For those sensitive to gluten...

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It has been suggested that I remove gluten from my diet to test if it can improve my existence- Primarily my thinking process/anxiety, attention, constant shutdowns and irritability. I also need to test dairy, but want to do one at a time.

I was wondering, for those who know that they are sensitive to gluten (but do not have celiac disease), how do you actually feel when you eat gluten? I mean, how does you mind feel, not your digestive system?

Without gluten: My sensory processing becomes way better. I used to live in a jumbled mess of senses, but now I am much more capable of integrating them together into a coherent whole. I can also control my emotions a lot better without gluten. With it, I behaved as though I was eternally stoned, with very rapid, nonsensical emotion shifts.

Last edited by MathGirl on 04 Apr 2013, 8:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Though I have been able to tell for a long time that certain foods have a negative effect on my mental function, I had no idea how much gluten was affecting me until recently. I stopped eating it due to similar advice some time ago and have only been eating gluten free bread and pasta. While I felt that it had helped, I had also been doing several other things to try to improve my autistic symptoms, so it was hard to say how much (plus, I find it difficult to compare how I feel now to how I felt before in terms of mental clarity because I can't retain a nebulous concept like that in my memory). However, yesterday I was in a cafe where they had no gluten free bread and figured it couldn't hurt to have a wholewheat bread sandwich. That was a mistake. Within about ten minutes of eating it it felt like a fog had descended over my brain and I struggled to think properly. It was very unpleasant and made me realise that gluten had been one of the main contributors to my difficulties (I'm still very far from NT without it, but it helps a lot). I feel better again today, but I'm not going to be eating wheat again.

I'm not sure if it helps in terms of my emotions/anxiety, I haven't really noticed that. Usually the effect of eating the "bad" food for me is brain fog and/or feeling very tired.

I am trying to do the same with dairy - have had no problem substituting milk and butter, in fact I even like the substitutes better in some cases. But I'm struggling with cheese. I absolutely love cheese and have yet to find any dairy-free cheese substitute which doesn't taste bad, or tastes nothing like cheese. Reducing my dairy intake does already seem to be helping though.

If I eat something with gluten, the some of the effects don't happen right away. It takes 3 or 4 days of me eating it to feel anything. But almost right away I get a craving for it, and then after several days of me eating it I get prone to being irritable quickly, having a mental fog and becoming ridiculously ravenous; fatigue and also losing most (if not all) of my interest in other people. Not only that, I start getting digestive issues and later, menstrual cycle issues. Plus I get headaches along with this.

I love the stuff, but sadly it doesn't love me back.

This is exactly why I posted this question

The tiredness and fog are big issues for me too. When they hit I become very closed off and agitated.

My quality of life has been very poor, I really hope that I can find something that will make some kind of difference.

Perhaps it would help you to do what I inadvertantly did then - stop eating all gluten for a few months to make sure it's completely out of your system, then eat a couple of meals which include plenty of it (such as wheat bread sandwiches, or regular pasta) and keep a close eye on how you feel afterwards and over the next couple of days. That will probably give you your answer.

Hope you find that it helps you, it has for me.

Similar to all the other replies for me, too. Just wanted to point out that it can take up to 6 months to completely detox gluten. Positive results will be slow, but add up, just as re-introducing it won't likely cause instant negative effects.. but over time it builds up and really messes with you.