Well i've spent a year in and out of hospital with severe stomach and bowel problems. They kept doing basic blood tests and xrays and telling me nothing was badly wrong and that it was just my IBS. Well i've suffered with IBS since i was a teenager, and it never had me unable to bend or move cos of severe stomach pain. My intestines were clearly destroyed, as my bowel movements were coming out as greasy mucous. Then by the end it was just green, as was my vomit.
Eventually, my doctor said that this was my stomach lining coming away, and that something must be done. So she decided it could be a food issue. Then i went through the pain staking process of elimination in my diet. (Well i say that, i was barely eating the past few months anyway!)
Anyway within a few days of cutting the gluten out my diet, i started to feel slightly better. That was 4 weeks ago, and i can eat again now (gluten free of course), but more to the point, my stools are back to normal, and the excruciating stomach pains have almost gone!
I am currently waiting on the results of the blood test to see if i have coeliac disease, or if it's a gluten intolerance.
I just wondered if anyone else is unable to eat gluten?
Or even another food intolerance?
If so, please tell me abit about your story and what you had to endure before you were diagnosed...
Gluten intolerance is quite common with FM. Some other allergies/ intolerances could be wheat and milk. I have had problems with IBS in the past. I went to few specialist about my colon and the pain. They gave me barrium and xrays only to conclude there was nothing. I learned the hard way I just could not eat some foods. Finally a year later a doctor told me it was IBS. I found amitriptyline helpful in managing the symptoms. I am not sure how it does but I know when I went off of it in the past (2 xs) the symptoms would come back. I can enjoy milk products now to a limited extent.
I like to google things and there was an actual study done with amitryptiline and a placebo and they found that it did improve the symptoms. (Journal of Gastroentology vol 13 issue 7 Juy 1998) This is how they described amitriptyline acting: 1) decreases the rate of muscle contractionsin the small intestine and large intestine, slowing the whole gut transit. 2) they appear to quell overactive sensory nerve endings in the bowel.
I seem to be fine with milk and all dairy (which is good!).
I did used to take amitriptyline a few years ago, but didn't get on well with it. My bowel seems to have calmed down alot now anyway, which is such a relief :)
Hi there
I have a gluten intolerance discovered by a naturopath. He also said I most likely have issues with dairy.
Just an FYI if you have been eating gluten free for a few weeks and are getting blood work now I don’t think it will show if you have the intolerance. At least that is what I was told. You have to eat the gluten for a few weeks then get the blood work done. Also the docs can only diagnose celiac disease by doing an endoscopy.
I just went by how I felt and skipped the endoscopy. Avoiding gluten helps with pain and that’s enough for me.
You may want to get blood tests for other food allergies to be on the safe side.
As i'm in the UK, and over here GP's generally go on whether the blood results come back high or not, thank god as it means i don't need an endoscopy, lol!
Anyway, yeh i don't think they will show up, as like you say i've been gluten free for a few weeks. But i spoke to my GP about it, and also Coeliac UK helpline, and they both said that to save me having to go through the awful process of having to eat gluten again, it's worth me doing the tests first, as since my stomach and bowels were so destroyed there is a good chance it will still show in my system.
Coeliac UK told me that - 'Everyone says you need to be eating gluten at the time, but there is no scientific proof as to how long it takes to come out your system, as everyone is different. But if all trace were gone in a couple of weeks, then it probably wasn't coeliac anyway, and more likely an intolerance. So i would go ahead with the test before you put your body through anymore undue stress. If the results come back negative, then i would suggest eating gluten for a month or so and then re-doing the test. This is the only way to know for sure.'
So since i don't have to pay for the test, i don't have much to lose, lol.
I wasn't going to bother either, as like you say if avoiding gluten helps then i know that anyway. But then my GP said to me that if i'm diagnosed coeliac, i will get prescriptions for some basic gluten free foods. This made me decide to go for the test, as i'm really struggling to afford gluten free foods - the bread is like 5 times the price of normal bread!!! :)
Yup going gluten free is expensive! Once u get used to it I promise it’s not bad.
Rather than having bread try rice or potato. I invested in this fancy steamer pot and I experiment with cooking veggies, rice and meat in one pot. I don’t have loads of time to shop so I order products in bulk with free shipping. do you use Amazon.com in the UK? Do you have Whole Foods? (I’m sure u can tell I live in US)
Headed to bed but if you would like more info shoot me a note.
Thanks hun. Yeh gluten was never mentioned to me before now.
I've just been put on cymbalta also, by the pain clinic. But didn't really get chance to see if it worked, cos it made me very nauseous (common side effect i know). But since my stomach lining is still recovering from all the gluten, my GP has told me that i have to wait or month or two before continuing with it, as my stomach really needs to calm down, lol!
But i can see how it would help with anxiety, as the morning after i took my first dose, i just laid in bed like a zombie - too out of it to care about anything, but in a good way! It felt nice to relax a bit without having to take diazepam!
I also agree that anxiety makes fibro worse. Or it does in my case as well as yours, anyway.
Weather is another trigger for me. the past few days the weather has been very changeable. It's poured down with rain about 6 times today and gone all over cast, including hail stones. But in between the down pours it has been hot and sunny. So i've gone hot, cold, hot, cold all day! ... Gives me a really 'sick headache'.
Oh yes I do! Food has never really been something I ever thought about. As a gymnast I had to stay light, but then I hadn't even started puberty until I stopped competing. But about 9 years ago I started getting bad migraines. That started me paying attention to triggers. The first trigger was aspartame in my diet coke, then nitrates in wine, sulfates, then smells, bacon, ax body spray (my youngest son sprayed so much of that). Now all of that would put me in the hospital. Gluten is a big cause of GI problems. Do your research so you can learn what foods to avoid and some with close associations with it. Because often some things people develop hypersensitivities to are the products of the metabolic breakdown of other things. I sure hope you don't get another diagnosis (my list is insane, it makes me think that maybe people think I'm a hypochondriac). My husband suffered from that for years. Now he just doesn't have a sigmoid colon. My best advice is research everything.
