you can never be totally sure you're always eating gluten-free and that's a bummer because I just want to heal!

[red island]

I've been gluten free for about 6 months, early on every time I got cc'd I would get neurologican symptoms which included vertigo and ataxia. Once I got the cc issues under control I went 3 months without any symptoms - just got contaminated 2 weeks ago and while I got the usual GI signs, no neuro symptoms at all! I wonder if the early symptoms were part of the leaky gut thing. And maybe as yours heals these symptoms will gradually disappear too? I hope that happens for you cause of all the discomforts I have suffered, I found the spaceyness and brain fog and vertigo etc to be the most difficult to deal with emotionally. Good luck.

[AVR1962]

Ataxia was one of my worst symptoms with the exception of nueropathy. I was dizzy everyday, all day for 9 months, like you explained being unsteady to walk and feel like you could fall over. It took REALLY cleaning up my diet and any chance of CC. I had to dig into every product I used to find the wheat.....I found it in my cooking spray, changed my chapstick. Stopped using my wooden butcher blocks and wooden spoons. Used only scrubable cookware. No toaster or pasta strainer. My husband and daughetr had to learn to never double dip into jars of mayo, jelly, etc. Cheese had to be cut on glass surface with clean hands and everyone had to use the same method to avoid crumbs. Once I did all that it took 4 weeks to get the ataxia to go away.

Also, I found I was getting vertigo from other foods......high fructose, the various gums like xanthan, carageenan so I had to stay away from all of them for 8 months while my system repaired. I can eat them now but I am still very careful.

Hope that helps!