Can anyone share their experiences/timelines of going gluten free?

[kendrewaddams]

My mum who has Hashimoto's recently went gluten free and am interested to hear other's experiences.

[Buddy195 Administrator]

I followed forum advice to trial GF when I joined this forum and have never looked back. It resolved all my stomach issues (GERD) and helped reduce inflammation. A GF diet eliminated bloating and gave me more energy. It took 3 months of being GF for my symptoms to improve.

Best wishes to your mum; I hope eliminating gluten helps…..it’s definitely worth a try!

[Jeannie77]

I have coeliac disease, so my husband has no choice really but to be gluten free. It seems to have now made him gluten intolerant. It is horribly expensive , around £3.00 or more for a tiny loaf of bread. It tastes horrible. Pretty much the same for most other foods, and it is not healthy because they try to make it taste better by adding more sugar. Everything goes off in a really nasty way very quickly. So I feel my food bill is around triple other people. You can have meats, vegetables, some, not all, yoghurts, and special porridge. Eggs too are ok. Some commercial soups, mostly the expensive ones, some of the baked bean brands, and maybe one of the crisp brands. Most chocolate now has gluten. Also hamburgers, sausages, ready meals gravies, and restaurant meals. Most restaurants and cafes do not cater for gluten free due to cross contamination. Every tim and jar etc has to have its label checked, with tiny print. It is the biggest pain, and I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t get seriously I’ll. a coeliac attack triggers my Addisons. I would rather eat healthily, without the added stresses. And like my hubby, someone going gluten free for a while could end up intolerant, with no choice but to stay with the diet. A family wedding for us is eating a horrible sandwich at a separate table to the others due to cross contamination. I think there are better and healthier diets, unless someone actually is gluten intolerant, but without checking it could be the issue is dairy or fat triggered, or something else completely.

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Jeannie77]

Most chocolate now has gluten. Also hamburgers, sausages

I have never seen chocolate have gluten in (other than boxes of chocolates)

Loads of sausages are gluten free

Homemade burgers are so delicious they don’t need the bun anyway

[Fluffysheep in reply to SlowDragon]

A lot of chocolate bars are a may contain. Cadburys dairy milk for example.

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Fluffysheep]

Ok….I only ever buy soya free chocolate. That pretty much always states gluten free

[Jobiska in reply to Jeannie77]

I don't think avoiding wheat can make you wheat-intolerant; it's more likely that your husband was wheat-intolerant already but now, through avoidance, it's become obvious! I certainly have a more obvious reaction to wheat now, after living wheat-free for years.

[Serendipitious]

I’ve been gluten free due to Hashimoto’s for about 5 years now. The whole point of being gluten free is not to replace those breads, pastas and cakes with GF alternatives but adopt a paleo style diet which consists of good protein sources, lots of vegetables and fruit, healthy fats like nuts and seeds if tolerated. A bit like the Mediterranean diet. Sugar which is also inflammatory should also be avoided. Ready made GF products are usually full of crappy ingredients which defeats the purpose of going GF. Basically if the ingredient isn’t something you recognise then you shouldn’t be eating it. I make a lot of my own GF alternatives like bread but I eat it occasionally. I use flours like buckwheat for example. It’s quite a lifestyle change but worth it. Yes sometimes I feel like I’m missing out on things like cake or biscuits but I’m quite happy with what I eat.

[Titaniumfox]

I went gluten free for 3 years after advice from many sections of the thyroid community, as I have Hashi's. It's worth trying, but doesn't necessarily do much for everyone, because we're all different. I reintroduced gluten foods about 18 months ago, I think I do have a problem with wheat and oats, but not certain it's due to gluten, as even GF oats give me issues, so I tend to avoid them.

If you take it on, you'll have to check the small print on everything, as even cosmetics contain gluten, and cross-contamination from another gluten eater in your household is possible via utensils. Plan ahead how to replace the foods you will need to eliminate as you'll find you are hungry! I worked out how to make gluten-free sourdough bread, for example, which has no wheat at all. If you like baking you'll need to learn about replacement ingredients. I never bought GF bread as I quickly discovered it didn't agree with me. I don't know what commercial bread makers put into it, but it gave me far more problems than the real thing!

I gave GF a fair go - I think 3 years is good enough, the last year was also dairy-free. I developed histamine intolerance during that time, and I believe it was because I became increasingly vitamin deficient due to lacking dairy, so do take care to replace any nutrient shortfalls - particularly B vitamins and selenium.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

I went Gluten free, (out of desperation) not expecting any improvements and was astounded at difference

Fairly quickly felt significantly better….over first few weeks

Ongoing improvements over many months …brain fog took 9-12 months to get noticeably better

I don’t Gluten free any more expensive

All breads freeze well and most are fine toasted

(in a separate Gluten Free toaster)

Best Gluten free bread in my opinion - Waitrose sliced seeded - even good as bread rather than toast

Waitrose hot x buns delicious

Warburtons bread good

Bagels great toasted

Nairn GF crackers for lunch

All bought cakes and biscuits are too sugary …..Good reason to do more baking.

Doves GF flour makes great cakes

Gluten free crumble - use half flour and half Free From oats - delicious

GF spaghetti is excellent

Increasing numbers of GF beers and larger available too (even in my local pub!)

[Shenow]

I gave up gluten for 2 years but for me it didn’t make any difference to how I was feeling. It just made life difficult for me. I wish it had made a difference. It does help lots of people so it is certainly something to try.

[anjuliet]

Went gluten/dairy/sugar free and I lost two dress sizes. Never looked back.

[Jobiska]

I realised I was wheat-intolerant 25 years ago, when I was 30 - I noticed that on days when I ate wheat at each meal (e.g. toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta for dinner) I would be absolutely exhausted. Giving up wheat helped my health enormously. As I'm not coeliac, I can risk trace amounts, so most things labelled 'may contain gluten' have worked out fine for me. I must say though, the bread and other gluten-free products available now are *amazing*, compared to when I started! I also make my own bread, which I really like - it's the chickpea bread from this excellent book:

goodreads.com/book/show/332...

It's easy to buy gluten-free gram flour (chickpea) in Asian stores in the UK - several brands now process it on dedicated equipment and mark it gluten-free.

Most gluten-free bread is better toasted; don't try to exactly replicate wheat products, or you'll be disappointed Eating cheaply when you're out and about is the biggest challenge. However, if you're not coeliac then it's not too bad. There are quite a few tortilla chains now who offer corn tortilla tacos if you ask (like the soft wheat tortillas, but made with white corn), which is my go-to lunch if I'm in a city and need something cheap and filling.

I advise that you get used to asking and double-checking. You can order something which you'd think was gluten-free, only to find it's had bread-crumbs sprinkled on it. Pub chips often contain wheat flour. Etc.

But it's really not that difficult at all once you get used to it.

[Hedgeree]

Hi kendrewaddams,

I'm undiagnosed with possible hypothyroidism. I increased my intake of bread and gluten products for six months or more as I was getting a coeliac blood test done. I did feel very bloated and horrible.

The test came back ok but I reduced eating bread afterwards and did feel better and less bloated, almost lighter.

I think that I could possibly be gluten intolerant and am considering giving up gluten properly once I get organised and or diagnosed.

There are some fantastic gluten free recipes for your mum to try, huge amount of information on the internet.

Best wishes.

[Imaaan]

Hi,

It took me awhile to go gluten free despite the fact that I noticed a difference in a month's trial a long time ago. When I went gf, swelling in my throat reduced, my brain fog slightly reduced, my menses drastically improved and my antibodies reduced. Despite this knowledge, I returned to eating gluten. In 2014, I took antibiotics and the side effects changed the course of my life and digestive health. Basically pain forced me to quit gluten for good.

Nowadays my favorite gluten free bread is sourdough rice bread. It has minimal ingredients. If your mom is on the lookout for gf pasta that taste amazing then she should try brown rice pasta.

My fave bread

Few ingredients

[humanbean]

When I first went gluten-free several years ago I had already been tested for coeliac disease very thoroughly and was found negative. I really didn't think going gluten-free would help.

To my surprise I found that I got my first benefits within five days of giving up gluten. I have gluten ataxia (gluten makes me stagger) although I didn't know that gluten was a cause of my staggering before I stopped. I also found that giving up gluten improved my temper and my mood enormously.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataxi...

Edit : I wrote the above in the wrong order. My temper and my mood improved within five days, but realising that my staggering had decreased took longer - but I can't remember how much longer.

[Anthea55]

More discussions, ideas and recipes from this post on 'Gluten Free Guerillas' which is another community on HealthUnlocked healthunlocked.com/glutenfr...

[Kenley]

Many people are wheat intolerant rather than gluten intolerant so it may be worth checking as we are all so different. I have Hashimotos and went gluten free for 6 months. I didn't have any stomach issues at all but thought that going gluten free would lower the antibodies and many people recommended avoiding gluten. They came down ever so slightly but I didn't feel any different at all. Now I am not actively avoiding gluten but I rarely have it as I cook from scratch and don't eat any convenience foods and rarely have things like bread or pasta.

I have tried to follow the advice of eating real food, mostly a wide variety of vegetables and whilst it doesn't seem to make much difference to the antibody level, I generally feel reasonably healthy, albeit still a bit overweight.

[Longinthetooth in reply to Kenley]

Hi all, I have also been gluten-free for about 5 years. The difficult time is lunch, it used to be a sandwich, crackers, etc, all the easy things to put a filling in. You have to plan ahead. Baked potatoes are a good option, rice/corn cakes, eggs, home-made soup, etc. There are alternative flours now but I also like to use arrowroot, especially to thicken sauces & gravy which isn't too expensive from Amazon. Making your own meals saves you worrying about the ingredients which come in very inviting packaging. Providing you don't have any other intolerances you can eat meat, dairy (whole milk, butter, cheese parmesan or other hard cheeses, fruit, veg, nuts, porridge, dark chocolate, unrefined sugar, tea, good coffee, but no soya. I hope this helps with your journey.

[Santolina]

In addition to going gluten free which is more like keto/paleo, I take one TABLESPOON of good olive oil every morning before breakfast. Apart from part of a Harvard study which shows how healing it is to a leaky gut, it's also good for you and does no harm.

[j9j8j7]

Art of Gluten Free Baking website (just Google it) was a game changer for me. Her gluten free flour mixture is BY FAR the best I have found and her recipes are clear and easy to follow. The recipes don't taste "gluten free". I have made many of them for friends and family and even the gluten eaters can't tell they aren't "normal."

[Crazydave]

I went gluten free 12 months ago my antibodies more than halved in that time and I've lost 2 stone in weight. 2 months ago I went dairy free and again made a difference with mucus build up and blocked/ringing ears... Self help works, good look to your mum..

[Josephineinamachine]

I’ve been gluten free for about 20 years because I worked out wheat gave me a ‘hangover’ the following day. I really don’t think about it at all now. Easy to pick around when eating out…obviously avoid pizza and pasta restaurants though! I don’t like gluten free bread or pasta so just don’t eat them. It’s encouraged me to maintain a low carb diet which helps because I feel sugar is inflammatory for me. I think id probably feel better going dairy free but I really like cheese 😊

[Farrugia]

I've been gluten free twice, the first time for a year, the second time for 2 years. Both times I had terrible cravings for sweet food for the first week (I don't usually have a sweet tooth) and then this subsided and it wasn't much of a problem after that. Being gluten free definitely helps my digestion but I don't think it has helped my Hashimoto's and hasn't made any significant difference to my fatigue levels. I don't find it too difficult being gluten free because I like cooking and am happy to make my own GF bread etc (I recommend the River Cottage Gluten Free book by Naomi Devlin, great recipes and lots of advice on going GF). I don't like most commercial GF foods, too many additives and not very enjoyable to eat. The most difficult thing for me is eating out, especially if you go to a friend's house because they often don't realise how many things contain gluten and it feels a bit ungrateful to quiz your host about which ingredients they've used!

I think you would have to try it for at least six weeks (preferably longer) to see if it makes a difference. It's worth keeping a diary of how you feel because it can be hard to be objective about it. Good luck and I hope it helps.

[Serendipitious]

Just wanted to add that I also did a stool test several years ago and that showed an IgA reaction against gliadin which is a part of wheat. I went GF back then and then I did eat wheat a few times afterwards for a while. Just wanted to add that I felt no different in fact there are many people who will not feel different regardless. Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity doesn’t necessarily manifest in the gut it can also have effects in organs outside the gut. As far as I know I don’t have coeliac disease and so I don’t go as far as avoiding gluten in cosmetics etc. I used to only eat GF oats but I don’t bother with those anymore and just eat normal porridge or oatcakes. A nutritional therapist I saw was also in agreement.

The other thing that’s really important for those that have Hashimoto’s is blood glucose balance and to have steady blood glucose levels. A lot of store bought GF products can also cause blood glucose drops. Having said that if make your own GF baked goods at home even if they were “clean” you could still end up doing that. Also, adding unnecessary ingredients like xanthum gum, inflammatory for some, is not a good idea.

The thyroid pharmacist or Izabella Wentz’s books and website are a good resource on what to eat.

[lauraleeds666]

I went strict gluten free for three months to see what the effects were on my body/health. I did not notice any major difference if I'm honest. A slight difference is that I felt a bit perkier on an afternoon but not enough to be gluten free forever. Perhaps I did not give it long enough but what I did learn is that gluten is really hard to avoid unless you are only eating meals prepared by yourself in your own house. I am vegetarian and have PCOS so I became the nightmare dinner guest: gluten free, no meat and no white potatoes or rice (the latter two due to my PCOS diet). I did take away a lot of positive ideas and delicious gf recipes and I am back to eating gluten only a couple of times a week as I think *is* healthier not to eat gluten despite the fact it didn't change my life.