Has anyone tried going gluten free?

[grotbags]

I've read a lot over the years about panic disorder and food allergy links, especially to wheat/gluten. I eat a low gluten diet, but not gluten free. Has anyone tried gluten free for panic disorder?

[Hawthorn]

Me, although I didn't start for anxiety/depression, more like because I was totally desperate to do anything that would make me feel better (I got shingles around about the time my gran died and felt reaaally sick for months afterwards)
As it turned out, it helped a lot - as long as I can keep off the gluten that is, which is not as easy as it sounds.
Once I cleared it out of my system with an incredibly strict diet, it turned out that I'm hugely sensitive to it. I even got glutened off a handwash with wheat oil in it
I tried to get tested for coeliac but only when I'd been gluten free a year. Big mistake. I couldn't stay on gluten long enough to be tested with any reliability, I got really, really sick, and after six weeks had to stop again.
As it is, I can't maintain the diet as well as I would like to. There are six of us in my family, and whilst it's dead easy to eat gluten free for me, avoiding the cross contamination issues are another thing entirely.
If there are only one or two of you I would imagine it's easier, but I have to deal with kids eating biscuits/sandwich/bread/pizza/any of the numerous things that have gluten in them, then using door handles/taps/remotes/keyboards. I found I became an obsessive handwasher and I just could never relax. In short, I was making my families life hell.
It's not as easy as moving the whole family to gluten free - gluten free substitutes are costly and I'm on a tight budget. I rarely eat biscuits/bread and the like.
Most of our meals that I prepare are gluten free, but for the whole family to be gluten free meant removing bread/pasta/biscuits/many varieties of crisps.....and on and on. It's just too big a sacrifice to expect them to make, so the best I can do is minimize any amount I ingest. Which is quite a lot I suspect, since I feel quite unwell at the moment.

Anyway, to get back to the point after all of that waffle. I firmly believe it is really helpful if you are sensitive, and that's something you only find out by removing it and reintroducing after a couple of months to see if you have any reaction. Be aware that you may feel a little bit odd for a few days after stopping eating it. I got monster cravings for a while
Also be incredibly careful about crumbs/dishwashing/using half empty pots - for the purposes of a trial you would maybe need to buy a new chopping boards, seperate plasticware, your own spreads. Anything you cook with that is scratched or absorbant basically, and anything that could have had a gluteny knife in it, or is difficult to clean thoroughly (sieves/colanders)
Clean work surfaces thoroughly before using, and if you can, always prepare gluten free before gluten. If possible get rid of flour. That stuff kicks gluten dust up into the air and it settles all over everything.
Handwash, often. Certainly before eating.

Anyways, for a trial, the best thing to do is go with naturally gluten free stuff - meat/rice/veg/fruit/fish. It's as boring as anything without sauces but a safe option until you get the answers you're looking for.

Worth noting perhaps is the period of six months or so where I turned into a gluten harridan was perhaps the most lucid, depression free period of my life....ever. I won't say stress free because keeping track of all those gluteny hands and stray crumbs was in itself a huge anxiety trigger.

And I still miss donuts

Good luck

[grotbags]

Wow, thank you Hawthorn. I had no idea that cross contamination was such as issue with gluten, so I'm glad you mentioned that. Thanks also for telling me about the handwash, as skin products are also something I had never considered.

I'm not living alone, so I think there could be issues with trying to avoid gluten from a practical point of view.

Can I ask whether you noticed a significant difference in your anxiety when gluten free, or did you never really get a chance to follow it for long enough to find out?

Also, something I am concerned about is cutting it out completely and then starting to eat it again. I'm worried that cutting out for a short time could end up really sensitizing me to it somehow - or doesn't it really work like that? Just wondered if you thought that's what happened to you. Sorry you're not feeling too good at the moment. I hope things start to improve for you soon.

[Hawthorn]

Can I ask whether you noticed a significant difference in your anxiety when gluten free, or did you never really get a chance to follow it for long enough to find out?

I did notice a huge difference, yes. Bear in mind that I have suffered with depression/anxiety since early teens (possibly even younger) and have been hospitalised numerous times. For me, there has never really been a 'normal' period. I'm either anxious, depressed, suicidal, or heading my way towards one of those, with the odd day that things felt ok. Completely off gluten, I felt like a different person. It didn't feel like everything was a fight..you know what I mean maybe - a fight with myself to get out of bed, get dressed, wash the dishes, answer the phone etc etc. It was also the first time in forever I would say I had healthy emotions. Everything always felt like it was happening through cotton wool, like it wasn't really happening? Well, 100% gluten free, I felt like a real person again

Also, something I am concerned about is cutting it out completely and then starting to eat it again. I'm worried that cutting out for a short time could end up really sensitizing me to it somehow - or doesn't it really work like that? Just wondered if you thought that's what happened to you. Sorry you're not feeling too good at the moment. I hope things start to improve for you soon.

I have heard this can be the case, but I'm not honestly sure how it works. My son also did a gluten free trial, but had absolutely no issues reintroducing it again. My theory is that you only get a reaction if you're sensitive to it in the first place, but I am no expert.

If I'm honest, as someone who cannot tolerate gluten, whether or not that is due to gluten intolerance or coeliacs disease, the initial period of abstinence did make me hugely sensitive afterwards. After all, I'd eaten this stuff all my life, and yes I had issues, but after the gluten free period they were intensified. I could eat pasta and bread before and feel maybe mildly bloated, but was something I accepted as everyone felt like that after eating. Now, eating one piece of pasta will inflate me to the size of a six month pregnant lady, and give me horrendous cramps, and heartburn for days afterwards. I've always had a patch of psoriasis on my elbow, but eating gluten in any quantity causes bigger patches to flare up elsewhere on my body. Usually face/hairline.
The only way I can describe it, is like my body was so used to it, that it just thought, meh, I don't like this but I can deal with it...but after having a break it thought yay, normality, and now when it gets gluten it really doesn't like it, and lets me know in no uncertain terms it doesn't.
Going back on gluten, besides the physical issues....it took me all of maybe a week and a half to feel absolutely suicidal. I spiralled so fast it was scary.

I have to say it's a big adjustment, or it was for me. No more takeaways. Unless you're lucky enough to have a gluten free restaurant near you, no eating out. No donuts (killer. *sob*) A LOT of label reading in the early days. I felt for a while, like a petulant child denied a cookie, and yeah, I got quite resentful when everyone but me was tucking into a pizza BUT, if you can stick to it, and you DO adjust to it eventually, it is really worthwhile if gluten is part of the problem. I only wish it was possible for me to avoid all the sucky cross contam but at the moment it is what it is I guess. I am still better than I was on a gluten rich diet so any improvement is good

[rubynoodles]

Sorry to butt in on this post but I am also trying to go gluten-free but am really really struggling, like you say especially if you have children who consume gluten products.

Hawthorn, can I be nosy and ask what you eat on an average day, I find that because the gluten-free products like bread are really expensive & look like bricks I am put off buying them and I am living off of rice crispies & rice cakes which have a really high GL index and then I end up with low blood sugar and get really panicky and then that sets my digestive system off (which is why i'm trying to go gluten-free in the first place!!)

[Hawthorn]

Hey ruby

you're not wrong about the bread products. The first ones I tried were 'soft rolls' by dietary specials. They would have made decent hockey pucks
Have you checked the rice crispies are gluten free? Mostly cereals have barley malt added.

Well, I do a lot of cooking. Homemade soups/stews/curries, meat and veg, rice dishes, chinese food, scrambled eggs, omelettes, jacket potatoes, salads. I used to be a cereal lover in a morning but now I eat pretty much anything for breakfast - even soups/stews, but I do draw the line at curry
For light snacks, I love slices of apple with peanut butter on.
There are some gluten free cereals out there, but they are pricey. Given a choice of them I quite like the mesa sunrise one, but I think maybe you will have the same problem with the blood sugar thing?
You can get gluten free oats if you like porridge, but I really begrudge buying those as they are again costly...around the £3 for 500g
I quite like mackerel grilled, with tomatoes and mushrooms.

A big part of the gluten free diet is you do sacrifice convenience unless you're prepared to pay through the nose for it. Leftovers are your friend for those really busy days. I make it a point to save at least one portion of every meal I cook which is either put in the fridge or frozen. That way if I do get hungry, it's easy to grab something rather than having to stand and cook.

If you do decide to get some substitutes in, genius bread is pretty good. Mrs crimbles do some nice snack type stuff....love the bakewell slices if I need a really sweet hit.

Not everything has to be bought from the free from section either. There is a lot of stuff out there (even processed) that is gluten free - heinz beans and sausages, aldi baked beans, aldi ketchup, tamari soy sauce, you soon learn what is ok and what isn't Unfortunately, standard beer isn't

I try to look at it as a good thing really, although it can be a real pain at times. My diet is much better than it has been since gluten tends to be in a lot of the junk food I was hooked on

I am working on gluten free baking but that's an *ahem* interesting experience.....so far we have had housebrick bread, dusty muffins and frisbee pizza I tried dumplings for stew once. They sank to the bottom of the pot and never even tried to rise up

[grotbags]

Gosh Hawthorn, not jumping to conclusions but I wonder how much of your anxiety/panic is due to this allergy/intollerance. That's really amazing that you felt so well off the gluten. Thanks for sharing all that information with us! It's really helpful! I find it easy to cut down on gluten, and I do have buckwheat crispbreads instead of crackers, brown rice noodles instead of pasta etc. It's just doing it 100% of the time that is the issue. Oh, and the money. It IS expensive to buy these alternatives, isn't it? No matter how tasty a lot of them (surprisingly) are.

Rubynoodles, have you ever tried combining high GI foods with something low GI like peanut butter or hummus or bean salad? I try to do this when I remember because I heard somewhere that it kind of balances out the GI of the other food... but then I'm not sure about that.

[Blade]

im going for a test for celiac disease on friday so i may well be joing the ranks of gluten free !!!!

[Hawthorn]

Good luck blade is it the blood test or the endoscopy/biopsy?

[xhyperyogix]

i've been celiac since birth, so have avoided glutin since i was 10 and they finally found out what was wrong with me. dep/panic etc started in my teens so for me avoiding it hasn't helped. having said that, perhaps id be even worse if not for my dietry restrictions! xx