Coeliac

[noddyholder]

Could someone give me an average days gluten free diet in a nutshell?There is a possibility I have this but can't get test atm and am hoping I can try it and see itgwim.There is a mountain of online info which I will plough through if I get a diagnosis but have just been treated for b12 deficiency and can't face any more googling

Can't help with average day's diet but would recommend having a good look in the free from section of a supermarket. Most have wide range and might give some quick ideas / replacements for things you would normally eat

If you are you will find you quickly get into swing of it. my aunt got diagnosed 6 months ago and swore she'd have a nervous breakdown over it. She is now in complete control now and its like it has never been any different. Online stuff can be very overwhelming.

if you go gluten free then have the test (small bowel biopsy I presume), it will be negative. Even if you do have Coeliacs, it will still be negative.

So it may not be the best idea from a medical point of view.... HTH Cass.

noddyholder - well I have been gluten free and lactose free for about 6 weeks and have lost weight (about 0.5 kilo per week) without even trying.

I have found I am not constantly hungry, especially for bread and biscuits, any more.

My diet looks like this.

Breakfast: Gluten free muesli plus Rice/Soya milk plus coffee. Ocassionally, I have gluten free muffin (Sainbury) with a couple of poached eggs on top. Sometimes I have Nairns oat cakes, honey, grapes, dried fruit and nuts. A friend showed me some lactose free yoghurt and lactose free milk from waitrose so I might add that to the mix.

Lunch: This is a totally normal meal for me but no wheat or gluten containing cereal such as pasta or cream/milk for me. Salads are of course very good with a baked potato and some filling like tuna. Puddings are the hardest but I have Swedish Glace ice cream (vanilla is yum) or gluten free cake or just a few gluten free sweet biscuits with a coffee.

Tea/Dinner: Some Japanese rice crackers perhaps, cooked meats, smoked salmon, pickles (care needed for thickeners), fruit, gluten free scone and jam. I hardly ever eat dinner anyway so if I wanted more I could just eat a normal meal as per lunchtime.

Peppermint tea, smoothies, juices and water for drinks. I try amd get Rice Milk and Soya Milk with calcium in to make sure I do not miss out on what I would get from milk.

The trick is to have as many normal foods as possible rather than buying lots of gluten free things. That way life is not too weird or expensive.

I have to say I feel fabulous, huge amounts of energy, and people say I look great too, skin is clear and I have colour not pallor. Bowels are much better too.

I tried a Tiramisu the other day out of politeness at a friend's house and felt dire afterwards.

I have bought the Wheat & Gluten Free Cookbook (by Jody Vassallo) which I am going to try some snack and desert recipes from for variety.

[Oat cakes: the evidence is not definitive but most people believe that oats are OK for coeliacs].

If you are going to have a test - do not do the diet before the test as cass66 says.

I started my diet immediatley after the biopsy test while I was waiting for the results. I tested negative but as I still feel the benefit of the diet so I told my consultant who said just keep on with it if it makes you feel better. So I did.

EBD speaks much sense.
I am not coeliac but am wheat intolerant and have a much happier digestive system without it (goodbye IBS!)

Our lives are very wheat-bound these days, but they don't have to be.

For ages I went without any sort of wheat-free/gluten free replacements but in the end I missed the cakiness/occasional biscuit and most of all the bread (toast!); and the range of available GF foods improved dramatically.

There are gluten free breads - apparently the best one on the market is the Genius bread (haven't tried it myself but the one I get, Ener-G gluten-free loaf has been panned by a few other MNers )

Cereals are relatively simple - rice krispies or corn flakes are GF. As EBD says, with coeliacs, oats might be ok and they might not - extreme coeliacs avoid them to be on the safe side but the oat gluten is sufficiently different from that found in wheat, rye and barley that oats are less problematic. So you can try porridge, oatibix, oatiflakes - but steer clear of mueslis.

There are GF pastas - corn pastas, rice pastas, rice and millet, rice and vegetable - Orgran are a good make, and Dove's Farm have just started doing a great brown rice penne.

I make my own oat cookies (see MN recipes for banana oat cookies) or eat Nairn's Oat biscuits (Nairn's is the only brand of oatcakes that is wheat-free, most own-brand oatcakes include wheat flour ) but if you want gluten free then try proper amaretti morbidi (you have to like almonds though!).
Dove's Farm do gluten free flours and their website has recipes for making things like pastry from them - pretty good stuff if you like or can bake yourself.
Mrs. Crimble's do a nice line in luscious cakey things - I have a great fondness for their double choc brownies - YUM! Dairy free as well.
Meringues are GF so pavlova is always a nice luxury pud option, plsu you have icecream (unless you go dairy free as well, in which case there is always the soya version)

Apart from all these, remember that you still have an enormous range of meat, fish, vegetables and fruit, plus rice and potatoes for your starches to choose from - it isn't the end of the world but it does make it harder to eat junk food and eat out. If you are near a Blubecker's Restaurant, I found them ever so good for GF meals.

Thanks all!I am sure my doctors won't be too keen to get me tested as they think the b12 is doing its job which it is.I am just aware that I found the atkins type diet helped all my symptoms and although it is not gluten free as such it is along the same lines and was a revelation to me.I think I will do trial and error myself and stop for a week just to see how I feel.Thanks for all the ideas xx

If you want to try an exclusion diet for yourself, give it at least 2 weeks, as that is the usual time suggested for the body to "reset" itself. 1 week won't be long enough.

And if you do have any kind of intolerance/allergy, be very careful when you do reintroduce the gluten - a friend of mine had a wheat intolerance (not gluten, wheat) diagnosed by her GP and came off all wheat but after a few weeks was seduced by the smell of freshly-baked bread and ate half a baguette in one sitting - her face, eyelids and throat swelled and closed up alarmingly, almost to the point where she needed hospitalisation, and she had a dreadful rash on her face, neck and chest. She looked like she had been badly stung for a couple of days. Oddly enough, she didn't do it again!

thumbwitch - that is a warning and a half!

I got tempted by toast last night, glad I held back.

what i ate yesterday when the cupboads were almost bare:

• bfast gluten free toast and marmite, strawberries
• lunch salad, cottage cheese, chestnuts (frozen, reheated)
• snack hot chocolate and a banana
• dinner tacos

what i'll have today after shopping man has delivered:

• bfast cornflakes and half a mango
• scrambled eggs, salad and fruit yoghurt
• snack gluten free roll and cottage cheese
• pork fillets and veg

i had the blood test, stopped eating wheat after with great relief. they lost the results. had to restart eating it, much worse cramps etc. huge relief to stop again.

not really expecting positive results, as have other auto-immune disorders which will complicate results. not willing to wait for biospy while eating wheat. like Bdad says, the health improvement from stopping wheat has been enormous

Thanks I am going to give it a couple of weeks then.I am not keen to get etsted tbh as I have other health issues and am on meds which are for auto immune diseases so will not be accurate Food sounds ok and quite yum!

Just a point about oats - although oats themselves are OK, it's very hard to get oats that aren't contaminated by wheat from being coprocessed with them. You can buy guaranteed gf oats from some online stores.

Regular rice crispies and cornflakes are not gf as they contain barley malt extract. Some people can tolerate this, some can't.

Noddy, that's interesting, I have a thyroid autoimmune disorder, causing an underactive thyroid, which is also common in coeliac disease.

Also, be aware that you can be Non Coeliac Gluten Intolerant which means you may not test positive for coeliac. If I were you I would give the gluten free diet a good go and see if you improve, if you do then I think you have your answer.

I posted a link to this thread earlier on the other thread you were on, it might be helpful to you www.mumsnet.com/Talk/allergies/753829-Gluten-Free-Food-from-supermarkets

Good luck!

thanks for the info on rice krispies and cornflakes CMOTD - didn't know that.

I just noticed that when I did teh atkins diet a lot of my unexplained health symptoms went away esp palpitations which are horrendous after carbs.The docs said it was in my imagination!

some docs do that - they don't like illnesses to be explained away by food problems, although some docs are getting more used to the idea of food intolerances now.

Some docs think that massage doesn't do anyone any good either - that it's just a nice rub that makes you feel better so that's why things don't hurt so much. This blinkered attitude by some docs is very much a large part of the reason why the complementary health trade is increasing so much - if the docs embraced it more, people wouldn't turn away from conventional medicine as much as they are doing.

Sorry, bit of a sidetrack rant there!

I totally agree with your rant Thumbwitch! These days I don't care what my GP thinks, I know my body better than he does so I listen to that far more than I listen to him

noddyholder - those are all really interesting and important comments from merryberry/CMOTD/thumbwitch/TimeForMe.

I agree that GPs are pretty useless on this issue (Thumbwitch I am ranting with you). My consultant was not exactly helpful either at times. I was feeling a bit of a hypocondriac fool when my consultant said I had tested negative for Coeliac but the Gluten Free / Lactose Free diet works for me and that is enough proof as far as I am concerned. Being a GF/LF novice I had no idea until I had read this thread that it was even possible to be 'Non Coeliac Gluten Intolerant'. The oat, rice krispies, corn flakes contamination issue I was aware of but still something I am experimenting with and I do try not to have any more than one of them in the same day.

However, purely by my own effort rather than medical advice and I have to say after reading lots and lots of Coeliac threads on MN over the last 18 months I am glad I did finally decided to give GF/LF diet a go out of desperation really. I cannot believe how dramatic the results are.

Definitely listen to your body as TimeForMe says. I cannot believe how dramatic the reaction is when I fell off the wagon accidentally went back and tried wheat or milk.

Sorry to hear you have complicating autoimmune problems. Many many years ago I was involved in drugs research on early genetic research into Lupus Erythematosus and I recall that it was a very distressing condition.

I wish you well on trying the GF diet. You might want to eventually try LF too as it is often linked.

Also Noddy, some medications and supplements contain gluten and lactose as a binder or in the coating. Malt vinegar is to be avoided too, as is brown sauce. You can have tomato ketchup though I'm telling you this because one of the things I really miss is 'proper' vinegar on my chips!

TimeForMe - is wine vinegar OK? It might work and is fairly widely available?

Yes Evenabetadad, it is, as is balsamic, rice and cider vinegar. Oxo cubes and gravy granules contain gluten too. You can get gluten free ones but IMO they are very salty.

wine vinegar on chips - now there's posh!

Soy sauce is another one to potentially avoid as it often contains wheat extract/derivative

EBD - there is a really good book out there called Tony's Lactose-Free cookbook - he and his wife run a clinic in Wales for diagnosing lactose intolerance at all levels and the book is a nice mix of recipes, facts, personal experience and science. Interesting where lactose often ends up as well, as it is a common bulking agent! I really recommend this book.

Soy sauce and white pepper contain it too.

Ooh thats my first ever cross post

A lot of what you would think it malt vinegar is actually OK though as it is a 'non brewed condiment' ie not malt derived.

Bisto best gravy is GF and very tasty

CMOTdibbler Thank you for that info, you have just made my day!