I'm new on here and have just been diagnosed with coeliac disease 9 days ago. I was told to do a 2 day detox and just have vegetables, fruit and chicken to get everything out of my system. My GP has referred me to a dietitian but she has told me that could take months. I am really struggling to find things to eat for dinner or breakfast. Any ideas would be great. Also I have started to get really itchy arms with tiny little lumps! Any idea what that could be?! My mum thinks it could be the toxins coming out of my system.
Thankyou.
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Ellbee87
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By the time you get the dietician appointment I'm sure you'll have worked it out. Personally I always find dieticians stating the pretty obvious. If you know to look out for wheat, barley, oats and rye then it's just a case of checking the labels which will soon almost become an automatic reflex, and getting acquainted with the free from isle. Although I think as time goes on most coeliacs find alternatives to both gluten and the free from isle.
Hi Elbee, we all remember when we were first diagnosed and how lost we felt and how we did not know what we were going to have for the next meal.
So my advice is to take it one meal and one day at a time and soon you will go from looking at what you can't eat to looking at what you can. And there are lots of naturally gluten free foods out there. There are also lots of choices now in the free from aisles. But lots of them are very processed, so lots of us eat mostly food cooked from scratch with naturally gf foods.
Popadoms if made traditionally are gf free and these are really nice with a rice curry, you can make gf dumplings. I sometimes make a savoury crumble and just top meat and veg with the crumble mix and thats much easier than faffing around with pastry.
An example of what to eat for breakfast is to have cooked potatoes with scrambled eggs and if you eat meat have bacon too. I sometimes make a breakfast casserole using cooked potatoes diced with tomatoes and sometimes bacon and you mix it with eggs and milk and bake it. I also make a large quiche and instead of making pastry I line a dish with mashed potato and blind bake it whilst I make the quiche mix.
I bake all my own bread, cakes and biscuits using natural gf flours and I put all my recipes on line to share with others so if I can do it so can you, here's a link:
Now your rash could be down to you responding to a gf diet and I'd just keep an eye on it and if it starts to bother you then see your Dr.
And lastly well done for not only joining 'us' but making a post and if you have any other questions queries then you just ask away as we're all in the same boat on here so we know what you're going through and good luck.
Hi Ellbee, it is really tough on a gf diet at first. Breakfast suggestions might include: bacon, mushroom, tomato, fried potato, eggs (boiled, fried, poached, scrambled) or gf bread, I eat Schar ciabatta bread toasted, or a bowl of berries....strawberries, blueberries etc fresh or frozen ( the microwave can defrost them fast), or Sainsbury's free from rice porridge (oat free), which I admit isn't great, or Nature's Path gf rice krispies, or a compote of prunes, plums, apricots or similar, or grapefruit, or gf toasted bread with peanut butter or marmalade (I avoid glucose fructose syrup in jams as it makes me ill, the ppm of wheat or gluten in it not being low enough) or toasted gf bread with cinnamon and honey or bananas.....Good luck with everything, you'll get used to it soon. When approaching what to eat for supper think fresh fish or meat or cheese and eggs plus rice or potato/sweet potato or gf rice noodles, plus vegetables. Keep it simple to start with. Roasts and stir fries are good. Later you can add your own homemade sauces using corn flour for example as a thickener. I hope you feel better soon and begin to enjoy food again because a gluten free diet can be delicious.
Thank you. I am having stir fry's for dinner atm lol. I'm too scared to eat much else. I find any type of bread really bloates me out and I feel really uncomfortable. So staying away from bread. I've just ordered the lean 15 book so hopefully that will give me some suggestions. I'm just really scared to eat because I'vebeen in so much pain for so long and finally I'm slowly starting to feel better I don't want to go and eat something and feel awful again.
PS stews and casseroles with potatoes or rice are always good for supper. Tinned tomatoes or tomato puree are useful. I use the gf Kallo stock cubes/ bouillon, watch for gluten in most others.
Small pieces of meat (such as ribs or chops or thighs) or fish (assuming you eat those) are easy to bake in the oven. You can cook with a vegetable oil or Pure margarine or just water amd herbs. Or you could cook spag bol with gf spaghetti. Good luck
The advice I wish I had been given when first diagnosed with Coeliac Disease is:
1. Avoid dairy products for the first six months, limit yourself to natural yogurt and hard cheeses in moderation. See allergicliving.com/2013/03/... for more info. After 6 months of no symptoms try dairy slowly and check if you are able to process lactose effectively. (I Found this advice from an official Coeliac advice sheet, but long after it would have been useful, also can't remember where I found it now). Just make sure you are getting good sources of calcium to compensate for avoiding dairy.
2. Try to buy as little as possible from the 'free from' aisle. Most of the products are full of processed sugars, starches and various other ingredients, most of which I am sure were never meant for human consumption.
3. For meal ideas check out websites that contain recipe ideas for 'Paleo' and 'Specific Carbohydrate Diet' (SCD). These meals are full of natural ingredients and avoid glutens and grains which are likely to be problematic.
4. If you must have cakes and biscuits, try to go the home baking route using the Paleo and SCD resources online. These tend to be made with almond flour (ground almonds) and coconut flour.
5. If you do get bread products on prescription, be wary of Codex Wheat Starch which is wheat with the gluten 'washed out', many Coeliacs react to it, and it can take a while before the effects are felt (it was with me).
Had I been given (and followed) this advice I would have avoided 2 years of worsening health, where eventually I was worse than before being diagnosed with CD. Much better now, but consequence is that I am now completely lactose intolerant and my diet is much more restricted in order to maintain good health.
Most importantly, try to eat healthy foods made from fresh ingredients and avoid processed foods. This way you are likely to avoid most 'hidden' gluten and a lot of the added rubbish the food manufacturers put in to 'pad it out' and make more profit.
Thank you so much for your advice. I have gone dairy free my GP said it would be a good idea. I think the key thing is that I know have to plan for meals instead of being able to just make some pasta!
I write a gluten free and dairy free blog which I'm sure will give you some inspiration about recipes you can try out. gdfree.wordpress.com - do check it out and message me if you have any questions. If you follow me you can get my blog posts and recipe ideas emailed to you. I also have a Facebook page called gdfree which I use for raising awareness about Coeliac friendly foods, new goodies at the supermarket and restaurant reviews etc so you might find it useful to like the page too. Go to Sainsburys and have a browse of their fantastic freefrom section - start with the basics: choose a bread, some biscuits and a pasta you fancy. That should get you going to start with. For breakfast eat porridge, smoothies, fruit salad, yogurts or cook yourself some eggs perhaps. Also the supermarkets now stock lots and lots of gf cereals including cornflakes, rice crispies and lots of types of granola are gf too. You'll get the hang of it soon enough I'm sure! Good luck and I hope you're feeling better really soon, love Abi x
It can take a while to find out what you can and cannot eat. I have never been able to eat supermarket readymade gluten free bread, because of the additives, but have eventually been able to tolerate a little low lactose dairy.
Glad to read that you are avoiding the processed gf foods and you have already been given some great ideas on food. Thankfully there are a lot of good gf recipes on line and cookery books available.
You could try the BBC food page, Gluten Free on a Shoestring, and the Gluten-Free Goddess on line. A lot of mainstream chefs have gluten free recipes on line (although some are far too complicated). Books like DeliciouslyElla or Hugh FW's "Light and Easy" may have recipes you would like.
Good luck. Hopefully it will get easier for you. Perhaps have a look at Coeliac UK, if you haven't already.
The bumps could be dermatitis herpetiformis, which is the skin version of coeliac disease. Mine went away with a strict gluten free diet (if it doesn't there is medication).
I'd echo join Coeliac UK in the first year, after that it'll become second nature. Join your local group - most coeliacs will be happy to tell you how they manage the diet.
Breads - if you've ever seen how bread is made then you'll know they have to use alternatives to imitate the consistency and that's the thing that makes us bloated.
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