Hi everyone,
Recently found out that I likely have Hashimotos and have been recommended to try the autoimmune paleo diet which looks like it's going to be difficult especially as I'm vegetarian!
I have completely cut out gluten and now working on cutting out dairy. This diet cuts out the majority of grains (oats, rice etc), eggs, nightshades (potatoes, peppers etc), legumes etc.
Does anyone have any experience on this elimination diet and found it was helpful for you?
i looked into it. It was incredibly difficult to follow! There is not much you can eat! I dud dairy and gf for 6 weeks but found it too difficult so just stayed gf.
Probably you'll only know if it will work for you if you try it. However it doesn't sound like a sustainable diet at all. I'd try cutting out one thing at a time (for 6 weeks at least) and see if it makes a difference, either you'll feel better without it or feel worse when you introduce it back in - if either of these things happen you'll know it is worth the hassle. I have multiple food sensitivities and this is how I worked out what I had to avoid as it is less hard than a full elimination diet approach.
Personally I've started taking a spoon of black seed oil daily for the anti inflammatory properties and have noticed a difference.
Hi I'm a vegetarian as well and am gf and don't eat much I the way of dairy except the occasional piece of cheese but that looks like a tough diet. I'm not sure how long you'll stick it. If you're cutting out loads of different stuff at a time it's hard to know what, if anything,is working. And you'll need to make sure you replace what's being cut out in vitamin and mineral terms.
I was on a much stricter diet than this and then went onto the AIP diet and it helped me out of a very bad time of ulcerative colitis. You stay on it for a little and then introduce foods back in. My thyroid was much better in those days and now I have UC again and will go back onto this diet (but am on a much stricter version at the moment). I think there are a lot of foods included - but that's because I am on such a restricted diet atm and would love to eat all those things. You may find that it helps other complaints also. I added eggs back in quite quickly but have no dairy or gluten still. There are lots of recipe books for AIP
i haven't looked into it much , but i would have thought that the premise of the paleolithic diet was fundamentally incompatible with being a vegetarian ?mayoclinic.org/healthy-life...
"A paleo diet is a dietary plan based on foods similar to what might have been eaten during the Paleolithic era, which dates from approximately 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.
A paleo diet typically includes lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds — foods that in the past could be obtained by hunting and gathering. A paleo diet limits foods that became common when farming emerged about 10,000 years ago. These foods include dairy products, legumes and grains.
Other names for a paleo diet include Paleolithic diet, Stone Age diet, hunter-gatherer diet and caveman diet."
So i'm not sure how you're supposed to make a paleo diet provide enough nutrients without the 'hunting' part of hunter/ gatherer
I dont think its a good idea cutting out all dairy if you can tolerate dairy then why.not have some , autoimmune disorders are more common in women due to estrogen dominence the other female hormone progesterone moderates estrogen and therefore prevents autoimmune disorders . natural progesterone cream can fix low progesterone - much easier than a restrictive diet
Yes, l have Hashi’s and find Paleo diet helpful, along with nightshade, gluten and mostly dairy free (just have a little goats cheese). I eat lots of delicious veg, fish and some meat. Biggest difference was cutting out oats: when l ate some oat cakes a few weeks after eliminating from my diet they really upset my stomach, similar with rice (l love cauliflower rice with toasted pine nuts as an alternative).
I understand the dietary problems are due to the low stomach acid related to Hashi’s, l tried having some Apple Cider Vinegar before meals but seemed to irritate my stomach. I have sweet potatoes as pie topping etc, roast parsnip & carrots as chips and chestnut flour mixed with an egg for breakfast pancakes. Use alternative flours like ground almonds, tapioca and coconut to make cakes and biscuits and have cut out refined sugar, alcohol, caffeine and chocolate - the latter two keep me awake. Alcohol causes a pain in my lower right abdomen and joint pain (l am 59). Getting supplements right helps as well - l take the main ones listed on here like B12, Iron, Vit C after lunch plus CoQ10, Before bed vit D, Magnesium and Selenium. It sounds a lot to do but l feel the benefits. I do wonder if there’s a way to improve stomach acid to enable normal’ digestion, as eating out is tricky! Sorry for long reply but hope it’s helpful and l think worth a try to see how you feel.
Hi You can buy digestive enzymes in tablet form that combine HCL, Pepsin etc. Don't know if they would help.
Just to add that l also have a lot of eggs: the bread l make is just eggs, nuts and seeds and it’s delicious.
Whether it 'works' in terms of reducing antibodies is speculative. I've not tested mine and am taking ndt which tends to raise my Abs. There's also the possibility of placebo effect.
The good:
I found it put the 'fire' out, I used to get burning pain, gastric reflux, dermatitis, bad period pains and itchiness around my face, as well as bloating, and soreness constant thrush and bacterial vaginosis.
They are all mostly gone. I have zero dermatitis, no BV (which is amazing and curious at the same time as I was pretty much told by gynae that some women just always have it, and I had the pessaries, the antibiotics and drank kefir by the gallon and applied yogurt with no relief) no itchy face, burning sensation gone (but not all pain) bloating a thing of the past (apart from around my period and that's reduced) gastric reflux much improved in fact at times it's gone. What remains is functional, due to low stomach acid, and hashis antibody interaction . I'm working on it with enzymes but not sure its doing much.
I had tried cutting out gluten and dairy and was mystified as to why I was still having problems.
Within about 10 days I felt a big improvement, initially it can feel a bit rough as you get flu/cold like symptoms.
Managing:
For me it hasn't been too difficult being strict, reason being because I live in an area of SE London which is a literal food paradise, with Asian, African, Carribbean, Middle eastern and European food lots of small butchers, for the offal, and holistic food shops to buy the more difficult items like coconut aminos, tigernut and cassava flour, etc. It would be a challenge in a place less food diverse.
I replace grains with white or yellow yams, plaintain, green bananas, breadfruit, Asian radish, cassava, different sweet potatoes etc - as your vegetarian you're probably well up on the grain replacement. The problem can be getting to the shops and markets though. That's the downside as although it alleviates many symptoms, if still not 'well' or stable or thyroid hormones yet, getting out can still be difficult.
Planning, and batch freezing is key. Unfortunately planning is not my strength at all and I need to pace myself.
You have to be wiling to embrace it fully for at least a few months or it won't work mentally.
After a few months being strict you can try adding in one thing at a time....many people go for eggs first.
The reason I say be strict then relax is because I found once you cut things out your body will tell you what it really wants and doesn't want. When you're still eating most things the body has built up a certain uncomfortable tolerance.
For e.g. I use to eat sweet peppers and now after cutting it out for several.months the very thought of eating them makes me feel nauseous. Just yuck. Beforehand I was happily eating them no problems, loved them, but I realise my body really doesn't want them and they were probably causing problems.
Same with kidney beans and black eyes peas etc. Body says nope never again. I'm mixed carribbean background so rice and peas is a staple dish I always ate. Now my body says get lost with that.
Correspondingly, I find my body will tell me more strongly when it needs something.
The most difficult thing I found giving up were paprika, chilli and black pepper, tomatoes, and all dairy. Seasoning is difficult, I like strong flavour in my food. You will definitely need the coconut aminos, the maple syrup and every herb on the safe list. For some reason no one sells mace.
But it is so worth doing. It sort of resets you. It's not a cure in Hashimotos people though, it's a complement. Unless you are in the very early stages of hashis where this might work in isolation, nothing but meds will get you well and you still need to take vitamins. If you have another autoimmune illness as well as hashis it's probably even more helpful.
I've been on it long enough that I allow myself the odd cheat day. After being strict you can afford to go out with friends to a restaurant and just write it off, although I would say still avoid wheat above all if you can.
I used YouTube and internet, pinterest at first one for recipes. But eventually I got lazy and just cooked as normal but without the forbidden stuff. I would say though that learning to make staples like cassava fajitas is a life saver.
The down side:
Everything's that bad for us can correspondingly be good for us. I've run into an issue where my sleep (which wasn't great) has got atrocious. Partly I suspect adrenals, but that's been ongoing for years. Then I got a lot of muscle twitching. I put it down to fluctuating NDT doses but finally twigged that I might not be getting something. I checked the amino acid profile of milk, well milk (which take away the issues is a superfood) gives you a full complement of Amino acids including L Tryptophan which promotes sleep and vitually grains and pulses have lots of lyseine which promotes longer deeper sleep. I drank milk for 3 days to test and bit of rice and had instant bloating and itchiness, with a bit of reflux, but sleep was ironically a bit better. Now I have an amino supplement.
I have gone to bed hungry a few times due to not having anything instant to eat. That's a major downside. You have to cook a lot.
Restaurants are pointless in the beginning. There's always something you can't eat. It makes you a bit anti-social (well I was already) Uber eats etc have almost no options you can indulge. People will try and foust foid you are avoiding on you.
Where it hasn't helped:
Now strangely at first I got huge up-push in energy, and all pain disappeared and I was all but singing Jerusalem out loud in the garden, but after a few weeks, it was like my body or brain adjusted somehow and so while I crash less, I still crash, and I still can't go walking for long without pain and fatigue. But it's less dramatic.
Sorry this post is long!
Hi, thanks for helpful post. Just to say that, apologies if you know this, but mace is nutmeg which l find easy to get and prefer the whole ones that you can grate into whatever you want to add it to . I don’t seem to have problems sleeping but crave cheese and find l can tolerate a little goats and ewes cheese: including halloumi so maybe l get essential amino acids from that.
Oops, shows my ignorance as l have just found out that mace is the seed covering and nutmeg is the seed. Apologies
Yes, I have dipped in and out of the autoimmune paleo diet quite a bit over the last few years. Yes, I found it very helpful as I started to understand how certain foods made me feel.I am gluten free now and will def stay that way. I used to react to nightshades…would find my left cheek would go red and really hot but sometimes this reaction was delayed and might happen the next day rather than immediately. By cutting out nightshades my widespread mystery muscle pain disappeared. I had an inkling it was all connected but experimenting in eliminating nightshades confirmed this. I have a lot of ‘trigger points’ like the ones that are described in fibromyalgia and when they are ‘active’ they cause a lot of referred pain. I am certain the trigger points are somehow connected with nightshades and hypothyroid (perhaps not being able to metabolise them properly due to hypo). After cutting out nightshades for over 6 months and working on my gut health with intermittent fasting etc, I found I could eat them again. I found I do not do well on grains at all and always get heartburn if I start eating them again. A sugar hit often gives me palpitations and severe anxiety and I feel best on a low carb or keto diet. I’m ok with red wine though, luckily!😀
There is a also some research into the autoimmune protocol… ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
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