Coeliac disease - how long did it take you to get better once you'd started a gluten-free diet?

[iwouldgoouttonight]

I've been feeling run down and have lost a bit of weight and generally not feeling quite right over the last few months and was diagnosed with coeliac disease about three weeks ago. My mum also has it so I know quite a bit about it, but she said once she stopped eating gluten she felt better almost immediately.

I've not eaten gluten now for three weeks and if anything I feel worse. I've had really bad diarrhoea and nausea and feel quite light-headed. The doctor said it might take months for my gut to repair itself and start to be able to absorb food properly again, but I'd hoped I might start to see a gradual improvement. I'm definitely not eating any gluten - I've been really careful about what I'm eating and reading labels on everything.

Does anyone have any experience of this and how long did it take you to feel 'normal' again?

It took a few weeks to start feeling better, and a good year to be really back to normal if I'm honest.

You might want to try going lactose free, or taking lactase for a while, as it's common to have a lactose intolerance until your villi heal and start making lactase again

Thanks - part of the problem is I'm vegetarian so if I cut out lactose I'd have an extremely limited diet (although I feel so ill at the minute I'm hardly eating anything anyway so it wouldn't make much difference!).

Forgive my ignorance but is lactose in all milk products or just cow's milk? I.e. if I cut it out could I eat goat's cheese, coconut milk, etc or not?

Lactose is in all animal milks - so cow, sheep, goat, but not coconut milk.

You can buy the lactase supplement in Holland and Barratts, so might be worth a try to see if it helps

can take ages, so take it easy at first:
First you go through detox, then you could develop various sensitivities, because of various deficiencies and malnourished state (for my ds this was approx 2 months into the diet even tho he was impressively fine at first), only then you start absorbing nutrients better and see the real improvement.
Yeah, he was also vegeterian, that's because gut damage stopped him from digesting protein and he was deficient in stomach acid.
He is truly better now and can happily eat small amounts of meat.
Bear in mind that humans can absorb nutrients from animal proteins better than from the plants, that's becuase we don't make cellulase, enzyme that digests plant cells walls so unless you juice veg or chew it extraordinarily well, you will only get a small fraction of what they contain.
Look up celiac.com website for awesome info, inc awesome celiac/gluten-free population. They answered all my questions, even those I hadn't thought of at first - and good luck.

I went Gluten Free and Lactose Free all in one go and noticed the change immediately. I reacted very badly when I accidentally ate the wrong thing.

Definitely do both GF and LF to see if it makes a difference.

Took my 7yo DS about 6 months to see a major improvment, and we are now 8 months into it, and he's doing much much better. His dietician told me it takes at least 6 months for the gut to heal.