I look absolutely ghastly.

[cjemc]

I am convinced I have coeliac disease. I have unbelievably red puffy eyes, I weigh only 9st 5lbs despite eating and drinking a lot, I get raging diaharrea a lot and everyone always says I look like I am on drugs because my eyes are so red and disgustingly dark and miscoloured.

And when I retch its the eyes that seem to become most predominant with watering and puffiness, what can I do?

My Anti-ttg and IgE tests have all come back clear but I am not convinced that I don't have severe reaction to gluten/wheat and god knows what else!!!

Please I am at my wits end... :weep:

[Ange1]

My daughter has a wheat and gluten allergy which has improved her digestion loads since she cut it out. The hospital were pretty useless so she did her own diet. It was very easy to have a normal diet without wheat or gluten with so many products on the market. Worth a try to see if it helps. Worth also speaking to the doc about the eyes in case you have an infection. Hope you get it sorted xx

[MyNameIsTerry]

Speaking to Shakey, a member on here who has greatly reduced or eliminated his anxiety, will likely help as well as Ang1's positive comments so you get some advice on how the triggers work.

What did your daughter find happened when she ate this Ange1? Was it straight away or later, did it last for hours or days, etc? Just thinking it might help Calumcco work through their triggers.

[Ange1]

Hers was pretty constant because when you look into it we eat so much wheat and foods we don't even suspect can have gluten but she could be much worse after say eating a pasta dinner. Sometimes the symptoms would not be felt until the next day so it was always difficult to pinpoint a cause but in the end I think the effects become cumulative so it all just merges. She started by just cutting down on obvious things like bread to see if it helped and then made easy changes such as buying the alternative pasta which is really rather tasty. She saw a definite change in stomach pain and the runs etc. from there she substituted biscuits,cakes rolls etc for wheat and gluten free and has seen a huge change. She occasionally falls off the wagon and the old symptoms return but not as severe and she can now tolerate a some wheat and gluten now and again so her resistance is building. A positive side effect of cutting out all the carbs has meant she has lost a fair bit of weight and now feels really good about herself too which I think helps a lot. X

---------- Post added at 10:46 ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 ----------

I should also add that I agree with Terry that anxiety is also a factor. I know in her case there were various personal factors going on as well as not getting much help from the nhs so making changes to her diet made her feel more in control which snowballed into other things improving her whole outlook. taking a small step can sometimes lead to big changes. X

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thats great Ange1.

I was reading an article in a magazine today and it was talking about signs of magnesium deficiency and one of the earlier stages had intolerance to gluten!

Given anxiety seems to alter how we digest things from the impact it has on our system/gut, I do wonder whether we can become more sensitive to things we didn't before? IBS seems to conform to that, but I wonder about lactose, gluten, etc.