Grrr! Having To Eliminate More Foods.... Venting!

[em2005]

Hello...

Haven't been on here in awhile!

I am venting!

Having visited a naturopath over the past couple of months, I have had gone on an elimination diet. Before going to the naturopath, I had maintained a strict, gluten-free diet for years! However, over the past year or two i've had a lot of trouble w/ stomach upset, despite my gluten-free diet, along with weird rashes appearing all over my body. I went to my regular doc. about it, a dermatologist, an allergist, and another allergy specialist.......and they could find nothing! So, I went to see a naturopath with the hopes that something could be done.

Well, having been on the elimination diet for a few weeks, now and have reintroduced corn, dairy and soy into my diet. I did the corn for three days, and on the third day had really bad tummy troubles (you understand!). I waited a couple of days of eating my rice and veggies/fruit to detox my body again, and then did dairy for three days. Woah! Dairy broke me out in a massive, all-over body rash!! So, i detoxed with the rice/veggies again for a few days, and then reintroduced soy. Today is day two on soy and my tummy is horrible. I keep running to the bathroom!

This is awful! Not only can I not eat gluten, but now it seems that I am intolerant to corn, dairy and soy so far. Don't get me wrong, I am glad I am figuring out what is wrong, but still...it sucks! I still have to reintroduce meat, nuts/seeds, and beans/legumes to see how I will react to those, but hopefully nothing else will cause a reaction.

Anyway, just wanted to vent!! I'm so frustrated!!

Emma

[Nancym]

Yeah, I know, I know. I've been on the SCD diet for a short while. It doesn't include any grains, any dairy (except yogurt and I omit that because it makes my innards unhappy).

Anyway, I'm on the diet to see if it helps my intestines and joint aches (what I suspect might be an autoimmune issue). The good part about it is there are a LOT of people following this diet and a lot of recipes and things out there. The bad part is you have to cook for yourself a lot. Fortunately I love cooking! I go wild on the weekend and cook a lot and freeze for meals later. I've made SO many dietary changes in the last 3 years I now look on it as just another challenge. Every time I come up with foods I love to eat and end up pretty happy. I need to thank Mom for teaching me how to cook and giving me the confidence to experiment in the kitchen.

Lets just hope you're ok with eggs! Man, if I end up intolerant to eggs I'm going to be missing the 2nd to last staple in my diet (last staple being meat).

One thing I'm wondering about all these food intolerances is, if we're not fully healed up from gluten damage maybe it makes us more susceptible to other intolerances? So perhaps once I've followed SCD for 6 months to a year, I'll be ready to slowly try to add the things I believe my body was rejecting before. Maybe that is just wishful thinking. Gosh, I miss cheese.

[Nantzie]

Have you and your naturopath explored the possibility of candida overgrowth? The first naturopath I ever went to never mentioned a thing about it and he wasn't able to help with any of my tummy problems in the three months I went to him. He was trying, it just wasn't helping. Then I went to another naturopath who told me that he thought I had candida the very first time I saw him. Less than a week later, I was 100% better. I know that when I'm having a problem with candida, I have tons of problems with food. I just ordered some Threelac to get my candida under control. Should be getting it today, I hope. I've used it with great results many times in the past, but not since learning about my gluten intolerance. I'm hoping it will help with my intolerances to soy, vinegar and dairy so I'll only have to worry about the gluten. So much gluten-free stuff has soy that if it only helps with that, it will make my life so much easier.

Hope you start feeling better soon.

Nancy

[jenvan]

It can be hard when you have to keep pulling things out of your diet. My tests revealed I am intolerant of just about everything. I haven't cut out everything on the list...but I do have gluten, soy, dairy, caffeine, chocolate, turkey, corn (only a little bit on occasion). It takes discipline...and another suggestion is to take the focus off the food--the ol' "eat to live not live to eat" approach. Changing ones attitude takes discipline, but like I said, it has helped me tremendously. Also, search out some good products that are free or your food culprits and enjoy them--like enjoylife products (no dairy, gluten, soy, corn, nuts etc.) Open Original Shared Link or Namaste, great baking mixes.

Celiac is linked to a leaky gut which does increase food intolerances--as a 'leaky gut' allows food proteins to enter the blood stream where they aren't supposed to be, thereby kicking your body's immune response into gear. The best strategy for food intolerances is to stay on your gluten-free diet, which will promote healing, elminate food intolerances (or the worst ones) and eat a variety of foods--don't eat the same food each day. That encourages new food intolerances to develop.

I can get you more info on all this if you want, but there's the nutshell

[Nantzie]

I've heard of leaky gut, but haven't looked into it yet. Is it something an M.D. would know about, or is it more a naturopath type of issue?

[jenvan]

That's a good question ! I guess I'd say it depends on the doc. You could try your conventional doc, but you may need to try more a holistic one. It's hard to say. You can investigate these types of things w/o a typical doctor's help though, so that's good. My last GI was familiar with it, but didn't really treat it as valid. Not that he disagreed...but more just didn't know what to do with it. I think many docs just know about/deal with the typical IgE allergies vs. intolerances and Leaky Gut. There are some great articles online that you can learn more from. Do a search and ck it out: Open Original Shared Link These types of things can't easily be diagnosed, its sometimes a matter of 'detective work.' I need to bust out at the moment, but can write more later......

[kabowman]

I know what you mean - at first it can be so upsetting but after a while, you do adjust. After the first few attempts with beans, I gave up trying any others. I won't even add any to chili for the rest of the household because I don't want to take that chance - all the ones I have tried so far bother me so I gave up on the rest. I can eat hazlenuts which are nice every now and then.

Just this week, I gave up what little sugar I was eating due to energy swings that would actually knock me out like yeast does. After drinking homemade lemonade made with mostly splenda but with a little bit of sugar, I would be out for about 15-30 minutes (I have pre-diabetes). So, I took the sugar out and am doing much better. I will only use small amounts for my homemade BBQ sauce (nothing comercial because of the vingar).

Meat and veggies with potatoes and rice...in lots of different combinations.

[Rachel--24]

One thing I'm wondering about all these food intolerances is, if we're not fully healed up from gluten damage maybe it makes us more susceptible to other intolerances?

Nancy,

What my doc says, and I dont know if its true, is that once we go gluten-free we feel much better (obvious huge load lifted off the immune sysyem)....but....after that initial feeling of well-being other problems kick in. He says the vast majority of gluten intolerant people end up with intestinal infections from bacteria overgrowth or parasites. It is these lingering problems that keep the gut "leaky" and cause new food intolerances or other allergy symptoms. Waiting to see if I get better before I start suggesting people get tested for this stuff.

[tarnalberry]

and be aware of checking for specific forms of food - which may just be a red herring in the food intolerance hunt. what I mean is the following: some corn chips (plain tortilla chips, no flavors) give me some annoying symptoms (not gluten-like) and I don't seem to digest whole corn kernels much at all, but corn in a plain tortilla (just corn flour and water) isn't a problem.