Nice! I used to have painful cystic acne, including when I went vegan and basically ate fruit, veggies, and organic whole grains. I haven't had a single flare up since I changed my diet last May.

I was just about to post something similar! I have what I know as "chicken skin" on my upper arms. Little bumps just EVERYWHERE just below my shoulders but above my elbows. On Instagram someone mentioned that following keto their arm bumps all went away. I looked at my arms and realized mine are gone too :O I didn't even notice!

So does this mean I have celiac disease? I really should test for it now that I've learned this I suppose.

Sarahb29 wrote: »

I was just about to post something similar! I have what I know as "chicken skin" on my upper arms. Little bumps just EVERYWHERE just below my shoulders but above my elbows. On Instagram someone mentioned that following keto their arm bumps all went away. I looked at my arms and realized mine are gone too :O I didn't even notice!

So does this mean I have celiac disease? I really should test for it now that I've learned this I suppose.

Unfortunately, you can't "test for it now" unless you want to go back on eating wheat and gluten and stuff for what is it 4-12 weeks before testing to get a reliable test answer. Personally, I vote for saying "gluten sensitive" to anyone who asks and avoiding it for life. No way I'd torture myself just for a test that wouldn't really help me know anything different than what dietary elimination already proved.

Sarahb29 wrote: »

I was just about to post something similar! I have what I know as "chicken skin" on my upper arms. Little bumps just EVERYWHERE just below my shoulders but above my elbows. On Instagram someone mentioned that following keto their arm bumps all went away. I looked at my arms and realized mine are gone too :O I didn't even notice!

So does this mean I have celiac disease? I really should test for it now that I've learned this I suppose.

Dermatitis herpetiformis is one of those things that you'd know that you have it and arguably that it went away. The two closest things to what it feels like is poison ivy (or oak or sumac) and chicken pox. It itches like hell and if you get lesions or pop the blisters, they don't like to heal if you're still eating gluten.

Your reaction may still be a form of sensitivity, but isn't likely DH. Unfortunately, if that's your only symptom, odds are very good that you won't be able to get a doctor to agree to do the tests, and it's very likely to come back negative, anyway, due to how the blood test works. You can try (and arguably, it's a good idea to try to get an official diagnosis, to help refine our collective knowledge of Celiac and gluten sensitivities), but be aware that you'll probably have a fight on your hands.

auntjenny74 wrote: »

I was at my quarterly dr appointment last week for my ADHD meds. I was telling my doctor that I was experimenting with changing my diet to help with my mental focus. I mentioned that on Super Bowl Sunday I had waffles for breakfast and pizza for dinner and laughed about how I woke Monday with sore swollen joints and itchy bumps on my elbows. Both of those are symptoms I used to have all the time, but they went away with this WOE. She looked at my rash, and said that it appeared to be dermatitis herpetiformis, which is essentially the skin manifestation of celiac disease. I have a lot of celiac hallmarks, but never considered it as a possibility because I do not have any of the GI symptoms. LCHF was the elimination diet I didn't know I needed!

I know that feeling. I got it or something very, very similar a couple of years ago, but my doctor dismissed it as "contact dermatitis" without so much as a hint that it might be something else. When the corticosteroid cream did nothing for it, and I realized that wheat had become a common feature in my diet again, I did a one-month challenge of my at the time Primal diet. I hadn't expected it to do anything with the dermatitis issue I was having, but found it starting to heal after about two weeks, and was just about completely gone after a month.

At the time I got it, wheat still wasn't a big factor in my diet anymore (I had gone Primal several months prior for other reasons), and I was consuming only something like 1-2 servings a day, 4-5 days a week, so it didn't take much.

I suspect I'm in a similar boat as you. I don't get GI issues, but I've had some of the "atypical" hallmarks over the years. For the longest time, I fought with iron deficiency anemia, despite no dietary reason (and I think the main reason I didn't have as much issue in high school was largely because venison was a big staple in our house, which has a bunch of iron, so I was getting enough to not have too many symptoms of deficiency just by sheer volume of intake). Grain-based starches are a near guarantee for headaches, and I suffered chronic headaches prior to dropping grains. I've also got marks on my teeth, which I believe is mild enamel hypoplasia, which my dentists have always assumed to have been caused by "trauma from the baby teeth." I also recall my doctor when I was a teenager constantly commenting on the fact that they lymph nodes in my neck were swollen inexplicably (which is generally a sign of infection, though I was never actually sick around the time I went in for those checkups, as they were wellness checkups), though they never hurt.

There are times where I want to talk to a doctor about getting tested (for the sake of expanding knowledge of Celiac), but I've had issues getting medical cooperation with my far more common PCOS, let alone something that's notoriously hard to get diagnosed even with classical symptoms. It's kind of a catch-22. =/

Something I did just think about and might look up, though -- perhaps we should talk to the Celiac foundations and explain our situations and atypical symptoms that point to Celiac, and see if we can essentially be guinea pigs. Granted, it still means we need to intentionally gluten ourselves every day for the next few months, but at least we'd know that it would be for the greater good of getting atypically-presenting or "silent" Celiac studied that much more.

As someone with ADHD and in meds, I was very surprised that this woe will allow me to reduce my Adderall dosage at my next checkup. I had slowly increased it over the years because of getting used to it until I got on the maximum dose. The doctor mentioned that beyond that I would either need to add additional medication or change to something else. I didn't like that idea since Adderall worked so well for me without any bad side effects. Next visit I'm cutting back and don't expect it will be an issue at all.

I didn't know anemia could be a symptom of celiac? That explains a few things. The more I learn about the symptoms the more I realize that I probably have it, but like @KnitOrMiss I wouldn't bother actually testing for it.

jessicaesqueda0409 wrote: »

I had a skin condition that lasted a bit over 2 years. No one was able to properly diagnose it. I had tiny "water blisters" on all of my fingers, that would pop and peel and itch like CRAZY. I ended up loosing a lot of skin on one hand, with deep grooving in my fingers. It eventually healed with coconut oil and eating healthier.

Currently, I get "eczema" type rashes on my scalp occasionally. They will go away for three or four years, then plague me for a month or two. It's red and irritated, and itches, and weeps when scratched.

Does this sound like something that is diet related, and fixable with LCHF?

Well, you never know. But I'm a big believer in magnesium and its support of cell renewal and proper hydration. So I know you're taking it already but I'd make sure to take a decent dose of the better kinds. Glycinate or citrate. Glycinate being the best option. And take it morning and night up to digestive tolerance. Meaning, your body is using all of the magnesium you supply until it causes loose stools. It's at that point that excess is being eliminated. I'm taking 1000mg citrate a day most of the time and I haven't reached digestive tolerance yet.
Just keep watching it and using coconut oil and keeping hydration balanced and you may answer that question in a short time.

Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »

I'm taking 1000mg citrate a day most of the time and I haven't reached digestive tolerance yet.

Sunny, how much water do you mix with the mag citrate? I just switched to the Now brand, after using maleate tablets. Not sure how much to imbibe at one time. 1/2 tsp to 8 oz water, twice a day? or 1 tsp in 8 oz?
I have also read that it should be mixed up and left to sit for a minute or so?

camtosh wrote: »

Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »

I'm taking 1000mg citrate a day most of the time and I haven't reached digestive tolerance yet.

Sunny, how much water do you mix with the mag citrate? I just switched to the Now brand, after using maleate tablets. Not sure how much to imbibe at one time. 1/2 tsp to 8 oz water, twice a day? or 1 tsp in 8 oz?
I have also read that it should be mixed up and left to sit for a minute or so?

I'm taking a pill form right now because I just saw that powdered version recently. The Bulk Supplements seems to be the cheapest way to get magnesium. They offer it in glycinate, citrate and carbonate powder.
I was using a powdered drink mix that had other stuff in it too and was the carbonate form of magnesium. I think it was 400mg per scoop, which was probably about 1/2 teaspoon. I mixed it with about 6 oz water. I think you can mix it with as much or little as it takes for you to be ok with the taste. I don't know how the magnesium tastes because the powder I had other stuff in it too.
Since I also take high dose vitamin C I think I'll buy the powder next time and make my own version of that drink mix.