Hi friends,
My diagnosed condition details can be found here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...
I only get very painful symptoms when I eat and up to 5 hours afterwards. I guess it takes 5 hours from stomach to bum to go through our digestive system.
Strange thing is that if I don't eat anything, my symptoms virtually dissapear and I can get my work done, and feel almost normal :-)
I wished we didn't have to eat LOL ;-)
My latest question is that when my symptoms are at their worst and I can't face eating anything. Am I best to:
a) Eat nothing for a few days and rest my entire digestive system from stomach to bum.
b) Eat small quality clean snacks (avoiding caffeine, wheat, lactose, etc)
c) Force myself to eat 3 proper meals, clean meals, low in gluten, lactose, etc and put up with the awful pain (so much I can't work).
Thanks,
Lee.
Lee. If you're considering the possibility of celiac / gluten intolerance by doing a dietary challenge, all gluten would need to be completely removed from your diet, or you're not going to be able to tell if it's the gluten that's the problem. Low in gluten or avoiding gluten wouldn't tell you anything.
If you have a gluten problem, it's an autoimmune reaction, which means that your immune system considers gluten an invader and tries to attack and destroy it. Just as your immune system immediately reacts when a virus invades. Think about how small a virus is, and then think about how much gluten you're getting if you're not being very careful. Basically, it takes a fraction of a breadcrumb for someone with a gluten intolerance to get an immune system reaction from it.
For more on how to eat 100% gluten free visit http://www.glutenfreeforum.com . There are nearly 12 thousand registered users there and tons of information.
By the way, lactose intolerance actually goes along with celiac. (Although it is caused by other things too.) When the immune system attacks your body, thinking that gluten is toxic, it destroys the lining of your intestines. It's the very outer edge of that lining where the enzymes for digesting lactose are made. So it just happens to destroy that along with the rest. Therefore, lactose intolerance is part of celiac. The good news if you've got celiac is that chances are once your intestines heal, you can eat dairy again.
I can really relate to what you said about wishing you didn't have to eat. I had to go in for surgery about five years before I was diagnosed with celiac. I was on an IV for two days. I hadn't felt better in years. Once I started eating again, I started feeling bad again. Never connected it until after I was diagnosed. I always kind of wished after that that I could just do the IV thing. I also discovered that if I didn't eat, I was fine. I was so sick for so long. I don't know how I could have worked during the last few years either. I'm lucky that I'm a stay-at-home mom.
I'm obviously biased toward giving 100% gluten-free a shot because it worked for me, but you've got a lot of the symptoms... Enough that it's worth a shot. Gluten-free is a healthy way to eat anyway, so you're not hurting anything.
If you're feeling fine when you don't eat, but then sick if you do, I'd suspect that your recovery time would be very quick.
After I went gluten-free all my symptoms went away like somebody flipped a switch. After 18 years of GI symptoms I had a full turn-around within just a couple of days of being GF. It still blows my mind how CLOSE I was to not being sick all those years and I had no idea.
So I would suggest option D: 100% gluten free for a time to see if your symptoms improve. I always suggest at least a month because a lot of people take a long time to see improvement. But I'd suspect that if gluten is your problem, you'll see a difference much quicker than that. If not, you'll at least know for sure it's not the gluten and not have to wonder about that anymore.
That being said, if you want or need a medical diagnosis of celiac, you have to continue to eat gluten until all of your medical testing is done. Get a full celiac blood panel and ask to be referred to a gastroenterologist. The blood tests detect the antibodies against gluten. If you're not eating gluten, your blood tests will be negative because no gluten = no anti-gluten antibodies.
If you're not eating gluten (or enough gluten), your test results can come back negative even though you've actually got celiac disease. I stopped eating gluten a month before my tests were done and none of my tests were positive. But by that point, the improvement in my health was so dramatic that my doctor didnt even advise any retesting. Just told me to stay gluten free. She says that she has several other patients just like me who tested negative, but who obviously have celiac reactions based on dietary response.
You feeling fine if you don't eat is a big sign that SOMETHING that you're eating isn't agreeing with you. People are intolerant to all sorts of things.
Geez. Sorry this is so long. I hope you find out what is causing your symptoms, gluten or not. I just know how awful it is to feel that way and I hate to see it happening to other people.
Feel better soon.
Nancy Lee,
I'm so glad I could be helpful. An allergist can't test for celiac, but can test you for a wheat allergy, which is a whole different thing. To be tested for celiac, you need to see a gastroenterologist.
Nancy Report It
I remember when I first found out that celiac even existed. There's a big relief to know that there are other people on the planet who feel, or felt, just like you do. I think that's why at glutenfree forum there are almost 12 THOUSAND members. ~ Nancy Report It
Small, Plain and often. I would advise you to ask the doctor. If you take advise here you have no idea where it came from. The doctor is in the best place to know. |
