Shouldn't I Be Better By Now?

[Cait701]

Hi there everybody! I'm new to this whole gluten free thing and could use a bit of advice from seasoned veterans.

I started going gluten free about 6 weeks ago and felt fantastic almost instantly. My stomach felt great (who knew that was what normal felt like?!), my energy and confidence were through the roof, life was grand. I didn't get tested for anything, but it seemed obvious that gluten was the culprit.

Then, about 10 days ago, I think I got glutenated. Within a few hours my stomach was churning, and I had the mother of all headaches the next day. What I'm concerned about is that I haven't started to feel much better yet. I'm still having major digestive issues, I can barely stay awake, my anxiety is back, and I'm just plain grouchy. If I felt better quickly after initially cutting gluten, shouldn't I expect the same recovery time when I accidentally slip up?

[mushroom]

Two things:

After giving up gluten it is perfectly normal to have a worse response to it if you eat it again, even cc. Consider it your body telling you in no uncertain terms not to do that again

And, you could now be experiencing a delayed reaction to the withdrawal from gluten, the same kind of withdrawal that smokers and drug addicts go through. This will definitely make you grouchy and feel bad.

Give it a couple of weeks and you will probably be a box of birds again.

[Lolli]

I've been told this could take two years and that it would get worse before it got better. Also, as has been stated, that, after going gluten free, glutening would hurt worse than before gluten-free.

[bartfull]

When I first went gluten-free, by about three weeks I started feeling fantastic. Then it all went downhill. I think that's fairly common from what I have read here. It took over a year before I really started feeling good again. I know a year sounds like a long time, but it will go by quicker than you can imagine.

What happened with me and quite a few others is this: my intolerance to gluten and damage to my gut caused my body to "think" other things (like corn, soy, nightshades, and salicylates) were actually gluten. I was, as my nutritionist put it, in "hyperdrive". I was even reacting to pesticide and chemical fertilizer residues. I went stricktly organic for a while, and remained stricktly gluten-free, corn, soy, nightshade and salicylate free.

After a while, I healed. Now I am adding back all of those other foods successfully (so far). But in the meantime, I am actually grateful for all of it. I lived on junkfood. My diet was as unhealthy as could be. Now, even if they found a magic bullet that cured celiac, I would never go back to eating the way I did. I am eating and enjoying a healthy diet, and honestly, I feel better than I felt even before I got celiac.

So give it some time. Keep a food diary. Start with as few foods as you think you can get away with, and once you start feeling good, slowly add one food at a time back.

Also, check all of your medications and supplements. For some reason we tend to forget them, and a lot of times they are the culprit.