Posted by bleauberry on June 25, 2008, at 19:49:38
In reply to when somebody reacts to gluten, posted by linkadge on June 24, 2008, at 6:27:21
Symptoms of gluten reactivity vary greatly. It is an understudied and usually underdiagnosed condition. Among other things, it can profoundly affect intestines, immune system, autoimmunity, psychiatric symptoms, fatigue.
Some of the best information I found on it was with a google search on "test for gluten sensitivity". Lots of informative hits. The overall theme is how destructive it is, how hard it is to test for, and how underdiagnosed it is.
The best and simplest test is to simply skip eating anything with gluten for a month. If one is gluten sensitive, they will feel noticeably better. Upon reintroduction of gluten, they will feel worse again.
I have been gluten free for almost a year. It is more expensive to eat, but here are things I eat often:
Potato/corn/soy spaghetti (tastes like regular speghetti.
Rice spaghetti (close but not quite the real thing, a bit mushy if cooked too much).
General Mills Rice Chex cereal.
Gluten Free Pantry Old Fashioned Bread Mix (make my own bread, pretty easy and very good.
Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free all-purpose flour...pancakes, donuts, crispy chicken, whatever.
K-Toos Oreo cookies (made from rice, taste just like Oreos)
Rice Chips
Many others...Whole Foods Market has a large selection of gluten free foods, desserts, cereals, and snacks. Major grocery chains have a fair selection. Things to look for are cereals, pastas, snacks and desserts. There are even gluten free pizzas and pizza crusts. Just go for things that say gluten free on the package. Some of them suck. Some are real good. Breads for example suck, except for the above homemade and Whole Foods gluten free white sandwich frozen bread is pretty good. I made a flourless chocolate cake, which Whole Foods sells, out of chocolate, eggs, butter, and sugar from a recipe online and it is out of this world.
Speaking of chocolate...Hershey's bar is gluten free, Hershey's Special Dark is not. There are gluten free chocolates to be safe.
Gluten can be hidden. For example, a rice cereal that has barley malt in it, well, it has gluten...from the barley malt. Gluten is from barley, wheat, and rye.
Anything that has on the ingredient label "natural flavors" is suspect. Could be fine, maybe not. Don't know what the natural flavor they used is made from.
I had unexplained explosive diarrhea I blamed on a late side effect to drugs. It did clear up after stopping the drugs. But the large volumes of gas did not clear up. I also had times of feeling really revved up with anxiety, followed by times of feeling incredibly fatigued and depressed. The reactions triggered by the protein gluten when it is not digested properly have a lot of interplay with the opioid receptors, explaining the roller coaster symptoms. I can see how it would be easy to misdiagnose gluten intolerance as depression+anxiety, or as rapid cycling bipolar. My immune system is suspect still.
I improved perhaps 40% after stopping gluten consumption. Once every couple months or so I say what the heck and have a Big Mac. Sure tastes awesome. The next day is almost guaranteed to be very lethargic and glum, almost as if poisoned or heavily drugged...the opioid thing. And lots of gas.
How did I find out? Weird. I took a test called Adrenal Stress Index. It tested for cortisol, DHEA, and just happened to have a gluten antibody as part of it. Wasn't interested in that, didn't even think about it. When the test came back, the gluten antibodies were deep in the red zone. Wow. Like most people, I had never heard of gluten and had no idea what this meant.
Gluten intolerance can show up at any time in life. It can be triggered by damage to intestinal villa from medicines, toxins such as lead or mercury from amalgam fillings which also flatten out and damage the villa, or plain ole genetics.
There are some lab tests to pinpoiont gluten problems. Not always definitive, and pretty expensive. The best test is to go gluten free for real and see what happens.
Even healthy symptom-free people claim to feel better on gluten free diets.
poster:bleauberry
thread:836164
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20080612/msgs/836436.html