glutenfree diet!?

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I know GF/CF diets are not for everyone, but I've been gluten and dairy free for almost two years now and it's made a huge difference for me personally. It's worth being openminded about.

This kind of diet is usually recommended for digestive problems, but for some people there are other benefits, too. I have less trouble focusing, think more clearly and am less sensitive to sensory overload. I used to get dizzy spells in crowded, sensory-intensive places (like WalMart or the mall) all the time and now I rarely do.

The thing to bear in mind is that it takes time (sometimes a few months) to see results from a GF/CF diet. You can't just go on it for two or three weeks, then quit and think it won't help you, in other words. Also, if you are sensitive to gluten and dairy and eliminate them 'cold turkey', your body goes through a bit of a detox period, which isn't too fun. It might be better to gradually cut them out.

So, you have to make a lot of sacrifices, but you can get a lot of rewards from it, too. If you keep having these problems, maybe you should take Ishmael's advice and see a doctor. Then, think it over.

wow the fact that i drink so much milk makes me think i can become more consentrating looks really helpfull thx
ugh...the docter is maybe a big step to take but ill might consider do it ^^

Everyone seems to be different and there is no guarantee you'll get the same results as me. But, if you're really bothered by these problems, it could be worthwhile to give it a shot.

I hope you'll talk to a doctor first, though, and take a practical approach. It's important that if you start eliminating foods, you still get the nutrients you need. (Maybe drinking a glass of calcium-fortified orange juice instead of milk in the morning to make sure you're still getting the same amount of calcium, for example).

The whole idea is to make yourself healthier, so I'd just hate to see you fix one problem only to end up with a different problem in terms of not having a balanced diet.

Good luck!

That is a classic sign of food intolerance; addiction. And drug users know about how if don't get their fix they definitely feel as if something is missing.

Many people don't even notice; they are so used to getting their morning fix/"hair of the dog"/"pick me up" of gluten, casein, and sugar ( painkiller), in their toast and butter and marmelade/jelly, or cereals and milk, or whatever their version is, that so long as their breakfast routine is not disturbed they are perfectly "happy" ( if somewhat alienated, or detached, cynical and critical, with a tendency to gloom, or driven, aggressive, or over-excitable perhaps).

Happy that is until a bad tummy bug, or unusual exposure to chemicals, or tiredness/extra stress, or a course of antibiotics, or pregnacy, or puberty, or menopause, changes their body's balance, and suddenly they're suffering from rampant eczema, or asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, or irritable bowel syndrome, or constant colds, increasingly frequent awful headaches, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, manic-depression, irritability, stupor/fatigue, brain fog, etc.

A year ago I started a thread ( in Members Only) as support for me and others wanting to follow a gluten free diet. It is at:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt45945.html

There are several pages of many people's experiences and hints/tips/advice on how to exclude gluten, and also casein, in the longterm.

I have managed to keep it up, and I also avoid casein/dairy most of the time too, because I am finding , as bluerose says, that it has a significant effect on my mental and physical health, especially in lightening my mood, giving me a more positive outlook on things, aswell as better sleep, and calmer guts.

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The biggest problem with gluten or casein free diets is generally not expense, ( it needn't be, and isn't in my own experience, any more expensive to eat gluten and/or dairy free than it is to eat a reasonably normal healthy diet), but one of withdrawal, both psychological, ( because of psychological dependency on the food opioids themselves in gluten and casein, aswell as the exclusion from "normal"/ordinary/common eating practices which you have probably grown up with, and are practically part of your identity), aswell as some physical withdrawal effects.

I have experienced, and become used to, ( as a result of stop-start exclusion dieting in the past), the physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms which occur in the first few days of cutting out the food, like headaches, slowness, clumsiness, irritability, total gloom, etc, but was this time round somewhat taken unawares by a longer lasting one which may have been because of my age, 45.

This was a previously unnoticed thyroid dysfunction which became very evident in the months following removal of ( the stimulant/irritant) gluten and casein from my diet, which had me worried until I found out that many thyroid dysfunctions are auto-immune related, ( the thyroid being attacked by the immune system as a result of food intolerance reactions to daily "invasion" by what it experiences as foreign/enemy objects), and began to hope that if I kept up the gfcf diet for long enough there was actually the possibility that it would recover, which it seems to have done.

And life really has been getting better and better, increasingly this last half year. Research has shown that the kidneys/liver ( forget which, see gfcf thread for details!) can and do store food opioids for up to 26 weeks, and therefore the greatest benefits of a gfcf diet may not be seen until after 6 months exclusion.

Last edited by ouinon on 08 Sep 2008, 5:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

6 months means like 10 years to me
thanks for all the info seems worth doing altough im tired of figuring out that i have yet another crappy handicap

Yes, I know, it has felt like that to me so often that since finding out about food intolerance 16 years ago I have only three or four times managed to follow a gfcf diet consistently for longer than a few months.

You work out what it's worth to you. It's taken me till now; I'm slow.

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I tried it. It was hell.

I think it helped a bit however, but I live in an area that all I could eat was brown rice and that was it. Some veggies of course, but could not get creative and all I wanted to do was eat. I dreamed of food. I almost ate a cereal BOX. I WAS TOO DAMN HUNGRY.

But, yes, less pain and suffering on one level, added suffering on another. So it was just a shift in pain and suffering.

It seems as though many of the benefits of GF/CF could be had for just a healthier diet. All those substitute foods tend to be healthy; and most junk foods contain milk or wheat in some form.

May not be taking out wheat and milk that helps, but changing the diet to be healthier... Just a thought.

Naturally, wheat/milk intolerance does need the ingredient in question taken out of the diet. And touchy digestive systems probably do better not having to cope with milk. But it could just be the overall better quality of the diet if you switch to GF/CF.

Incidentally. My diet before and after my childhood experiment with GF/CF was very healthy, because my mother is absolutely obsessed (aspie style) with health and nutrition. Maybe that is why I had no change. (My mother, who has celiac disease, did benefit. Obviously.)

OUINON< wouaw, i am very surprised!!
You are so right, when i am having my breakfast, i dont want to be disturbe, i shout at people "go away and leave me alone" I have to have my breakfast in a quiet environnment.

But i hate soya milk. I love so much milk *full fat one of course! lool

You are saying that I am most likely to be milk intolerant. Can you check that by allergy test?

You can, but many classic allergy tests only control for a certain immune system response which often doesn't occur in food "intolerance" cases, so try and find a clinic/centre which bears this in mind.

Most/many doctors don't take food intolerance very seriously either, often declaring both psychological and physical symptoms to be psychosomatic in origin, ( the average doctor/GP only gets about 20 hours of nutrition tuition during their medical training), which is why Dr. Richard Mackarness's landmark book on the subject is titled " Not all in the Mind".

The best/simplest way to find out if you are intolerant is to exclude all dairy for at least a week, ( it takes the body 4-5 days to eliminate gut-contents alone) and see if you experience any changes/difference. Read packets carefully for milk powders etc, because it is added, ( like wheat flour/gluten/hydrolised vegetable protein is), to many prepared/packaged foods.

If you do feel different/better, ( allowing for three or four days of possible withdrawal symptoms including cravings, aswell as headaches, etc, as listed above ), then it might be worth continuing a cf diet. If at that point you want a professional test it might be a good idea to contact the Institute of Optimum Nutrition in London for names/addresses of "intolerance-aware" practitioners.

Good luck.

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I dislike soya milk too, and rice and almond milks tend to be expensive so I have never found a satisfactory milk substitute.

One of the most difficult things about finally giving up dairy has been adapting to coffee without milk. But I am getting used to it. I drink a lot of diluted fruit juices; somebody's idea about calcium enriched orange juice is a good one.

Nuts are very good in general for calcium, aswell as other good things.

I missed cheese for ages. ... But I'm getting over it; I see it more nowadays as highly salted, dried, and clotted milk!!

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As it is ramadan, i am fasting at the moment. Every morning before sunrise i have my bowl of milk. So i guess i could try not having it, because during the day i wont get tempted.
i will try during this week. and see if any difference is made.
(i noticed that when i dont have enough milk i start to have white dot on my nails.) I dont eat cow milk cheese, (only sheep one, or sometimes goat) but i guess it will have to stop. I never eat yoghurt because it makes me sick.

Thank you for your advice.
I dont think my doctor will be helpful then..
i will try to find and buy the book you are talking about

nuts... i try not to buy any, because my daughter is higly allergic to that (and asthmatic, which mean i have some adrenaline shots ready for her in case she has an attack)
What am i going to have at breakfast? I dont drink coffee or tea. (well i have only hearbl tea sometimes)
orange juice maybe...

Could you bear sardines, with the little crunchy bones? That is a good calcium source. As are green vegetables.


For breakfast I only ever eat fruit. Or you could try rice cakes/toast with mashed banana and sesame seeds ( also good for calcium). Or an egg!

White spots on nails are not necessarily, or even mostly, a sign of calcium deficiency. I believe they can be sign of other mineral deficiencies, like zinc.

Calcium deficiency can also be the result of not getting enough Vitamin D with which to metabolise/absorb and use calcium. Half an hour of direct sun/daylight a day can optimise your body's use of the calcium you eat. Or oily fish, like sardines, tuna etc.

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I just wanted to add to my previous replies that if you aren't suffering in any way, if your health is pretty satisfactory generally, if life seems good, then there might be no reason to change your diet.

So long as you can avoid extra stressors which might trigger a loss of adaptation to milk, with onset of new symptoms as I described, ( which can also happen if you exclude the food suddenly) then being dependent on/addictively adapted to a food needn't be a problem.

Avoiding a food which you are addicted to might be an interesting/challenging discipline, but excluding it could actually shake up a personality/habitual state that you are used to and which functions reasonably well.

I have dithered more than once about whether it was necessary or desirable that I exclude gluten for instance, ( even after I had established its connection with recurrent anxiety and depression etc), because sometimes the way I felt/behaved "on gluten" seemed so much part of me, ( a mindset that I had got used to over several years) that I experienced its disappearance as loss. I now realise that it was the transition period which produced the effect of flatness/reduced intensity. Like giving up any drug I suppose.

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Last edited by ouinon on 09 Sep 2008, 6:38 am, edited 1 time in total.