need help with diet /newly diagnosed celiac and silent reflux

[carolynh]

I was on massive antibiotics earlier in year for sinus infections and got diagnosed with silent reflux.  Gastritis resulted in having an endoscopy done which showed erosive esophagus and  celiac. ........I am so confused with what i can eat now. the "gerd" sheet was given to me with the no spicy. no fatty  or fried foods, etc.. i have also read i should eat low acid foods............I am so overwhelmed...  the 2 dietary restrictions of celiac vs gerd seem mutually exclusive........I just don't know what foods i can try anymore...i have constipation, not diarrhea. any advice on combining the 2 restrictions would be greatly appreciated. also not officially diagnosed as lactose intolerant, but i have never handled heavy creams or whole milk well. 

[trents]

49 minutes ago, carolynh said:

I was on massive antibiotics earlier in year for sinus infections and got diagnosed with silent reflux.  Gastritis resulted in having an endoscopy done which showed erosive esophagus and  celiac. ........I am so confused with what i can eat now. the "gerd" sheet was given to me with the no spicy. no fatty  or fried foods, etc.. i have also read i should eat low acid foods............I am so overwhelmed...  the 2 dietary restrictions of celiac vs gerd seem mutually exclusive........I just don't know what foods i can try anymore...i have constipation, not diarrhea. any advice on combining the 2 restrictions would be greatly appreciated. also not officially diagnosed as lactose intolerant, but i have never handled heavy creams or whole milk well. 

Chicken, pork roast, lean beef, fish (not the oily, cold water ones like salmon), vegetables and fruit, rice and potatoes. Nothing with wheat, barely rye because of the celiac disease. Gluten is found on those three grains.

Heavy creams and whole milk would be contraindicated if you are trying to avoid fatty food. How about skim milk?

You might want to make an appointment with a registered dietician to help you do some food planning.

You may find that the GERD improves as you experience healing from the celiac disease after going gluten free. Are you on any kind of acid blocking medication?

[carolynh]

1 hour ago, trents said:

Chicken, pork roast, lean beef, fish (not the oily, cold water ones like salmon), vegetables and fruit, rice and potatoes. Nothing with wheat, barely rye because of the celiac disease. Gluten is found on those three grains.

Heavy creams and whole milk would be contraindicated if you are trying to avoid fatty food. How about skim milk?

You might want to make an appointment with a registered dietician to help you do some food planning.

You may find that the GERD improves as you experience healing from the celiac disease after going gluten free. Are you on any kind of acid blocking medication?

i am on pantoprazaole .  dietician had me even more confused than helpful in just sending me sheets with gerd and celiac "not to do " lists , as far as lean  beef, what cuts? I have usually done 2.0% milk as anything less makes me gag. 

 

[trents]

Mix your 2% milk with skim and slowly ween yourself off onto fat free milk and dairy. You can get used to anything. I remember switching over to nonfat milk years ago and it tasted like chalk water. But after drinking it for a few months, when I would drink whole milk it felt like I was drinking cream because skim had become the new normal.

You can buy hamburger marked "lean". As far as other cuts of beef, pick ones with the least marble. I would think a good resource would be a butcher to ask those questions. Also, beef from grass fed cows will be leaner than grain fed beef so look for sources of grass fed beef. Turkey, chicken and pork roast will all be low fat by nature. 

Like you, I am both a celiac and GERD sufferer. It's really not that hard to eat well under those conditions. I think when we first get these diagnoses there is grieving and anger, a sense of loss that can make us resistant to change. But over time we make adjustments and it becomes the new norm.

I would not plan on bein on the PPI for long term if I were you. Those meds used long term can cause other health problems like osteoporosis and vitamin/mineral deficiencies. When you change the PH of the gut long term, your at risk for other diseases. They are great for healing in the short term but not good long term.

[GFinDC]

Hi CarolynH,

You may be having trouble with dairy because of celiac damage.  Celiac disease can damage the villi that line the small intestine.  Those villi make an enzyme called lactase that breaks down the dairy sugar.  When the dairy sugar is not broken down it is eaten by bacteria that cause gas and bloating.  Most people call this lactose intolerance, and that's pretty much right.  So, I'd suggest you switch to non-dairy milks for a few months.  Almond milks or coconut milk are ok.  Avoid the oat milks and soy milks though.

Some of us do react to oats in addition to wheat, rye and barley.  It is good if you can avoid all processed foods for 6 months to start out.  A simpler diet is easier for our digestive system to handle.  Plus you don't have to spend as much time reading food labels in the store.

If you go off dairy its helpful to take a calcium, vitamin D and boron supplement also.  Many of those supplements also have magnesium which may by helpful for the constipation.

[AlwaysLearning]

Congratulations on getting your diagnosis! You can now look forward to overcoming a whole host of health issues that you may not have even realized could just magically disappear!

Okay, so here is what I would do. I would embrace this as an opportunity to learn more about food and about cooking. I would do things like create some challenges for yourself to make this new experience more fun and exciting. For instance:

• Each time you go grocery shopping (or at least once a month), try a new food that you've never eaten before. Here, I'm talking about raw ingredients that you would have to cook from scratch. It is generally easier to avoid gluten when buying raw ingredients. 

• Make a project for yourself where you create a notebook or recipe cards or cookbook binder of gluten free recipes that you've tried, making a side project that could add an element of fun as you to delve into the unknown.

• Keep a food/symptom journal where you write down what you ate and how you felt each day. This should help you figure out accidental glutening sources, but just doing it for a few weeks helps to train your brain to remember what you ate so that even if you stop keeping the journal, you still remember what you ate.

• Each time you go grocery shopping (or at least once a month), try a different gluten free product. Though many gluten free foods sold in your grocery stores taste like cardboard, every once in a while you find one that isn't half bad. But be careful. Many gluten free products are stupid foods like cookies that aren't going to help you in any way. Make sure not to fall prey to the temptation.

• Try making from scratch things you may have never thought to make yourself. Though they often don't taste as good as the store-bought products, there is something fabulous about doing it yourself or figuring out a way to do better the next time. (I can now make a fairly palatable cracker.)

But do make sure to pay attention to what you're cooking with. If you have any pots or pans with non-stick coating, you will have to get rid of them. They are contaminated with gluten. I have all stainless steal with no coatings. And your bakeware likely has coatings as well. (Cutting boards can be sanded down then re-oiled if you want to save money.) There are plenty of internet posts about the dangers lurking in your kitchen when you first go gluten free, so make sure to learn more.

A lot of this early conversion to gluten free is going to be a mental exercise, overcoming the feelings of loss that come with realizing that you can no longer eat out ... ever. Every time I feel a sense of loss, I remind myself of how awful I used to feel due to dozens of health problems and how few aches and pains I have now. I do NOT feel as if I'm missing out.

When it comes to the Gerd, the best advice I can give you is to not become reliant on antacids to treat symptoms. Look for ways to determine and to deal with the causes. Healing the damage celiac did to your digestive system could help a ton, but also pay attention to your weight which can trigger acid reflux. Even just going for a short walk every day could make a massive difference in your digestive health.

Oh, and when you eat meals, eat the vegetables first, the carbohydrates second, and the meats last. This is because of how quickly they digest. You don't want your salad "rotting" on top of a layer of slow-digesting meat. 

You can do this! It is very difficult early on, but within the first two months, I would expect that you would figure out most of the hidden sources of gluten and how to avoid them, six months to figure out some of the more hidden sources. (Yes, you do need to use gluten free shampoos, conditioners, and makeup.)




 

[trents]

7 minutes ago, AlwaysLearning said:

. . . But do make sure to pay attention to what you're cooking with. If you have any pots or pans with non-stick coating, you will have to get rid of them. They are contaminated with gluten. I have all stainless steal with no coatings.  . . .

. . . Oh, and when you eat meals, eat the vegetables first, the carbohydrates second, and the meats last. This is because of how quickly they digest. You don't want your salad "rotting" on top of a layer of slow-digesting meat. . . .

What's your reasoning behind recommending not using cookware with non-stick coating. That seems counterintuitive. And can you site any research support for this?

Personally, I seem to digest meat better than a lot of vegetables, especially if the vegies are not well cooked. And if your point here is to eat the more easily digested food groups first, I would think carbohydrates should go down first. Now I do know people who seem to have trouble digesting meat but usually they are those who don't eat much of it anyway and tend toward vegetarianism. I think your advice here may fall into the category of "one size does not fit all."

[AlwaysLearning]

In this conversation, the problem isn't the coating itself, rather that the coated pan was in use before decontaminating the kitchen. 

If you were cooking gluten in a pan that has a non-stick coating, the coating itself is now contaminated. There isn't a coating out there that isn't scratched or damaged to some extent, and we can't scrub them clean without damaging to the coating even more.

We could get into a deeper conversation about the dangers of the chemicals used in some non-stick coatings and how they will eventually make their way into your food, but my original comment was only concerned with gluten contamination from a pre-gluten-free kitchen.

Trent, I'm sorry to hear that you have an aversion to vegetables. If you have difficulty digesting them, you could be low on the bacteria in your gut flora needed to digest them easily. But it shouldn't take long to fix this problem and to have a wider variety of nutrients in your diet simply by eating more of them. But yes, when I said carbohydrates, I was thinking of something that I would put on my dinner plate, such as a potato, and not junk food like pastries or crackers which digest very quickly. And I was also only thinking in terms of cooked vegetables. Raw vegetables would be a completely different scenario.

[trents]

I just have a hard time believing that non stick cookware, even when scratched, can be real source of gluten cross contamination when washed thoroughly. But then again, I'm not a particularly sensitive celiac.

I don't have an aversion to vegetables. I never said that. I eat them regularly. In fact, I have veggies with every evening meal. Some raw or lightly cooked ones, like broccoli or cauliflower (the more woody ones) , can give me a belly ache if I eat very much of them. And if ease of digestion is your criteria, I still think a baked potato or rice should go down first before other veggies that contain more complex, harder to break down carbohydrates. 

[Scott Adams]

I too believe that replacing cookware may be excessive, especially if it is made of steel, aluminum or other metals. You should be able to scrub them clean enough to not get contamination, and if you wanted to be extra sure you could heat them on high on the stove or oven for a while to burn anything off.

[izzyherb]

On 6/13/2021 at 7:49 AM, carolynh said:

I was on massive antibiotics earlier in year for sinus infections and got diagnosed with silent reflux.  Gastritis resulted in having an endoscopy done which showed erosive esophagus and  celiac. ........I am so confused with what i can eat now. the "gerd" sheet was given to me with the no spicy. no fatty  or fried foods, etc.. i have also read i should eat low acid foods............I am so overwhelmed...  the 2 dietary restrictions of celiac vs gerd seem mutually exclusive........I just don't know what foods i can try anymore...i have constipation, not diarrhea. any advice on combining the 2 restrictions would be greatly appreciated. also not officially diagnosed as lactose intolerant, but i have never handled heavy creams or whole milk well. 

I'm sorry to hear of your pain. I had a similar situation (antibiotics for constant strep created problems for me), and cutting out gluten, dairy and GMOs worked wonders for my diagnoses. I don't buy anything processed and eat only whole foods. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it's easier when meal planning and prepping ingredients ahead of time - such as chopping celery and carrots then covering them with water in an airtight container for over a week.

Have you tried looking up Whole-30 recipes online? That could be a helpful starting place. Knowing common substitutions helped me a lot, too. Creating your own nut milk is easier than it sounds (a blender and fine-mesh sack are all you need, and you can create nut "breadcrumbs" to season and put on zoodles!), and ghee is an awesome butter substitute. I also add beans, nuts and seeds into my diet whenever possible, especially chia and flaxseeds. It's the only way I feel full some days, and the fiber and proteins help ease my system. Batch prepping foods such as soups and chili mean I don't have to think about dinner every single night, which is always nice.

Overall, I've found whole, organic foods (especially the green kind) never fail me, even though they require more time and attention. When in doubt, I research ingredients using "The World's Healthiest Foods" website. It's a goldmine I'd highly recommend. Health coaches are also a great resource for me personally. I hope you get to feeling better soon!

[AlwaysLearning]

I didn't say metal pans were a problem. I said non-stick coating because, unless it is brand new, it is going to have scratches that can be places for gluten to hide.

I did a quick internet search and the inter webs confirm the thought that immediately came to my mind after reading the comments above: that gluten CANNOT be destroyed by heat. The only way to remove gluten is to thoroughly clean the surface. So people should judge for themselves whether or not their coatings are in good enough shape to be cleaned.

But I also recommend that everyone do a quick internet search into the dangers of some non-stick coatings, not because of gluten, but because of other chemicals that leach into your food, especially if the coating is damaged. There is enough information readily available from reputable sources that I would expect most people would want to ditch their non-stick and switch to stainless.

[Scott Adams]

I think it's always recommended to replace damaged pans that are coated with teflon as they pose other health risks as well.