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GFD Tips, Pointers, and
Pitfalls
Diagnosis and treatment any condition by the Gluten Free
Diet (GFD) is not as simple as just not eating wheat. As in any diet or
treatment, there are risks and potential errors in the GFD. Please
consider all of the following disclaimers and complexities of the GFD before
starting the diet. And please remember, nothing will change the
inevitable end; no one's body lasts forever. What matters is what good
you do with your body while you have it.
1.
Get the medical treatment you need. Some
critical conditions may need immediate medical treatment to halt damage, such
as nerve damage and cancers. The suggestion of a GFD is not at all meant
to completely supplant drugs, surgery, or other therapies. Rather the
concern is to reduce the need for severe or perpetual treatments by discovering
and treating the underlying chronic cause, which would just go on doing more
damage if left untreated.
2.
Read up.
Read several Celiac Internet sites
for their advice on Gluten Free Diet sites.
Books on Celiac Disease and Gluten Free diets go out of date fast, but
may have some inspirational words. Most
of the Gluten Free Cookbooks miss the mark; check them out well before you buy,
I recommend ones that teach you about new foods to eat, rather than just
about substitutes for wheat.
3.
Explore. Don’t get stuck on thinking what you
are giving up. Look forward to trying new
foods! While the Gluten Free Diet only
asks you to give up 3or 4 ingredients*, there are hundreds of thousands of other
food ingredients in this world to try.
*After
healing on the Gluten Free Diet, some are able to then find out that other
grains are also a problem.
4.
Maybe some or all of your symptoms not are caused by
gluten after all, but by something else, say another food intolerance, a
chronic infection, cystic
fibrosis, diabetes, or a
cancer (such as carcinoid tumors of the lung or gut or
various lymphomas) to name a few (but
then these other things can also be caused or accelerated by gluten).
5.
Keep a record or journal. The time delays between eating wheat and the
resulting symptoms can be days, weeks, or months; that is a main reason gluten
intolerance has overlooked. Keeping
track of what you eat and how you feel will help you figure out what works and
what doesn’t. Also, it can be easy to
forget what you were like before the start of a GFD. A careful record will help you identify symptoms that respond to
the diet, help you detect foods contaminated with hidden gluten, help you
identify other foods that are giving you problems, and remind you why
you are trying the diet. Keep track of all
of you symptoms, not just those you expect to treat – you would be
surprised. After all, perception and
memory problems are associated with gluten intolerance.
6.
Independent witness. In my opinion, for
behavioral and emotional symptoms, you really need an external witness,
particularly a close friend or spouse, a professional witness if the symptoms
are serious. I say this because sometimes, you are not the best judge of
your emotions. Also, commonly associated with gluten intolerance, severe
depression and bi-polar disorder are suicide risks – if you need a doctor, you
need a doctor.
7.
Stay at it. Some symptoms take days to get better; some
take months or years. (How long does it take to
work?)
8.
Know your malnutrition. Artificially
fortified dairy and grain products are the main ways that we (the government by
the people) supplement our diet – look at your milk, cereal, and bread
ingredient labels. If you cut out gluten or dairy, you really should take
vitamin and mineral supplements (at least my doctor agrees here).
9.
Diet errors are easy. It is not enough to
just cut wheat out of your diet, but also anything made with rye and
barley. Further, these grains can be found added to almost anything that
comes packaged in cans, paper, or plastic. Materials made from these
cheap grains are used as diluters, thickeners, texturizers, moisturizers, dyes,
and flavors. Some chemical food additives made from these grains can be
hidden under "natural flavors". Just for starters, look at your
lunchmeats and packaged foods for addition of starch and vinegar where the
source grain is not identified.
10. The
diet has to be really gluten-free to be diagnostic. Your symptoms
might not improve as much as you would like on the GFD simply because your diet
really isn't gluten free. To be completely effective, the diet has to
remove all traces of gliadin. Very little gluten is needed to
induce damage or symptoms once the body becomes sensitive. Many Celiacs
state that they became more sensitive to trace amounts as they progressed on
the diet. Continuing symptoms on the GF diet could be from hidden gliadin
sources or even trace cross-contamination in harvesting, manufacturing, or
serving.
11. Refractory
Symptoms. Some of your symptoms might not improve on the GFD because
they may have become refractory, that is, they were originally caused by gluten
but won't respond to treatment. Perhaps
this is because the damage may be complete or the secondary autoimmune
condition may have become self-sustaining. In this case, the only proof
of gluten intolerance would be other clinical tests or improvement of some
other non-refractory symptoms while on the GFD.
12. Testability.
It has been medical convention that the clinical tests cannot be used as
evidence of gluten intolerance if the diet was started before the tests,
because the body is not clinically reacting to gluten. So, you should
consider whether to have gluten sensitivity tests before starting. Even so, serum tests and biopsies miss
more cases of Celiac Disease than they find, even before patients try the
GDF. Thus, some doctors now feel that
the new "gold standard" test for gluten intolerance is clinical
improvement of symptoms on the diet. (Please see “Test
Essay”)
13. Follow
Through / Differential Diagnosis. If you have symptoms that improve on the
gluten free diet, it could still be that you are not necessary gluten sensitive.
Wheat gluten and wheat starch are not particularly easy to digest. So, like beans and dairy foods, wheat foods
would contribute to health problems for anyone with a weak digestion. Therefore, if not eating wheat makes you
feel better, it is important to look into other conditions that might cause
your weakened digestion. Tip #3
includes some of these, but one could also consider any sort of problem with
the gallbladder, liver, or pancreas. Developmental and degenerative disorders of
the brain and nervous system are strongly associated with weakened digestion.
(I hope to write an essay on “Alternative Diagnoses”.)
14. Be
careful what you ask for. I have been concerned that a recorded medical
diagnosis of gluten intolerance or Celiac Disease may negatively affect your
future insurability. I have seen some policies that exclude people for
having conditions that happen to be associated with or are caused by gluten
intolerance. Even so, insurance
companies could save a lot of money having their clients eating healthy,
preventative diets.
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