Bragg's, anyone?

[channlluv]

My family doctor has told me she believes I'm glucose intolerant based on my symptoms (I get really sleepy after I eat white bread, white rice, etc., so I stopped eating white food a long time ago, for the most part. I'll admit I'm not as diligent with my diet as I should be.

TCTrek, I think I may be in your boat, too. What I dread most is giving up fruit for five weeks. I eat a lot of fruit. Already today I've had a banana and a cup of grapes. I've got an orange for my afternoon snack. How long did it take for your carb cravings to go away? And what are "net carbs"?

I need some quick, easy veggie recipes, I guess. I'll go take a look at the new cook book you recommended, Trek. And Knot, thank you for telling me not to change my diet just yet. I was all ready to go out and buy a bunch of gluten-free stuff. Although just yesterday I realized that most of what I eat is gluten-free. Fruit, veggies, lean meats, eggs. I do drink milk occasionally with cereal, but other than that, I'm largely dairy-free, too. I have cheese every now and then. But I do eat bread. I guess too much of it.

If I'm just glucose-intolerant, does that mean I have to give up fruit? I often start the day with grape juice-frozen berry-spinach-whey protein smoothie.

Roxy

[KnottedYet]

These are really things you should be working out with your doctor and your nutritionist.

We are all full of ideas, but honestly you need to be diagnosed by a medical professional before you go eliminating anything (carbs, gluten, topic-of-the-day).

And while we are all full of ideas, with your medical history you really should be doing any dietary changes with the guidance of a medical professional every step of the way.

[channlluv]

I was just thinking I needed to call my family doctor and get her in on this before I move forward. Thanks, Knot.

Roxy

[Trek420]

I was just thinking I needed to call my family doctor and get her in on this before I move forward. Thanks, Knot.

Roxy

That's a really good idea. I recommend asking her for a referral to a good sports nutritionist or nutritionist experienced with athletes before making any change to your food plan/diet/pantry etc.

[tctrek]

TCTrek, I think I may be in your boat, too. What I dread most is giving up fruit for five weeks. I eat a lot of fruit. Already today I've had a banana and a cup of grapes. I've got an orange for my afternoon snack. How long did it take for your carb cravings to go away? And what are "net carbs"?
Roxy

Believe me, I thought it would bother me not to have my fruit, and I was a huge fruit eater, but it didn't. The fact is that i did not have carb cravings after the first day. But I made sure I had plenty of food to eat, so I was not hungry. You can eat any of the foods on this page: http://www.atkins.com/Program/Phase1...thisPhase.aspx

Net carbs is basically the Sugar carbs, not the fiber carbs. So, something might have 10 grams of carbs, but if 2g are Sugar and 8g are fiber, you only "count" the 2 carbs when figuring out your 20 grams per day. That's because fiber carbs don't spike your insulin, just the sugar does.

I don't really understand why it works, but it does. The trick is to add back carbs slowly... and stay away from white food and food with high glycemic index.

[Groundhog]

...And Knot, thank you for telling me not to change my diet just yet. I was all ready to go out and buy a bunch of gluten-free stuff. Although just yesterday I realized that most of what I eat is gluten-free. Fruit, veggies, lean meats, eggs. I do drink milk occasionally with cereal, but other than that, I'm largely dairy-free, too. I have cheese every now and then. But I do eat bread. I guess too much of it.
...
Roxy

The problem with the celiac blood test is that it is not exact enough...or in other words, there are a lot of false negatives and you have to be eating gluten at the time. I, too, was mostly GF prior to diagnosis -except binging on bread. My celiac was picked up via an endoscopy, because I was in so much pain that my doc thought I had an ulcer. No ulcer, but they found celiac with minimal damage (although I felt so bad I didn't think it was "minimal"). But the blood test done right after was negative for celiac- even though I still ate gluten. So I am an example of someone who has biopsy-proven celiac but negative blood work (plus I have the genes). What I'm saying, Roxy, is that your celiac test (or Person X's celiac blood test) may be negative but that person may still have the disease due to the inaccuracy of the blood test.

I agree with Knot to have your doc run the celiac blood panel first (make sure they run the "full" panel) but there is no harm in cutting out gluten entirely AFTER the blood test (unless your doc wants to run the endoscopy) to see what happens. If you cut out gluten entirely, strictly, and you feel better then you have your answer. Some docs say that a Gluten Free diet is "unhealthy" because you don't get enough vitamins, but with proper planning there is nothing inherently "unsafe" about a GF diet. What a GF diet has is less fiber and less vitamins added to grains (e.g. "fortified" cereals or "wonder bread with eight vitamins"). Fiber is easy to get with fruit, veggies and flax (and oatmeal for some) and vitamin supplements are as "natural" as fortified bread. If you or your doc are worried about diet, a nutritionist/dietician can help with that.

My doc sent me to a nutritionist/RD and she said that my body thought it was "starving" because it wasn't absorbing nutrients/vitamins/fat and thus it wanted me to gain weight. My metabolism slowed, my vitamin levels were low, and I developed osteopenia, the beginning form of osteoporosis. The body type that most often gets osteoporosis is a thin one, so my body was really not absorbing calcium and/or vitamin D. The 20 extra pounds I gained in the two years before diagnosis got my BMI up to 29 and so I was one of the 40% of celiacs who are overweight at diagnosis.

Losing weight (I have 20 to lose plus the 15 that I was overweight with before illness) has been frustrating. I am psychologically "addicted" to refined carbs and maybe physiologically too. Cutting out wheat, plus white rice, white potatoes, corn, and GF flours is about the only way that I can loose weight. I don't know if it is from celiac or from years of eating unhealthily, but I can't fight it. Eating simple carbs makes me hungry. In terms of diets, South Beach Diet Phase I or Atkins Diet or Paleo Diet all work for me losing weight...they all cut out the "white" foods.

Some folks think that gluten intolerance is a spectrum between low gluten intolerance at one end to celiac at the other. Others think it is all celiac, but our tests aren't exact enough.

I'm just a layperson with limited knowledge. But I know that gluten has done some pretty nasty things to me and my son, so I just try to get the word out to others and hope that they end up less damaged than I. Going GF has made a world of difference in my health and I'm very grateful.

Again, I wish you good health, Roxy, and good health to all.

[KnottedYet]

The endoscopy can also give false negatives, especially if someone has strongly patchy villi destruction. If the scope misses the patch, and all the GI sees is lovely furry intestine... false negative.

People who get the herpetaform dermatitis can have that biopsied instead. Docs will recognize the tongue patching as celiac, too, but there is no standard for biopsy of the tongue.

23andme.com will do the celiac genetic test for a lot cheaper than the one your doc could order; but you'd still need it confirmed through the MD. More money down the tubes.

Blood antibody test is easy and cheap. If it comes up positive, end of story. If it comes up negative but your doc still suspects celiac, you'll probably be ordered the endoscopy or a 3-4 week gluten-free trial. If the endoscopy comes up negative but the doc still suspects celiac, you will be put on the 3-4 week trial.

It is very easy to survive without gluten. Entire civilizations through-out all of human history have done it.

It is very easy to eat out, you can always find something to eat even if you can't get to a restaurant you know comes from a non-gluten grain culture.

There is no temptation to cheat on the diet, because it is so not worth being sick and dizzy and itchy and rashy and lightheaded and migraine-y with a mouthful of sores and struggling with "gluten brain" for a week, just for a bite of bread. (I have panicked nightmares that I've accidentally eaten a pastry.)

There is a good bit of media hoo-rah around gluten-free right now, because so many people have lost weight or gotten healthier by cutting out gluten. They were probably all undiagnosed celiackers. Gluten itself is not a bad thing. It's only bad for folks who don't make the enzymes to digest it, and whose bodies (for what ever trigger) suddenly decide to attack gluten as an infectious invader and thereby catch the small intestine, nerves, brain, mucosa, skin, and other ectoderm-derived tissues in the cross-fire.

The important take-away from all this is that anyone suspecting a gluten problem must have guidance from an MD or nutritionist before experimenting, like Groundhog and I had. Just switching your sandwich to gluten free bread isn't gonna do it, it's a large and complicated dietary change to make in our wheat-centered culture. But once you know how to do it, it's easy to maintain.

ETA: fun trivia. The Catholic Church won't ordain celiackers, because they can't eat the wheat eucharist and so have been rejected by God for priesthood. I find it deeply ironic, as this is a prime example of the legalism which Yoshua ben Yusef was so strongly against. Laypeople can have rice or oat wafers.

[Trek420]

I think celiac or no we all can benefit by fewer or no processed foods. HFC syrup sneaks into nearly everything. Read labels! Bringing my lunch to work most days I dropped 9 lbs* just being more in control of ingredients. The places I'd eat are small, local independents. No chain eateries near my work, well .... now there's a Subway and a 'Bucks. But I can't control if there's HFCS in whatever they use.

Not saying go vegan, or raw foods or do anything different .... it's just good to read the labels and eat food that's made from food. Obviously no label on an apple, peach or broccoli.

But meanwhile do communicate this and any concerns to a doctor, nutritionist.

*then put 4 back on when Knott was here oh well.

[Groundhog]

The endoscopy can also give false negatives, especially if someone has strongly patchy villi destruction. If the scope misses the patch, and all the GI sees is lovely furry intestine... false negative.

People who get the herpetaform dermatitis can have that biopsied instead. Docs will recognize the tongue patching as celiac, too, but there is no standard for biopsy of the tongue.

23andme.com will do the celiac genetic test for a lot cheaper than the one your doc could order; but you'd still need it confirmed through the MD. More money down the tubes.

Blood antibody test is easy and cheap. If it comes up positive, end of story. If it comes up negative but your doc still suspects celiac, you'll probably be ordered the endoscopy or a 3-4 week gluten-free trial. If the endoscopy comes up negative but the doc still suspects celiac, you will be put on the 3-4 week trial.

It is very easy to survive without gluten. Entire civilizations through-out all of human history have done it.

It is very easy to eat out, you can always find something to eat even if you can't get to a restaurant you know comes from a non-gluten grain culture.

There is no temptation to cheat on the diet, because it is so not worth being sick and dizzy and itchy and rashy and lightheaded and migraine-y with a mouthful of sores and struggling with "gluten brain" for a week, just for a bite of bread. (I have panicked nightmares that I've accidentally eaten a pastry.)

There is a good bit of media hoo-rah around gluten-free right now, because so many people have lost weight or gotten healthier by cutting out gluten. They were probably all undiagnosed celiackers. Gluten itself is not a bad thing. It's only bad for folks who don't make the enzymes to digest it, and whose bodies (for what ever trigger) suddenly decide to attack gluten as an infectious invader and thereby catch the small intestine, nerves, brain, mucosa, skin, and other ectoderm-derived tissues in the cross-fire.

The important take-away from all this is that anyone suspecting a gluten problem must have guidance from an MD or nutritionist before experimenting, like Groundhog and I had. Just switching your sandwich to gluten free bread isn't gonna do it, it's a large and complicated dietary change to make in our wheat-centered culture. But once you know how to do it, it's easy to maintain.

ETA: fun trivia. The Catholic Church won't ordain celiackers, because they can't eat the wheat eucharist and so have been rejected by God for priesthood. I find it deeply ironic, as this is a prime example of the legalism which Yoshua ben Yusef was so strongly against. Laypeople can have rice or oat wafers.

Excellent points, all. I do eat out quite a bit due to career and family and have learned to manage it. Never tempted to cheat.

Re: the Catholic Church...don't get me started. The Church as bad as the Military on gays, celiacs and women IMHO. I've heard that the Military won't take celiacs, (but will keep newly diagnosed celiacs) because field conditions require Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and MREs can't be made GF. At least that is a reason that makes sense!

[channlluv]

Wow, thank you Groundhog and Knot for sharing so much of your own experiences. I've got a call into my doctor. I'm waiting for her to call me back to confirm an appointment for next week. It's time for a full blood panel checkup anyway, and a mammogram.

I'll post here as things progress.

Roxy