Starting eating gluten-free a few days ago and feel a lot better already?

[ibssis]

I had a negative blood test for coeliac's disease last year, but after suffering with recurrent stomach issues I started keeping a food diary and realised that my symptoms tend to coincide with eating a lot of gluten. Even on a 'normal' day, my stomach never seemed happy and I had a lot of stomach cramps.

I decided to trial a gluten-free diet for a week or so to see if it had any impact. It's only been a few days and my stomach seems to have completely settled, and my bowel movements seem normal for the first time in ages. It might just be the placebo effect or a coincidence, so I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced this kind of thing with their IBS?

It may be another coincidence but my eczema and TMJ has also calmed down. I also feel less foggy headed, which I had always attributed to anxiety.

Lactose intolerance can resolve after about 9 months, you can reintroduce it and then it can return but maybe not as severely. When I was diagnosed with coeliac disease (negative antibody test, positive on biopsies) I still had problems with lactose, but eventually as the guy healed it improved. 11 years later and I am mostly ok with lactose. I guess the time frame might be different for everyone but I remember reading this at the time and it was pretty spot on for me.

Coeliac disease was only identified after the war. Scientists observed that some people became ill as food shortages and rationing decreased. I think it was in the Netherlands where there had been a significant absence of bread/baking

These are the ingredients of Warburtons gluten-free rolls:

Water, Tapioca Starch, Potato Starch, Maize Starch, Rapeseed Oil, Yeast, Vegetable Fibre (Psyllium), Egg White Powder, Sugar, Pea Protein, Stabiliser: E464; Fruit Extract (Carob and Apple), Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Humectant: Vegetable Glycerine; Preservative: Calcium Propionate; Cornflour, Natural Flavouring, Iron.

They taste nice - but they leave me reeling.

I have been sticking to plain white rice for a few days and feel so much better.

I mean, humans in general aren't really built to digest gluten. Some of us can deal with is, but I think we would ALL feel better without it (assuming we replaced it with healthy choices!)

@ManchesterLu
What do you mean by healthy choices?
I’m genuinely interested.

Thank you all for the replies, it's great to know that I may have found the answer to my issues. I'm trying not to get my hopes up just yet just in case but I'm still feeling really hopeful.

I have a GP appointment next week so I will mention it to them, as I've already had a negative coeliac blood test I'm hoping they won't be annoyed at me for cutting gluten out before being told to do so.

I'm not being super strict with myself (e.g. I'm using the shared toaster), and so far it seems ok. I guess with time and trial and error I'll learn if I need to completely cut out all gluten, or whether just making a few substitutions (e.g. swapping out bread and pasta for the GF versions) is enough to keep me feeling healthy.

I had a pasta meal in the fridge left over that I needed to eat as it was running out of date and I didn't want to throw it away, and straight after I had intense stomach cramps and bloating, although it may have been a coincidence.

My cousin is 50 plus and had gluten free bread on prescription as a child .

@justasking111 that's what I do- too much gluten gives me neurological issues, (headaches, dizzy spells, pins and needles, etc) not stomache ones. I can take it in small doses , so I'm not coeliac I don't think but it no longer agrees with me in large amounts.

Well, if your username is anything go by, that was because the children were too busy dying in infancy or of TB and Measles to have intolerances noticed.

However, being slightly more serious, whilst there had been records of reactions to various foods throughout history, an increase in diagnoses increased as the conditions and their causes were identified. My sister was treated for allergies through the 1950s and 60s as she had what was termed 'brittle asthma' - ie, her allergic reactions caused breathing difficulties (including a collapsed lung c. 1970). On medical advice, the family moved from a council property adjoining farmland to one in town in 1963 because of her issues and skin prick tests revealed multiple things that she reacted to.

I was treated throughout the 70s and 80s for allergies and reactions to foods - there was a very long list of other things I either wasn't allowed, though some of them were couched in the 'It makes you go crazy/hyperactive/you always throw up/you're whingey and whiney for days after having them' language, rather than 'you have an intolerance' or I refused to eat (because they made me feel ill).

if you'd been at school with me, what I didn't eat would have been of little interest to you, so I wouldn't have had to explain to you everything I wasn't allowed or made me feel ill.

Similar here - been lactose-intolerant for years. From the age of 47, gluten sent me to sleep, bloated and flatulent.
Am nearly 51, on HRT for hot flashes and gluten and lactose-free.
It's relatively easy to eat out and I feel much better!

Same for me. 8 or 9 years ago I was suffering awful IBS-C and acid reflux and nothing was found on blood tests etc at GP and they just didn't care. I ended up doing YorkTest (yes I know it's not scientifically verified fully) and it flagged cows milk and gluten intolerance iGg and iGe sensitivity. I had already known from a child I had issues with cows milk (had to be weaned v early and couldn't tolerate it even as a v young toddler). I cut out both and felt better within about 2 weeks.

Over the years I reintroduced it. All was good. Then I got a few stomach bugs and v stressed and IBS flared back up and suddenly I can't tolerate again. Cut them out eventually and my IBS improved within days.

Now playing around a bit. I can tolerate some gluten but not a lot in one day so have to be careful of the load. Certainly wouldn't be having pizza, bread or pasta but can have a small wrap maybe and be okay. I think yeast and gluten together is the killer for me! Milk wise I can tolerate cheese other than cows milk cheese (yay for halloumi!) and small bits of chocolate!

My friend had this. She was away on holiday with all meals prepared so thought she'd give gluten free ago. She felt do much better. She's gone practically dairy free as well now and is back to her old self after 2/3 struggling without a diagnosis.

Ultra processed foods. Like any baked item bought from a shop. And especially like any gluten free replacement.

I'm sorry this is crap! They can mainly digest it, apart from one bit which is excreted and this is the part which causes an immune response in coeliacs (A T cell mediated one)

If humans only ate what they could fully digest then we'd have an incredibly limited diet. Humans can't digest cellulose for example (found in all plants!)

This is hilarious.
No Asthma?
The first autopsy of an asthma death is almost as old as autopsy itself, in the seventeenth century.
So fuck knows when you were born.

Don't you go telling me 'such nonsense'. Bloody cheek.

Yes, hay fever was common. I was a child suffering from hay fever in the 1960's AND THE DOCTOR CALLED IT A SUMMER COLD. Everybody did. You just had to put up with it. They only really started calling it hay fever in the early 70's, when they also began to recognise that the sniffles some people had all year round was perennial rhinitis.

People did have food intolerances, they just didn't know what it was then, and since the doctor had to be paid for in years gone by, they put up with anything that wasn't life-threatening. You were alive during WWII were you, and medically qualified to diagnose bowel disorders? No, thought not. Of course people had food intolerances during the war, but since they were more concerned with being blown to smithereens by a bombing raid every night, it was trivial by comparison. People did have asthma, my great-grandparent died of it in the 1920, and it is the cause of death on their death certificate, which I sent for when I was doing some family tree research.

II’m the same OP. I decided I was gluten intolerant rather than Coeliac (as I had negative blood test). I haven’t looked back. My irritable bowel syndrome is much improved.
Have you fond the Becky Excell books?

It is diagnostic- children are not routinely subjected to an endoscopy, they are diagnosed on blood tests alone. In many other countries adults are also diagnosed on blood tests alone.
Rarely the blood test is negative as some people don’t make the antibodies but the antibody deficiency is routinely tested for as part of a Coeliac blood test so would be picked up as part of the screening. These people would then be referred for an endoscopy.
In the past endoscopies were always needed for diagnosis but not anymore. If the blood test is positive there is nothing else it can be - it is specific for Coeliac disease. An endoscopy maybe also needed if there are concerns about a co-morbidity or the blood test is borderline.

I was reading one of the sequels to Little Women and one of the characters recommended giving up bread and coffee as a cure for dyspepsia. That would have been late 19th century.

I am coeliac and I remember giving up gluten the day of my diagnosis and going from half-dead to close to 100% well within a couple of days. It can work that fast.

Sounds like you could be sensitive or intolerant to gluten rather than full-on coeliac, and if the GF diet is helping you feel better why not carry on with it? At least keep it up for a few more weeks and monitor how your health is going.

I'm not allergic to gluten but I am allergic to the wheat protein itself so, like you, mine wouldn't show up on a blood test.

My dm who would be 90 if still alive had all these issues all her life until finally going gluten free in her 60s when she miraculously recovered. Her dsis always had problems with her stomach, never felt great and l suspect had the same issues. When my mother talked about her mother, who died when l was young, she said she never felt well as her stomach always acted up.
Now to this generation. My dm had 8 children. 3 were diagnosed as coeliac in their 50s and 3 have gluten intolerance leading to severe skin rashes ...dermatitis herpetiformis. It's genetic. These things were there but no diagnosis and unfortunately people just suffered on.

OP I am just beginning my journey into going GF - I have thyroid problems and have read that it could help lower my antibodies. It's so encouraging to read that it's working well for you!

I'm actually finding it a lot easier than being plant based (I won't call myself ex-vegan but ate plant based for three years and felt even worse as a result).

If you cook from scratch it doesn't have to be that much more expensive and you can feed the whole family. Spuds, veg, meat, fruit, rice are all naturally GF. I live with my mother who is coeliac and we eat the same meals. We just use gf flour or corn flour to thicken stews, make gravy etc... Even things like the normal sausages and burgers in supermarkets are gf, they're not in a special section or anything and are the same price. Admittedly all the processed stuff is expensive and bread/wraps/rolls/pasta are dear. But my mum gets flour on prescription and she has a pre paid annual prescription certificate which is cheaper and makes her own bread in the bread maker.

@Crinkle77 I use Marigold GF gravy granules , which I actually like and my H doesn't mind and use it for stews too.