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Supplementing with the eight essential B vitamins can help stop gluten cravings. Wheat products are required by law to be enriched with vitamins and minerals lost in processing. In other words, wheat products have vitamins added to them. Celiac Disease damages the small intestine where the B vitamins are normally absorbed. We often do not get enough B Complex vitamins while we are healing because of the damage done by Celiac and because the gluten free diet can be deficient in these vitamins. By supplementing with B Complex vitamins, the body will be ensured of getting all the B vitamins it needs to recover and function properly. I became very ill with vitamin and mineral deficiencies. The doctors I saw did not recognise vitamin deficiency symptoms. I'm a microbiologist, so I had studied this stuff at university. I knew the pharmaceuticals the doctors threw at me were not helping, the pharmaceuticals only covered up the symptoms, but the real problem remained. And I craved gluten, not for the gluten, but because they were a source of the vitamins my body was craving. I started supplementing with all eight essential B vitamins. Our bodies can't make them so they must be consumed every day, hence they are called "essential". Deficiency in many of the B vitamins will cause altered mentality. It's rare to have just a single vitamin deficiency. I've had Thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency that resulted in Wernicke's- Korsakoff syndrome and was written off as crazy by doctors and psychiatric "experts". High dose (more than 500 mg/day) thiamine therapy was the only thing that corrected that. Thiamine deficiency is associated with Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge and Purge disorders, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I've had Niacin deficiency that resulted in Pellagra and had mental changes with that. I've had Cobalamine deficiency (Vitamin B12) and experienced B12 deficiency dementia. Vitamin D deficiency caused severe depression. Magnesium deficiency caused horrible nightmares. Vitamin C deficiency caused skin problems and delirium. If we give our bodies the building blocks of essential nutrients, our bodies can heal themselves. I was ill because I was deficient in vitamins and minerals, not because I was deficient in pharmaceuticals. Doctors don't recognize vitamin deficiency symptoms. Doctors are trained in medical training institutions funded by big pharmaceutical companies to prescribe pharmaceuticals. I've posted previously in this thread studies done on mental health and vitamin deficiencies. Please read them. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies will affect your mental health. Correcting vitamin and mineral deficiencies will help more than putting a bandaid antidepressant on the problems. Correcting deficiencies promptly is important. Deficiencies left untreated can cause permanent brain damage which can be seen on MRIs. Here's some helpful reading... Nutritional therapies for mental disorders https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248201/ And... Bread and Other Edible Agents of Mental Disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4809873/#!po=18.0556 And... The Role of Vitamins and Minerals in Psychiatry https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3046018/#!po=10.0000

Hello everyone, I’ve been on and off gluten free diet for about a year now because of my digestive issues (all of the nasties). I had some basic blood work done and it turns out I have some abnormalities; high bilirubin, high MCV, high MCH, a very high count of leukocytes and eosinophils. Doc suggested a b12 deficiency anaemia. No bacteria or parasites. The thing is all I eat is fruit, vegetables, meat and some grains, mostly gluten free like oats, so plenty of b12 from food. I also have ringing and whistles in my ears. I used to swim 8km a day and now I can barely swim 1km! I’m starting to think this is celiac and that’s why I’m not absorbing nutrients. Has anyone had similar symptoms/results? I definitely feel better on a low gluten diet and my symptoms almost disappeared when I tried paleo diet for 4 months last year. Now I’m on low gluten and I’m considering going paleo again but I’ve seen people saying here that this can mess up the results of a blood test and I want to get tested. I’m wondering whether eating gluten for 2-4 weeks is enough to get a valid result? Thank you

Dear members, Following my developing an unexplained iron deficiency in May 2021 all evidence points at me being Celiac rather than gluten-intolerant. I have been on a course of strong iron tablets (ferrous sulphate) for a month and my levels have only risen by one point. The doctor suggested an iron transfusion as an alternative for the iron tablets and has referred me to my local hospital for further analysis. Has anyone been through either an iron transfusion, had B12 injections or undergone other procedures related to poor mineral absorption? Many thanks in advance, Alex P.S LOVE the page and the community on here ❤️

So. I've had some digestive symptoms off and on my whole life. And I've always been pale, underweight, etc. Ate a poor diet growing up because we were poor and didn't know better, and then in my teens, felt myself slowly start to feel worse until my system seemed to "break" after going out for a huge Chinese buffet dinner with family. For months afterwards, was struck with nausea, high heart rate/palpitations, constant gurgling in my digestive system, poor sleep, and so on. But I changed my diet and started eating more healthy and whole foods, started taking vitamins and probiotics, and aside from some "off" days every now and then, seemed to do much better. Went into my 30s and got married, had five kids, seemed to have relatively decent health and energy. Then had baby #5 with heavy blood loss afterwards. And then everything seemed to go wrong. In the months that followed, had more fatigue, kept getting sick, had more and more digestive issues (usually loose stools in the morning) about once a week or so. And then about six months postpartum, the kids picked up a stomach bug, I got it, too, and it seemed I never really came back from it. After going to the doctor several times and being told it was just the leftovers from the tummy bug or IBS, I ended up in the ER with heart palpitations and was told my thyroid had gone slightly hyper. Was put on medication for it, slowly started to feel better, though many of the digestive issues never really let me go. So about a year ago (eight months after the ER trip) went to a naturopath who checked for parasites (negative) and checked my nutrients and found I was low in a lot of things, especially iron and B vitamins. So I started taking vitamins, changed my diet even more (cut out gluten, dairy except for an occasional lactose-free yogurt, processed foods) and started to feel better slowly again, but still with some lingering issues. Went to the doctor in June of 2020 (six months after the naturopath) to find that my MCV/MCH were high on my blood tests, and that I had macrocytic anemia, and that I wasn't absorbing B12. So I was put on B12 injections (since pills didn't seem to be doing the trick) and AGAIN started to slowly improve. I started to improve enough that I began branching out with my diet and started sneaking in more gluten again. I went a bit nuts over the holidays this year, having cookies or something every day for several weeks, and then all of a sudden my system crashed right around New Years. I realized it was probably the baked goods, so I went for the blood test for celiac. They did igA and TTIGA and both were normal/negative. So they won't do a biopsy because the blood tests were fine. So now I don't know what to do. I'm planning on making an appointment with a functional medicine doctor to see if they can dig deeper. My symptoms now are off and on nausea, gas (sometimes smelly, but not all the time), feeling worse (nauseated, just overall gross) when I have to pass gas or use the bathroom, upper abdominal pain (but it seems to be centered around the edge of the ribcage, as if it's the bone itself that hurts), poor sleep, weight loss, having to go the bathroom urgently usually first thing in the morning (around 3am-5am), cold hands and chills. All of those symptoms worsened after having more gluten/baked goods over the holidays. Odd things that I can't seem to make heads or tails of are that I wake up around the same time every morning having to use the bathroom and feeling generally ill. Sometimes that feeling returns in the afternoon around 3:30pm. Usually by evening a lot of the symptoms seem to fade out and I start to not feel as bad. I can lie down and go to sleep and not feel terrible, but then start waking up in the middle of the night with gas and then needing to go to the bathroom at that same 3-5am time. And symptoms also always worsen around my cycle. So is it hormonal? Is it a gluten sensitivity? Is the gluten messing with my hormones? Am I losing my mind? I just want to feel better and I feel like ever since I had my last baby 2 1/2 years ago I can't get on top of it.

I found this site linked below, written by a pathologist for doctors doing vitamin deficiency testing. https://arupconsult.com/content/vitamins-deficiency-and-toxicity Points of interest include: Patient should not be taking supplements at time of testing. Ideally, supplements should be discontinued three to six weeks before testing for vitamin deficiencies. There are exceptions. Most B vitamins can not be stored in the body longer than three weeks. Supplementing with vitamins will skew the tests for deficiencies. Patient should be fasting before vitamin deficiency testing because eating food can temporarily raise vitamin levels. Most of the B vitamins do not have an upper limit or toxicity level because they are safe and water soluble (the body can easily flush excesses out). Plasma concentrations of vitamins do not directly reflect concentrations in tissues. Concentrations of vitamins in urine tests do not reflect tissue stores. Risk factors for vitamin deficiencies include malabsorption diseases (Celiac Disease) and inflammatory bowel diseases (Crohn's and Colitis). Deficiency in one vitamin is rare. The group of B vitamins all work together and are dependent on each other to function properly. If you're deficient in one, you need to supplement all the B vitamins.

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