Hello,I have been gluten free for 3 weeks now but I do not have any celiac problem and no gluten intolerance/ sensitivity .
Will I benefit from being gluten free or is it a waste of time ?
I'm trying to see it it could help with RA flare up and maybe perimenopause ( although not sure..)
If I don't have any negative reaction to gluten to start with , will I see a difference?
I desperately try to get better somehow and doctors are not helping so trying stuff myself
Thanks
It’s hard to tell. I developed Graves’ disease in 2012, it’s an autoimmune condition, then in 2015 I developed inflammatory arthritis. I also ate French stick, croissants and pains au raisins from Calais to the Mediterranean, by the time I got there my face was so puffy it was almost unrecognisable. I did a home coeliac test which was negative but decided to go totally GF anyway so that’s almost 10 years GF for me.
I don’t buy anything much that is GF - mostly good old home cooking. I read all labels to check that there is no gluten in them - so it isn’t all that much more expensive for me. GF cakes and bread are expensive but you don’t need to eat them.
I find it has improved my IBS quite a bit but other than that I’m not sure, I think I’m just gluten intolerant. I find GF living quite easy and also that’s how I cook so everyone gets GF food in my house whether they are or not - you can’t tell the difference.
If you didn’t have any signs of being coeliac and don’t have any symptoms or problems then it’s probably not worth bothering unless you are happy to cook gluten free.
Have you thought you could be lactose / dairy intolerant a lot of people seem to have that problem?
Thanks , this is the thing , am I " punishing " myself for being gluten free for no reasons and no benefits ? Glad it's working for you anyway
Well if you don’t think it’s doing anything for you - you have to ask ‘ is it worth it?’ Go luck whatever you decide.
The inflammatory diet might help you .Lots of info online.
There’s not much evidence to show that diet affects RA. You may find these website articles of interest
I went gluten free for 3 months, following suggestions by a few people I know. Sadly it made absolutely no difference to my symptoms. I understand how you feel, you want to be in control of your body. It may work for some people but not for me.
I also tried Gluten free post diagnosis … not for me, no change but know it has worked for some people
my doctor told me it was hard on the body to go gluten free so not to do it.🤷♀️
I doubt it’ll be obvious…
I do know for me, I have to avoid refined flours or supermarket bread. I make my own whole meal bread, and generally stick with whole grain. I also avoid dairy, and sugar as much as possible, and I’m vegetarian anyway.
Personally, I have found a healthy lifestyle, encompassing both diet and exercise, helps my body. I walk at least 3 miles every day, pain or not, and yes, I know I’m very fortunate that I can do that. When I have ‘indulgent or lazy’ days, I suffer afterwards. Doing the best we can to give our bodies a chance to cope with the meds and RA, has to be a good thing.
My brother did one of the intolerance test things (expensive), and had about 30 foods he was highly reactive to, one was bread. He changed his diet to restrict those foods and soon began to feel much better (he doesn’t have RA).
I find the whole thing about how we feed our bodies very interesting,
My RA nurse told me there's no harm in experimenting with your diet as everyone's different. I'm definitely sensitive to gluten - particularly if I eat any type of ordinary bread, pastry or baked goods. White flour is the worst. Within a few hours of eating them, my wrists and knees start throbbing. I have found (thankfully) that I fine with sourdough bread as it's low in gluten, due to the long proving process. Having said that, I occasionally stray (like yesterday, I had a breaded schnitzel in a restaurant) and I'm fine as it was a tiny amount. Other times I'm not so lucky!! I've also experimented with dairy products and find I'm fine with lacto free milk and ordinary butter, plus a bit of hard cheese, but suffer after eating yoghurt or dairy icecream. I think that's also to do with the amount of lactose that your body has to deal with at one time. Anyway, there's no hard and fast rule. I know there's no official evidence, but I have clear evidence in my own body - so I stick with what works for me! Best of luck figuring it out for yourself. X
Hi - I've been sat on the back row observing for a few months now - with nothing much to contribute. Until now!
I was diagnosed with coeliac disease over 30 years ago. In fact I had to wait for my diagnosis for over 10 years until the medics decided that adults could develop it & that it wasn't just something that started in babies.
Since then I have followed a strict gluten free diet (with just the odd accident) & have lived free of (horrendous) coeliac disease symptoms.
After countless x-rays on many joints & even more countless blood tests over the last 5 years, I finally got a diagnosis in January - Seronegative RA.
I think that the delay in diagnosis was to do with the fact that I also suffer from gout (big family history), I am a man & that I am at the very top of my 6th decade.
My point is: Gluten free for 30+ years & yet I still developed RA.
What I can't know is would I have developed RA earlier if not on a GF diet and would my RA symptoms have been more severe without the diet?
I would rest my case - but it's not tired.
Virginied, if you decide to continue with the GF diet, please research it very carefully. I'm not going to give you advice but there are downsides to the diet and I have to use supplements to get things missing from the diet.
Thank you , makes sense . I find it difficult anyway as I love bread ( being French ..) and gluten free bread doesn't taste very nice to me . I will have a food sensitivity test in a few weeks privately and looking forward to it . I am also trying on high omega 3 tablets and see how it goes
The "best" gluten free bread for taste & texture has to be Schar white rolls. They are frozen & the packet suggests defrosting for an hour or two. I stick them in the microwave for 18 seconds!
For me I’ve found I most definitely need the gluten as GF sends me running to the bathroom constantly if you get my drift. I am intolerant to eggs even the slightest amount makes me very poorly so I avoid it. Lactose intolerance can come and go I’m able to eat cheese but only if it’s cooked 🤷♀️it seems to be worse if I’m taking pred luckily there are lots of alternative non dairy products. So try it and see and keep a diary whilst you’re experimenting if it doesn’t help after about four weeks then it isn’t going to. Good luck.
I am a bit sensitive to wheat, so I have wholemeal bread and seem to be okay with that, trouble is all the gluten free stuff has other things in it I seen to be sensitive too
I think it makes a difference to some people. I'm gluten and grain free. If I do slip and eat it I'm in pain the next day. I've cut out sugar too and I'm pretty low carb. I'm better off all that stuff.
Being Gluten free, Cows dairy and mainly avoiding seed oils has helped me tremendously to the point where I have stopped taking my medication at the moment. This didn't happen quickly and I'd say it took a good 4-5 months of sticking to it before I could say for definite it was working.
I worked with a nutrionist on healing my leaky gut with certain foods and eliminating others and it seems to be working. Everyone's body is individual though so what works for one won't always work for others. Definitely no harm in trying but I think you have to give it a while to see results.
That's true...it's not a quick fix. It's taken me some time. My gut was an absolute mess. I did a short fast, then a homemade bone broth fast for 3 days. I make bone broth all the time. I'm now just extremely low carb. Absolutely no sugar or grains. I still have some residual symptoms, but I'm no longer in agony.
It's worth a try doing an eliminating diet, and adding things back slowly.
Sounds very similar to myself, I found it a bit restrictive to start with but now don't miss half the crap I was eating before as it wasn't "real" food anyway. I'm very much at the start of my RA journey (only found out last year I had it) but eating this way has allowed me to come off medication which was showing negative side effects anyway. I'm interested to see what my rheumatologist says when I eventually get an appointment to see him sometime.
Indeed. I started a diet change only over the last couple of years out of sheer desperation. I tried many meds and had horrendous side effects. Some made things worse! The whole lockdown shenanigans made me see things differently.
I am a good deal better. I still have some issues, but I'm hopeful of improvement.
Wishing you all the best.
Possibly slowly reintroduce gluten into your diet and see if it affects you.I have found by trial and error (elimination and reintroduction) that several foods adversly affect my RA, mainly dairy and acidic fruits but I am OK with gluten.
There are no large studies of gluten free diets and Rheumatoid Arthritis, but you might find this source helpful in finding what evidence there is: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/336...
There appears to be an association between inflammatory repsonse and gluten in the diet. Cutting out gluten might work for you, but it's hard work and expensive sticking to a gluten free diet. And it might have no effect at all. Only you can decide whether it is worth the hassle.
I tried an exclusion diet many years ago - the only thing I found that definitely upset my joints was meat (was it the meat or the things like antibiotics they feed the animals on?) It took months (about two years in all adding foods back in one by one), was very tedious, and excluded eating out all that time. I don't eat meat, no problem, but I eat a 'Mediterranean diet' otherwise.
For me, after many years of DMARDs and steroids, the wonderful adalumimab injections (brand name Imraldi) have transformed my life. I still have difficulty believing that I can open bottles since starting the injections!
My rheumatologist told me there’s no evidence that any of these diets have an effect on RA and just to stick to a normal healthy diet.
Hi, when I eliminated gluten and lactose from my diet to help with a long-term stomach infection, my joints improved immensely, unexpectedly. Now I know the biggest triggers are lactose, anything pickled, many legumes, incl peanuts. Im not sure if gluten makes any difference to my joints, however.
My advice for what it's worth is don't do this. Cutting gluten out of your diet will make your intestines very sensitive to gluten and effectively will make you gluten intolerant. Trying to actually follow a gluten free diet is very restrictive. Lots of people who aren't coeliac will say they are gluten free but will be eating gluten in things without realising, my friend is coeliac and hates it.
The bread and shop bought stuff is awful on the whole and very expensive. There is gluten in the strangest of things like done crisps, sausages, seasonings etc.
When she was in hospital she couldn't eat 90,,% of the good because it wasn't gluten free and it's so restrictive when you go out for meals or even on a day trip. You can't rely on getting a sandwich or a snack in a shop and most outdoor food outlets are a no go.
Life with RA is hard enough why make it harder for no shown benefit. Yes if you find certain foods make you feel unwell avoid them but beyond that you're likely just going to create a problem.
I am perplexed, at the range of advice our experts ie Rheumatologists, give us regarding lifestyle choices and RA management. The first Rheumy I ever saw was very much “old school” and strongly disregarded diet as having any impact on RA at all, medication being the only way, and that was before Biologics were available to us.
My current Rheumy, is much more of the holistic approach: medication a must, but help it along by making healthy lifestyle choices and making well-being the priority.
There are so many studies that prove that some foods cause inflammation and that is a problem for many conditions. Numerous studies performed years ago, were too narrow in focus. Perhaps the experts have a better understanding of how our bodies work and the links between our gut, brain and everything in between.
All that said, we are individuals with our own beliefs and experiences and each of us must find our own way through this life.
Gluten intolerance & RA
Daily Telegraph article re Gluten Free Diets
RA and gluten free
Advice
Gluten free baking powder
