Recently made yet another trip to the doctor - this time we're trying cutting out wheat and dairy to see if that helps any. Cheese is by far my favorite food and I admittedly eat waaaay too much of on an average day. Today is my first day on this elimination-type diet. I feel good starting this, mainly it's optimism.
Just wondering if anyone else has given this a try, and what were the results? Any feedback would be great!
Hey there,
I'm sorry to say I cut out wheat and dairy for a 6 month trial and did not see much improvement in my symptoms, but everyone is different and I wish you lots of luck with it! I hope you'll keep us updated as to your progress!
Good question I'm curious to hear results! I've been off dairy for a long time and more recently stopped having wheat too in hopes of any health improvement, CFS or otherwise. So far I notice no difference... sigh. How long do you think it takes for giving up wheat to notice a difference?
With wheat intolerance the problem is often broader than wheat alone. It's smarter to do a gluten elimination, since the offensive protein in wheat is gluten, and that same gluten is also found in barley & rye, and also in the ancient forms of wheat like spelt, kamut & triticale. If people are gluten sensitive but remove only wheat, leaving barley & rye in the diet, they may falsely conclude that 'taking out wheat didn't make a difference."
A gluten intolerant person who substitutes spelt, barley, etc for wheat will still have problems. Many of the "wheat free" products available contain barley or spelt. This is confusing to many folks. Barley malt & barley enzymes are in a huge range of conventional products, and are not as of yet required to be labelled.
A totally gluten free diet or elimination trial spans home repair products, art supplies, health & beauty products ... the list goes on. An excellent resource for getting up the steep learning curve of the GF diet is the recent book, Living Gluten Free for Dummies, by Danna Korn.
How long it takes to make a difference ... depends on the type of intolerance. In IgE wheat or gluten allergy, people often feel better in a few weeks, less bloating & gas, unless they get a dose of gluten. In IgG allergy, the antibodies stay active for at least 6 mos., and this can derail the immune system from dealing with other stuff. In celiac disease, which is an autoimmune reaction to gluten that destroys the lining of the small intestine, healing can take months to years, depending on how severe the destruction is. A celiac diet must remove gluten down to the molecular level -- you can't even have a shared butter stick or toaster due to cross contamination issues.
