Gluten intolerance after low carbing?

[cuddingandpustard]

Firstly- just want to point out that I'm not saying I've definitely become intolerant to gluten- just didn't know what else to title the thread.

I've been low carbing for the past 8 weeks, probably somewhere between bootcamp and bootcamp light for the whole time in terms of strictness if that makes sense.

I was at party on Saturday night and decided to scoff almost an entire pizza to myself! I enjoyed it at the time but the next day I was on the loo with pretty bad stomach cramps and the runs (sorry TMI). I didn't feel unwell and hadn't consumed any alcohol or had anything else that is out of my low carbing "routine". I'm presuming it was a reaction to eating (a huge) portion of something that I'd detoxed out of my system and I wondered if anybody else experienced this? If so is it likely to occur every time I eat things like pizza or pasta? Or if I slowly introduce things like porridge will it ease the transition back?

I'm sure there will be times in the future when I either am presented with or even choose to have a carb-heavy meal but the thought of spending the next day on the loo is slightly worrying!

Both my DCs are coeliac so at home we are completely gluten free, and DH and I are GF 99% of the time. When we first went GF I had a couple of experiences like you described and wondered if I too was coeliac, however the few times I have gluten now I just feel a bit tired. DH on the other hand gets symptoms like you describe if he has gluten now, it is likely he is also coeliac. If you are gluten intolerant you become very sensitive to even small amounts when you exclude it from your diet.
I'm pretty sure if I re-introduced gluten to my diet my body would quickly adjust, but I don't think DH will ever be able to have gluten again.

That's really interesting MsDran, I'll see how it goes in future when eating gluten. Did your DH have symptoms of coeliac before going gf?

He had no symptoms at all. We knew one of us must carry the gene and passed it on to our DCs. It's a funny thing coeliac disease, DS2 was diagnosed at 1yo, DS2 at 14yo and DH didn't get symptoms until he was 40.

I only found out that I was gluten intolerant after a locum to our local surgery suggested an exclusion diet to try and help my arthritic problems. I hadn't had any of the more usual gastric troubles but I had been troubled with almost constant mouth ulcers for years and no-one ever mentioned that they could be a symptom. Within a couple of weeks of excluding gluten they cleared up completely but would return if I ate anything with gluten.

If you want to go down the lines of an official diagnosis then be aware that you need to be eating a normal diet before the blood test. My GP was not aware of this and I got a negative result. She then suggested a gastroscopy which, luckily, I declined as she was also unaware required a gluten intake for a few weeks prior to the biopsy. I would have gone through all that for nothing! She was a bit sniffy about me not wanting a paper diagnosis but I had nothing to gain except a monthly prescription for GF food. As I refuse to use the commercially produced stuff I wasn't worried.

Its worth noting that its now medically acknowledged that you can have non-coeliac gluten intolerance. Some docs still aren't all that well up on it but I believe Dr Briffa is one of the campaigners trying to get the knowledge out there.

My own experience has been that the cleaner I have got my diet the more sensitive I have become and the worse the effects of a slip-up. It seems that we tolerate it to a degree if we are eating it regularly but once its out of the system you lose the ability to deal with even tiny amounts.

Thanks Miffy, I'll see how I get on and if need be will get tested. To be honest the more I think about it, the more I feel like I wasn't particularly benefiting nutritionally from things like pasta and bread and now I'm replacing them with fresh vegetables so long-term it makes sense to continue to maintain this.

It made a huge difference to me going LC. I had been avoiding wheat and gluten for several years but seldom ate the pasta/bread substitutes as I hate stuff with ingredient labels that read like a scientific formula rather than a shopping list! Anyway, the GF pasta used to make my stomach really bloated. I can't eat potatoes as I can't have nightshades due to my joint problems. LC is great as I just pile on the veg and salads. I often think that people go wrong when they start looking for LC substitutes instead of changing how they eat. Lots of the faux foods can be very calorie dense and its not really solving the problem that got you there in the first place!

Have you looked on the Boot Camp page? You don't need to join in to use the resources and theres some excellent recipe ideas.

I had IBS before I went low carb which cleared it up. Now if I have bread the IBS symptoms come back the next day. Less refined bread such as rye bread doesn't cause a problem, and pasta occasionally is fine too. You may just have a problem with wheat rather than gluten per se. Manufactured bread, and presumably pizza bases aren't left to prove in the same way as homemade bread would be and they seem to cause problems for a lot of people who then assume it is gluten intolerance rather than wheat intolerance because gluten is more widely known.