dlp252

I'm taking flax oil because my eye doctor wants me too, lol. I told him I had the oil, but didn't like the taste and he said the pills were fine (they're softgels). Most of the brands at Whole Foods had carob in the soft gel capsule, but we finally found one...I'll have to check the name when I get home because I sure had never heard of it before.

I'll look for the pearls this weekend.

Let's see, what am I eating today:

For breakfast I had the banana pancakes (w/egg) and an extra egg and some diluted orange juice.

I'm having lunch right now, that's chicken thigh and carrots...will have the same for a snack in a couple of hours plus some weak black tea with honey.

For dinner I'll probably have ground beef with green beans and some diluted grape juice, or maybe tomatoe juice.

Snack will be applesauce probably or I may have some chicken soup or both.

So, I don't know about you guys, but I haven't gone a day without TONS of carrots since a week and a half ago when I started the diet. And they don't bother me at all (knock on wood) unless I eat them raw. I noticed that I can't handle ANYTHING raw. I have to cook everything very very very well for me to eat them. On Saturday, I had a raw apple and raw carrots, both of which I have been eating for a few days. I didn't add anything new in that day, but I got the worst back, stomach, bloating, gas, etc. all over again. Well, the next day I had exactly the same thing except my stuff was cooked, and I was fine. I'm still fine now, and I ate tons of carrots for dinner yesterday. What's really the big difference between raw and well cooked? What does it do to the veggie/fruit?

So, how often are you guys adding foods in? I mess things up a lot (like the raw veggies, because I think it is something else, and then I find out I was right all along), so I take it easy the next few days. So besides the intro. diet food, all I've added yet was apples and mangos, of course, cooked. Am I going to slow?

And I'm so excited because I finally found starch, sugar, yeast, etc. free acidopholis and cal./mag. vitamans. I also got flax oil, so I can start going to the bathroom regularly again. Oh, that's another question. Do any of you know why flax oil is okay, but not flax seeds?

You're welcome! I've been eating TONS of carrots as well. I think I bought 4 or 6 pounds of carrots last week and had used them up by Friday. This week I bought 10 pounds of carrots, lol. I've already used 5 to make chicken soup and to have some to freeze for my lunches this week. I think cooking them just makes them much easier to digest. I do think cooking (or boiling at least) the stuff probably takes a little of the nutrients out, but for now anyway, I think the food actually has to get digested before we'd get those anyway.

I'm trying to wait every couple of days or at least every other day before adding in a new food. But sometimes (like this weekend) I introduced two new foods in one day. I figure the waiting period gives me a chance to figure out if I'll react before I add in another food. If I don't have a reaction then I figure both those foods are okay...if I do react I'll just take both of them out and add back one at a time in a few days to find out which one was the guilty party.

Let's see I've added tomatoe juice, orange juice, green beans, and tuna. Pretty easily digested stuff. I wanted to add mayo, but my attempt at making my own was a disaster, lol. I'm going to try ketchup tonight. :D

What brand of acidopholis did you buy? I spent so long at Whole Foods Saturday trying to read all the labels...I finally got disgusted and just gave up, lol. Unfortunately I did that AFTER I spent a lot of time trying to read the labels on the Flax Oil capsules, lol. So may of THOSE have carob in the capsule. I even had an employee helping me read labels. I finally did find one without carob. I may have stuck it out on the acidopholis if I hadn't already read so many labels.

Yay, I added green beans yesterday (cooked really well) and so far so good. I also had tuna one day. I also had a bit of diluted orange juice this morning. I'm sooooo looking forward to adding some of the stuff in the next phase, lol.

Some friends wanted to go out to lunch yesterday and at first I said no because I didn't want it to be a big problem on deciding where to go for my diet. They convinced me and we went. I ended up having a flat iron steak. That's it, lol. The plate really looked pitiful when it came. Fortunately the steak was good. I asked if they had cooked carrots or green beans but the waitress said the only had broccoli, which I didn't think I wanted to add quite yet. So, now I've had my first dining out experience on SCD.

Dani - keep in mind that the pancakes do not really taste like pancakes...the texture is different because there is no type of flour. It helped me before tasting these to think of them as a banana treat instead of the usual pancakes I've been used to. And, about the egg...I was thinking I would try it with just the banana one day and see how that turned out...I like fried bananas and I think the egg is what makes the texture different in the pancakes.

My Enterolab results were very much like yours, and I got mine back just a couple of weeks before you did, so I haven't been at this long either! I'm finding the elimination of casein really hard. But one thing I have realized in the short time I've been gluten/casein free: My system is a wreck, and I do much much much better with a very simple diet, much like what is in the SCD book. I started off trying out all these gluten free things...cookies, donuts, breads, pasta....and while it was interesting, I realized my symptoms weren't necessarily going away....and looking at the ingredent lists of these things, I think my system can't (at least at this point in time) well handle sugars or starches or other grains such as rice, rice flour, etc. I sure hope that later it won't be a problem, but now it is. So my suggestion is to keep your diet very simple and stick to unprocessed vegetables, fruit, lean meats, eggs, and stay away from the other things for awhile.

Ditto. The diet was originally designed for people with all sorts of digestive problems, not just celiac, so it might very well help.

Okay everyone, I made a recipe from the book today. Remember, I am no cook, lol. I made the banana pancakes...there are two recipes in the book, I made the one with just mashed banana and egg. It wasn't pretty. It actually tasted pretty good though. I didn't have a non-stick pan, so I couldn't get the darned thing turned (mistake #2, one huge pancake instead of smaller more easily turnable ones, lol) without tearing it all to shreads. I then thought I could scramble it (well, it had eggs in it didn't it, lol). Finally I sort of flattened out the now quite unrecognizable pancake pieces goop. I really did taste okay (I added just a pinch of salt to it too). I bought new pans today. :D

Rachel, I hope that's the answer! I would be very cool if that helped!!!

I LOVE that my friends and family are being very supportive.

LOVE that none of them questioned me when I first tried the gluten free diet without knowing for sure if I needed to.

I LOVE that the new group of doctors I've been seeing haven't questioned my gluten sensitivity testing through Enterolab.

I LOVE that I feel I can talk over the whole thing with the new GI I see on Monday who is part of that same group.

I LOVE that I love fruits and vegetables making this diet a bit easier.

I LOVE that there is hope.

I LOVE that there are people who ask these kinds of questions on these types of forums that make me think about things.

MORE THINGS I LOVE:

Painting

Singing

Shopping

Being a slug on the couch

Finding something delicious that is healthy for me

I'm sure there's more

Fortunately they don't seem to be much of a problem where I live, work and hang out, but I do get bit frequently when I go into areas where they are more active.

Phew, that was a great link. I've read almost all the original link but printed it so I can reread. I've also printed info off a link within that one on vitamins, herbs, etc.

I'm just taking the spinach out for now...really that's all that was new anyway, so I guess I'm back to the intro by default, lol. I've been eating ground beef, applesauce, really ripe bananas, cooked carrots, apple cider (not a lot), unsweetened grape juice and added chicken about 3 days ago. So, the spinach was the newest. I'm now going to wait a couple of days before trying to introduce anything new. I'm sort of following the pecanbread.com order of introducing things, but am introducing each thing in each stage one at a time...once I've added all the stuff in that "stage" I'll move on the next...no reason why I'm doing it this way, it's just that I figure it will be a good way to see what I react to and it will give me some order to this insanity.

The pecanbread order of things is here:

Open Original Shared Link

I haven't heard of that one specifically, but I've been reading more and more about grains being bad. I'm currently trying the SCD so might go over to look at some of the recipes.

By-the-way, thanks for praying for me!

I hate that I can't remember what I hate! ETA: that was sort of a joke, but actually now that I think of it, I really DO hate that I can't remember...

A bit frustrated today. I tried well cooked spinach Tues. evening and had a strong reaction to it so I'm feeling crappy again today. Two steps ahead, one back. It's hard to be patient.

WOW!!!! I just tried well cooked chopped spinach last night and same thing...I didn't really have a reaction, but I knew if I continued eating it I would be sick, so I stopped. Later in the evening I had slightly upset stomach and a little cramping.

sometimes just cook a pear in the microwave, cut up in pieces it takes about two-three minutes in my old and very inefficient microwave to cook. I find it sweet enough by itself nowadays, i'm not that used to very sweet things anymore.

That sounds easy enough for me, lol. I'll try it tomorrow (after I buy some pears, lol).

Oh ya, I am just about over carrots, lol. I tried spinach last night for something different, but couldn't even finish it for some reason...guess I'll have to buy 4 bags of carrots this week.

The brand I buy at Whole Foods says casein free on the label...course I don't use a lot of it just in case.

ETA: course I don't know if they do something differently than we at home could do.

My nails are terrible. They break at the corners and peel. I have ridges down from top to bottom, which I know means something, just can't remember what, lol. I also have little "clouds"--white spots that look like little clouds.

One of my favorite things used to be poached pears with a Creme Anglaise sauce. Very easy....You'd just poach the pears in some water with sugar (can't have that now ) a stick of cinnamon, and a couple of cloves. Cook till tender, and let them sit in the water for awhile to absorb the flavor. The Creme Anglaise was a think pour-over sauce kind of like a thin vanilla pudding....served warm over the drained pears. This was SOOOOOO good.....I wonder if I can figure out how to do it without sugar or dairy?

Umm, that sounds good...maybe something with the coconut milk and gelatin with some honey for sweetness...may even be good with sweetened coconut milk yogurt.

Hum, I used to get compliments on my lashes, but I've never personally thought they were particularly long or full. I know they point downwards, so in order to see them I have to curl them...so maybe all that curling over the years has stunted them, lol.

Ha! At least you can remember SOMETHING, lol. I have the hardest time, I definitely can't remember what I've just read most of the time.

Rachel - that's a great explanation!

Thanks guys. Does anyone know about how long until we can eat fruit and veggies raw? I don't want to mess this up again. I was feeling so good.

And that's a good idea, to juice the fruit as it's not being eaten because I hate when my fruit goes bad! And I boil the apples. It comes out tasting like the apples in an apple pie! So good!

Oh also, I've been drinking some apple juice. I know it says illegal BUT on the labels it says, 100% juice, no sugar, no anything but apples and water and vitaman C. In the ingrediants, that is all it lists and on the side of the bottle, it says "Our Pledge, WE DO NOT ADD SUGAR OR ANY ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS TO OUR JUICE. JUST PURE APPLES.

It's 'Apple and Eve' brand. Is this bad? What do you think?

I'll try boiling, lol. As far as when to add...I'm not sure the book really ever said--it was mostly geared towards people with D and the D was the indicator, but didn't address those of us who didn't have it but still need to let our guts heal. I think I'm going to at least wait three weeks (since I've been making some mistakes, grrr)...maybe a month. I don't know how else I'll tell.

As far as the apple juice...I think her main concern was that labeling wasn't correct...so if they state that really clearly on the label, it should be okay. I bought a cider that was clear...but it has the same statement on the label...so I'm not sure if I'm okay or not. Just in case, I'm not having it every day.

***

This dang diet is tough, lol. Last night I had a horrible headache...I'd kind of had it all day, but it got worse in the evening...even my teeth hurt and finally I couldn't take it anymore so took some Tylenol...guess what...the Tylenol was coated...didn't register until it was partially down, lol. I looked on the bottle for ingredients, but none was listed...just the words "sweet coating". Grrrr! "Sweet coating" can't be good for me, lol.

The other day I was taking my flax seed oil (my eye doctor wants me to take it)...it's coated in CAROB!

Sheesh!

Wow, what a journey you've had. You are definitely not alone here that's for sure.

Regarding the comment about you NOT actually having Celiac. If you had positive blood tests that confirms you have Celiac! The biopsy was done after you had been gluten free for some time it is unlikely that even if you had been consumming gluten for a few days or even weeks before the biopsy that it would have caught any damage as the damage would have been sporatic at best. In addition to all that, Celiac is a piece of the condition Gluten Intolerance. Gluten Intolerance is is just as serious as Celiac, so it really doesn't matter what it's called (or it shouldn't in my opinion).

Anyway, I'm sorry you've had such a rough time!

thanks.. yeah, I actually take this as good news... except the casein of course..

if my test results had come back negative for gluten I was planning on eating a bowl of spaghetti and seeing what happened.. but now all my reservations about buying new pots and pans and whatnot are gone.. good to have a concrete diagnosis

Congratulations Charlie! I so agree with the concrete diagnosis...it really helped cement in my mind that I need to be diligent even about seeming small things. My family is fairly supportive of most of my efforts to feel better, but it also helped to make THEM more serious about being diligent. The casein was even harder to give up than gluten for me too!

Dani - Hum, this is only a guess, but perhaps whether or not we have D, our intestines just need to start the real healing process before it can handle the raw stuff. I don't know though. I have two oranges on my counter that I'm crazy to eat, but I have been worried about eating them, lol. I guess I'll just have to squeeze the juice out before they go bad.

****

So, I had my soup last night as a snack and this morning for breakfast...YUM. I am so happy to have something different, lol. I even have a little left for a snack this evening. This weekend I'll buy some chicken parts with skin on just so I can make more soup and this time I'll make a bigger batch and freeze some.

I'm also going to buy pears...I'm not sure how one cooks a pear...do you put liquid in of some kind? I want to make a pear compote type of thing with the cooked pears then drizzle a bit of honey over them and maybe a couple of raisins...it'd be great with nuts on top, but I don't think I should add that yet, lol.

They said maybe I have a parisite -- and gave me a stool test to do. It's $200.00 and I really don't have the money to throw away. The test is by "Great Smokie Diagnostic Lab" and is called "Comprehensive Parasitology" you do 3 day stool tests and have to (peeU) mix it in a small container and send it off to them. I searched 20 pages of posts here and came up with a big fat nothing.

Anyone know anything about this company or the test? Or any thoughts on parisites?

I welcome any ideas on the test or how to gain a few lbs... Thanx for the help my celiac cyberspace friend!

I've heard of that lab before--my chiropractor once suggested I get some of their tests. I never did that though--probably should have. I did just go through all those type of tests though. I had the seven little vials to mix my pooh in (came back negative). In addition to that I had a bucket I had to fill (to test for C.Diff I believe--not sure what else--that came back negative), lol. The last test I went through were the smears...I just took those in so I haven't heard anything yet. So far I've had to pay about $230 out of pocket for those tests (my insurance paid the rest believe it or not, lol). In the end it was worth it I guess just to KNOW those weren't my problems. I can add that to the things that aren't causing my problems ans sooner or later the list will get weeded down to what I actually DO have, lol. The good news for me is that I'm pretty close to hitting the maximum out-of-pocket expenses for this year and it's only March. So in the end, no advice on how you can gain weight, but you really might want to go ahead with the tests...I'm not sure there's any other way to know for sure.

Thanks Corinne and Nancy and Rachel! I may turn into a cook yet, lol

I'm making soup now, no skin though, but looks like there's plenty of fat since I'm using thighs only. I am having it for breakfast and I can't wait, lol. I am so hungry since starting SCD and I'm eating a good amount of food too. I woke up at 11:15 last night and couldn't get back to sleep because I was soooo hungry...I finally had to get up and eat almond butter which was just about the only thing I had that was somewhat legal that didn't require cooking or fixing. (Never did get back to sleep though, grrr.) And, stupid me, realized my dried cranberries have cane sugar... DOH!!! I can't believe I didn't remember that! Sheesh, lol. So looks like I'll have to get some raisins when next I shop.