My stomach, let me tell you about it (and ask a question of the audience).

[andrewducker]

You may remember that waaay back in February I talked about avoiding gluten, because it was a constant cause of bowel-related TMI.

Well, back when I made that post a few people persuaded me that I should "Eat the damned gluten and take the damn test!", which was exactly the right thing to tell me, and so I have been doing just that.

So on Thursday I went into the Doctor's, chatted to the woman on the front desk, and asked when I could get a blood test done. Delighted to discover that the answer as "in 45 minutes", I popped back, had a gallon or two taken out of the inside of my elbow*, and now have to wait 10 days for a response.

And, at that point, I breathed a sigh of relief, because after 6 weeks of a stomach that's varied between "showing signs of unhappiness" and "let's go find a toilet" I could stop eating gluten and everything would return to normal.

Ahahahahaha. The two days since that point have contained an incredibly unhappy stomach. Which is just baffling to me. On the other hand, I'd been expecting my stomach to be more unhappy than it was when I started eating bread/pasta again. Sure, it was generally "off", but it seemed to adjust after a while, and the last couple of weeks I've even managed to eat pizza without bloating up a massive amount.

Which makes me wonder - if there something whereby eating a stable amount of gluten is just fine**, but eating significantly more/less than that causes your stomach to give up entirely?

*I feel like there ought to be a word for the inside bit of the elbow that's separate from the outside nobbly bit.
**I should point out that even though my stomach was only somewhat dodgy most of the 6 weeks Julie could tell if I'd eaten wheat for a while afterwards by smelling it on my breath. Bodies are just _weird_.

Comments

[j_v_lynch]

Isn't it the Crook and the Point of the elbow?

[thejeopardymaze]

There are tests now that are better than the so-called gold standard now, but I forgot what they're called. You could probably google around for them though.

-

Personally, I'll never eat it again regardless if I could get tested or not, I'm still recovering from my 20's and I have this feeling I shouldn't be taking chances any time soon, Celiac is linked to Cancer and Osteoporosis, so I won't bother.

[fjm]

If I make a major mistake (I've only done this twice in 12 years) the pattern is as folows:

1. that word I can't spell that keeps you on the loo. This lasts about three days.
2. After that's gone, about a week, to two weeks of stomach cramps. I realise that this won't mean too much to you, but my GP used to assume they were related to bad periods. The feeling is pretty similar with lower back pain as well.
3. As that starts to fade, sore joints.


Gluten intolerance is not like lactose intolerance. With Lactose, you just can't digest it. It goes straight through creating gas on the way. Gluten wrecks the intestine, and it takes a while for the villi to recover.


Re *1. There is i Ladaan, Its mentioned somewhere in Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue (a brilliant book).

[modflowers (from livejournal.com)]

Its called the crook of your arm / elbow.

[guybles.livejournal.com]

Or the medial epicondyle.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

I don't know about a stable amount of gluten - I know that eating bread made with 2/3 spelt and 1/3 gluten seems to make things better for me. I am curious as to what your results will show (and hope you can find the least uncomfortable way round of doing things).

[vereybowring.livejournal.com]

Who knows, certainly doctors know very little about how stomachs operate but at least have found new stuff out in the last decade.
My stomach for instance dislikes chicken intensely although I've never gone for a test, I just don't eat it since it may be some sort of allergy. Too much uncooked onion gives me hiccups and too much vegetable consumption makes me incredible gassy.
The only thing they figured out was my stomach acids are too strong hence I will be taking proton pump inhibitors for the rest of my life or have the danger of my stomach eating itself.

Despite the advances medicine has made they are still very much in the dark about much of our lovely symbiotic mass of biology.

[matgb]

Who knows, certainly doctors know very little about how stomachs operate

Or, indeed, what gluten is or how it works. Apparently because I have problems if I've eaten white bread or baked my own pizza, but don't when I've had cakes or biscuits, then it can't be a gluten issue.

The small point that even basic amateur baking 101 books explain how different concentrations of gluten give different results in bakes is something he doesn't want to hear...

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

one word - yeast? Definitely in bread/pizza dough - not usually in most cakes, bicuits. Common alleregen too.

[matgb]

That had never occured to me, we're going through the "some sort of infection" route, but yeast would make sense. And it'd mean avoiding beer as well, that's not so good.

I love bakign with yeast, it's fun, that'd be a bugger. Thx for suggestion though, it might make sense.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Anecdotally, the friends I've had who have tried stopping eating bread/pasta, generally they had worst upsets when they stopped and restarted again, and it sort of evened off inbetween.

None of them ever actually had a benefit from stopping though. Which. I think stomach things just have so many thousands of different causes, getting a diagnoses remains bloody hard.

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

You could have something else wrong entirely.
randomdreams cannot have alliums (onions, garlic, leeks) or he gets those issues and horrible breath (not like onion or garlic breath, more like he ate something dead).

Have you started a food diary?

[andrewducker]

No, but if stopping gluten doesn't help after a week then I will do...

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

probably takes more like 8 weeks than a week?

[andrewducker]

True, it'll take some time to work it out of my system, and for my stomach flora (or whatever) to adjust back to "normal". But it's already better than it was.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

If you're varying your wheat intake and keeping everything else the same, I wonder if you may also be varying your fiber intake by a large factor, and seeing some consequences from that.

[andrewducker]

Possibly. Although I still had two baked potatoes in the last couple of days, and I tend to eat cauliflower, etc.

I shall keep paying attention though.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

I have a strong suspicion - completely unsubstantiated by science - that a lot of digestive tolerance issues have a lot to do with gut flora, and that would be within its rights to take a few days to adapt to a big change of diet.

[andrewducker]

Yup, definitely. Stomachs are complex, reactive, beasts, and just increasing fibre up and down can have a big effect.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

You might want to check out "Anicubital fossa" (or some spelling variant of that) for the area so favored by phlebotomists. And...ummm... would that be a British gallon, or an Exaggerationist's gallon?

[sandy666.livejournal.com]

I don't really want to go into this in too much detail, but are you sure that gluten is the trigger? I've had similar problems and went down the wheat free route etc, but it didn't work.

More by trial and error I managed to work out that the triggers I had were wine/vinegar/soy sauce and certain types of dairy - basically if it isn't processed in a certain way my body rejects it completely. So a pizza made with the wrong dairy would trigger a response and a pizza made with out the right one would not.

[andrewducker]

If my stomach doesn't settle after a week then it will be time to keep a food diary and see what pops up.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

If there is a thing triggered by too much gluten as opposed to any at all, then that sounds like my issue. I'm fine as long as I don't eat too much pasta too often or a lot of bread on a empty stomach. I've given up on pizza though because I blew up like a balloon every time I ate it. I'm not good with too much animal fat either though so it may be the combination of pizza dough and lot of cheese that did for me rather than gluten specifically.

The food diary is a really good idea, I've solved most of my issues by avoiding trigger foods. The other thing I find is that eating little and often is much better for me - going too long without food does not agree with me at all.

[andrewducker]

Someone made a comment that yeast might also cause issues, which hadn't occurred to me.

And I'm much the same - 3 hours between snacks suits me best!

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I know several people with IBS (not coeliacs) who have no problem with fibre per se (eg veg, pulses, beans, oats) but a big problem with wheat fibre/bran.

I think there's at least half-decent evidence to back this anecdata at the population level - the NICE guidance on IBS says it's probably a good idea to adjust fibre intake, usually reducing it, and switching from insoluble (wheat bran) to soluble (eg oats). This is a big change from the traditional "eat more fibre, bran is the best plan" response that most GPs used to give for just about any bowel issue.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

eating significantly more... causes your stomach to give up entirely?

sounds like basic indigestion to me.

[andrewducker]

Yes, but very severe and triggered by gluten.