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Can You Have Ibs And Gluten Intolerance?

gatita

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gatita Enthusiast
gatita
Posted

My doc casually mentioned to me recently that even though I am clearly gluten intolerant, IBS can be very difficult to rule out as well. He says they sometimes co-exist.

(He's not a GI by the way, but so far he's always hit the nail on the head for me and all my weird diseases LOL).

If this is true, how would I know if my GI symptoms are from a glutening or from IBS?

I find this whole idea very depressing because at least I know I can try my best to avoid all gluten, but with IBS I wouldn't know what to do.

On top of that, I'm one of those people who doesn't really believe IBS even exists, that it's just a catch-all for doctors when they don't know what's going on.

Anyone have any experience with IBS in addition to celiac?

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mushroom Proficient
mushroom
Posted

I believe that if you still have "IBS" symptoms after being on the gluten free diet for a year, then there is something else going on that is causing the "IBS".

MitziG Enthusiast
MitziG
Posted

Irritable Bowel Syndrome= something is irritating your bowels.

Some people it is only gluten. Looks like for you it is gluten + something else.

Bowels aren't going to be inflamed and irritated without a cause. The tricky part is nailing down the cause(s).

When doctors give you and IBS diagnosis, it is there way of saying "we don't know what is making you sick. You may just have to deal with it."

Takala Enthusiast
Takala
Posted

You will eventually be able to distinguish between the two because the symptoms will be different with a glutening.

This is how I figured out that millet (grain) bothered me, for example. My gluten symptoms include brain fog, headachey, joints flaring, gut puffing up a bit, and water retention/swelling in my ankles and feet. Millet was just causing food to run thru my system too fast. This also happened when I ate new foods that turned out to have a lot of oat cross contamination. The same thing happens with flax.

When cooking, just add one new ingredient at a time. Then you can tell what the culprit is, a lot easier. In the beginning, I ended up doing a fairly restricted diet, a modified SCD (nearly grainless, used almonds and just a little bit of rice a few times a month) that I did not even put yogurt into, because I had so much trouble finding yogurt that worked for me. I did not branch out much from whole foods such as meat, eggs, oil, fruit, vegetables, and nuts until my system could handle it, and I was pretty cautious. When we had a power outage that lasted nearly a week, I learned that I had to figure out how to adapt to eating some sort of easy to prepare packaged foods, or learn to live off of apples... that is when I started to trial things like peanut butter and cheeses. I've since learned that organic cheeses work better for me and I have to be very careful with what brands I use on other items.... I've reacted to the cross contamination in a brand of peanut butter marked "gluten free," but I am okay with another brand that is not marked like that, but is more honest with their labeling "processed in a facility that includes other tree nuts." I've also reacted to a LOT of supposedly gluten free snack crackers, so those things I treat as "minefields" of potentially messy ingredients, some of which I might never figure out. So it's plain brown rice cakes, dedicated facility, for me, if I want something like that.

shadowicewolf Proficient
shadowicewolf
Posted

IBS is a catchall term for somethings wrong with your gut (aka somethings bothering it).

gatita Enthusiast
gatita
Posted
  • Author

Thanks everyone!!! I tend to agree, I feel like an IBS diagnosis is pretty useless.

I think I do have to give this time to see what the difference is between glutening and anything else that irritates my guts.

Takala, like you said, it seems that something is making stuff run thru me too fast

Iris court Newbie
Iris court
Posted

I've recently started a very restricted diet and the from tips I read I eliminated almost everything . Now it's time to add one item every 3-4 days and see. Had brown rice pasta last night and keeping my fingers crossed. Hoping to keep my "run away train" on track.

Keep the advice and tips coming.

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gatita Enthusiast
gatita
Posted
  • Author

I've recently started a very restricted diet and the from tips I read I eliminated almost everything . Now it's time to add one item every 3-4 days and see. Had brown rice pasta last night and keeping my fingers crossed. Hoping to keep my "run away train" on track.

Keep the advice and tips coming.

Have you been feeling better on the restricted diet?

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