Wheat free diet and excessive wind

[IlanaK]

I am not bothering to change my name for this even though it is somewhat embarrasing.

I have recently changed to a wheat free diet (due to baby reacting to my breastmilk). This has meant an increase in other grains in my diet (particularly rye and oats). Since doing this, I have had excessive wind. I am sure it is related to this as I remember a similar thing from a long time ago when I started eating too much rye bread toast in the mornings (it was so yummy!).

So, is this normal? And is there anything i can do about it as it is not much fun.

shortcircuit, I know you said you about not appropriate to post your probs so I don't know your history.
low acidity when chronic is very debilitating and can have some quite specific major problems. if you are very ill and in poor shape, then I may agree with you, if not then the chances are you have been caught in time.

I am glad they are vertical ridges not transverse, (thats a good specific sign of poor nutrient absorption, as transverse is something different but a possible victim of low acidity and its accompanying probs).

many people can live with low acidity levels for years and have some noticable probs but nothing that docs are worried about too much and don't affect in a major way and this is what I hope is your situation. a lot of low stomach acidity can be traced to the lack of bitter foods in our modern diet. bitter foods are the ones used as appetisers and encourage, promote, start the digestion process by inducing secretion of digestive enzymes, the major one being hydrochloric acid. thats why low acidity is more a western thing rather than eastern or african thing
chronic low acidity is usually a quicker surfacing of probs and has a specific medical cause, so from onset of diminishing acid to major symptoms is a lot quicker than if you had just low levels, does that make sense?

oh not sure I understand your last sentance ?

I think my main problem is vitiligo which I've had for about 15 years. I have the low white blood count. Feel the cold. Windy after food. Vertical ridges on finger nails, although my nails themselves are strong without white flecks.

On the plus side, I'm rarely ill, my skin is healthy looking aside from the vitiligo. My hair is good.

I eat a good diet, although I'm not big on oily fish (was a pesco-vegetarian for 15 years eating salmon/tuna ) I now eat, fairly infrequently, organic chicken.

I will now reasearch bitter foods !

ok, what I mean is that the usual causes of chronic low acidity are medical conditions that are identifiable. vitiligo is a medical condition but its role in low acidity is not confirmed but is more thought of as a symptom of not a cause of low acidity.

chronic low acidity is often to do with damage to the stomach wall whereby the cells that normally combine CO2, water, sodium chloride or potassium chlorides to make the HCA on demand cannot do so. this usually has the knock on effect that to counter the usual production and therefore lowering of pH in the stomach, less pancreatic juices (the alkaline buffer/counter to low pH) are produced and secreted into the intestines which means even less digestive ability and as the pancreatic juices are not made in high quantities, the low level of acid in the stomach actually increases the level of acid in the intestines which cannot cope like the stomach can and therefore can cause the quite possible severe damage.
non chronic low levels of acid cause not quite so wide a divergence in pH balance and therefore do less damage and can be repairable.

by slowly increasing the acid in the stomach by supplementation, the cells in the stomach wall can be encouraged to produce more acid themselves, I call it the jealousy reaction . the stomach is prodded in action by rising acid levels and the more acid there is the more efficient it can get, like cleaning the limescale from a kettle, once you raise acid levels, the limescale gunk is stripped away from the inner surfaces and elemnt allowing the kettle to boil water more efficiently. if left the limescale will eventually stop the kettle from working. keeping with this analogy, if the element of the kettle that produces the heat is broken or other damaged, then no matter what, the heat will not be produced and this going back to the stomach is more like the chronic low acid problem.

if you have chronic low acidity, you would certainly be ill a lot and have rubbish skin and not so good hair, and many other problems too.

does that help?

yes, thanks Misi.

I do feel quite cross though, because, in the main, my diet is very good.

that is another good sign that is is low acidity and not chronic low.
different foods and food groups cause different raising in HCA levels. thats the problem with low acidity, there is often no one cause of it but a set of circumstances and a downward spiral, a bit like a catch 22 situation.
when you are missing a food group that stimulates HCA, HCA production reduces which means that your body is less able to digest those foods so ''pushes'' you towards food you can digest with lower acid levels like your sugar cravings, the more sugary foods you eat, the less HCA is needed, less HCA means your body goes for the foods it can digest and so on etc!!

protiens for instance need HCA to break them down and then a protease to finish it off, proteases cannot work properly though on protiens not partly broken down already which is why your amino acid absorption is low. sugars do not really need much HCA involvement as they only need 1 or 2 conversions to be absorbed efficiently whereas protiens need about 8 conversions to be digested (and I hope thumbwitch can correct me on this as I can't remember the proper figure!!). this means sugar is highly digestible by the body even in low acid environments as it is the most basic of foods and is why you crave it sometimes.

bitters are good though but as you are under a nutritionist, and on a particular plan of action, don't do anything off your own back as it can upset the plan. I expect you will have or be getting a diet plan for the future which should have a bitters element to it, but my guess is, that once you start the HCA therapy, you will notice the difference and feel so much better!!