Grain intolerance?
Panda_Poptarts
Posts: 971 Member
I haven't had any grains since starting keto. I've noticed a dramatic improvement in migraines and headaches, better energy, and improved skin, as well as other changes like hormonal improvements.
Craving a breakfast burrito, I decided to check out some low carb tortilla wraps my grocery store carries. Midway through my burrito (eggs, cheese, bacon - nothing I don't usually eat) I felt super queasy. 45 minutes later I'm rather itchy, and I feel like I could fall asleep at my desk. I also have a super awesome headache radiating from the base of my skull.
TOM is due soon, which could be the culprit for the sleepiness. However, does the nausea and itching sound like it's due to the grains? These wraps have wheat, oats, and wheat gluten.
Craving a breakfast burrito, I decided to check out some low carb tortilla wraps my grocery store carries. Midway through my burrito (eggs, cheese, bacon - nothing I don't usually eat) I felt super queasy. 45 minutes later I'm rather itchy, and I feel like I could fall asleep at my desk. I also have a super awesome headache radiating from the base of my skull.
TOM is due soon, which could be the culprit for the sleepiness. However, does the nausea and itching sound like it's due to the grains? These wraps have wheat, oats, and wheat gluten.
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One of the things I read recently was that as many of us have gut issues related to our conditions, with a leaky gut, once we eliminate a food for a time, then have accidental or limited exposure as you did, it can cause amplified reactions. For me, if I have excess straight sugar, I get almost identical reactions - and also, I did get similar reactions with wheat stuff, though not as badly. I did not test positive for celiac when I was tested before I went low carb.
Gluten is a sensitivity for many carb sensitive folks, too, and one of the first things leaky gut reacts to (I forget the reason, but it is almost as much of a poison to our system as sugar)... I'd vote the gluten, plus the combo. I would not be interested in repeating the experiment for confirmation! (hugs)
Edited to add, if it were me, I would guess the sleepiness to be an insulin related crash...1 -
Grain is one thing I haven't tested myself on! I've been too scared! I also have migraines, and don't want to test that! Isn't it crazy to see what those foods were doing to you!?!
Imo, all of your symptoms are gluten related, which is based on my own experience with other foods.1 -
KnitOrMiss wrote: »One of the things I read recently was that as many of us have gut issues related to our conditions, with a leaky gut, once we eliminate a food for a time, then have accidental or limited exposure as you did, it can cause amplified reactions. For me, if I have excess straight sugar, I get almost identical reactions - and also, I did get similar reactions with wheat stuff, though not as badly. I did not test positive for celiac when I was tested before I went low carb.
Gluten is a sensitivity for many carb sensitive folks, too, and one of the first things leaky gut reacts to (I forget the reason, but it is almost as much of a poison to our system as sugar)... I'd vote the gluten, plus the combo. I would not be interested in repeating the experiment for confirmation! (hugs)
Edited to add, if it were me, I would guess the sleepiness to be an insulin related crash...
I have no intention of repeating the experiment. The burrito was not THAT good LOL. A month or so ago, I had a few bites of my father in law's birthday cake. I was puking within 30 minutes of eating it. SO much sugar and all I really ate was frosting haha. I suppose gluten sensitivity is possible, although I don't recall having a reaction like this in the past. I think carb sensitivity in general makes sense as well. I have lived most of my life with crappy skin and crappy hormones and crappy digestive issues, and frequent migraines. So much has changed since I cut the carbs! BUT, I wonder how much of those symptoms were related to grains, or just carbs in general. Will I ever be able to eat a real sandwich again? I'm not sure. Right now I think I'll stay away...0 -
Grain is one thing I haven't tested myself on! I've been too scared! I also have migraines, and don't want to test that! Isn't it crazy to see what those foods were doing to you!?!
Imo, all of your symptoms are gluten related, which is based on my own experience with other foods.
Usually excedrin will get rid of a nasty headache for me. If not, fioricet. I've taken both today and the headache is actually a bit worse
I don't recommend experimenting.0 -
I can eat unlimited amounts of vegs to satiety. No problems.
I can eat a limited amount of rice. No problem.
But I shouldn't have rice every day.
And I absolutely need to stay away from grains as a habitual thing. Especially pasta. Depressing. Gets me depressed.
Too much sweet sugary stuff makes me overly emotional. Overreacting.
Edit: Changed the word depressing to a clear sentence.0 -
@Panda_Poptarts Since I totally cut out sugar and all forms of all grains I am recovering from 40 years of declining health. I am going to 'assume ' it was both off them since I never plan to eat from either group again.
I am glad you learned early.1 -
Better late than never, right?
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The positive is that you have yourself in a place, nutritionally, to be able to recognize it! Kudos for that!
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Panda_Poptarts wrote: »KnitOrMiss wrote: »One of the things I read recently was that as many of us have gut issues related to our conditions, with a leaky gut, once we eliminate a food for a time, then have accidental or limited exposure as you did, it can cause amplified reactions. For me, if I have excess straight sugar, I get almost identical reactions - and also, I did get similar reactions with wheat stuff, though not as badly. I did not test positive for celiac when I was tested before I went low carb.
Gluten is a sensitivity for many carb sensitive folks, too, and one of the first things leaky gut reacts to (I forget the reason, but it is almost as much of a poison to our system as sugar)... I'd vote the gluten, plus the combo. I would not be interested in repeating the experiment for confirmation! (hugs)
Edited to add, if it were me, I would guess the sleepiness to be an insulin related crash...
I have no intention of repeating the experiment. The burrito was not THAT good LOL. A month or so ago, I had a few bites of my father in law's birthday cake. I was puking within 30 minutes of eating it. SO much sugar and all I really ate was frosting haha. I suppose gluten sensitivity is possible, although I don't recall having a reaction like this in the past. I think carb sensitivity in general makes sense as well. I have lived most of my life with crappy skin and crappy hormones and crappy digestive issues, and frequent migraines. So much has changed since I cut the carbs! BUT, I wonder how much of those symptoms were related to grains, or just carbs in general. Will I ever be able to eat a real sandwich again? I'm not sure. Right now I think I'll stay away...
I always ask, why does the bread make it a real sandwich? It's still a sandwich between lettuce leaves.
My husband says stuff like that about my food and I always think it's weird now. Like, why is my sandwich any less real than his?
I think that imagining a time to go back to eating "normal" suggests that eating like current is "abnormal". But, it's what makes you healthier. Seems much more normal to me. 5 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Panda_Poptarts wrote: »KnitOrMiss wrote: »One of the things I read recently was that as many of us have gut issues related to our conditions, with a leaky gut, once we eliminate a food for a time, then have accidental or limited exposure as you did, it can cause amplified reactions. For me, if I have excess straight sugar, I get almost identical reactions - and also, I did get similar reactions with wheat stuff, though not as badly. I did not test positive for celiac when I was tested before I went low carb.
Gluten is a sensitivity for many carb sensitive folks, too, and one of the first things leaky gut reacts to (I forget the reason, but it is almost as much of a poison to our system as sugar)... I'd vote the gluten, plus the combo. I would not be interested in repeating the experiment for confirmation! (hugs)
Edited to add, if it were me, I would guess the sleepiness to be an insulin related crash...
I have no intention of repeating the experiment. The burrito was not THAT good LOL. A month or so ago, I had a few bites of my father in law's birthday cake. I was puking within 30 minutes of eating it. SO much sugar and all I really ate was frosting haha. I suppose gluten sensitivity is possible, although I don't recall having a reaction like this in the past. I think carb sensitivity in general makes sense as well. I have lived most of my life with crappy skin and crappy hormones and crappy digestive issues, and frequent migraines. So much has changed since I cut the carbs! BUT, I wonder how much of those symptoms were related to grains, or just carbs in general. Will I ever be able to eat a real sandwich again? I'm not sure. Right now I think I'll stay away...
I always ask, why does the bread make it a real sandwich? It's still a sandwich between lettuce leaves.
My husband says stuff like that about my food and I always think it's weird now. Like, why is my sandwich any less real than his?
I think that imagining a time to go back to eating "normal" suggests that eating like current is "abnormal". But, it's what makes you healthier. Seems much more normal to me.
This is so, so true. I've had major psychological changes in how I approach my food, which is great. There are certain things that I haven't quite let go of yet. Like that burrito! Guess what? It didn't meet expectations, taste-wise, at ALL. I still think about grilled cheese on sourdough sometimes, my absolute favorite. But I bet that bread wouldn't taste as good as I remember it tasting.
I am occasionally needing to remind myself that I am a few months in, and have done amazing things for myself, but that it will likely take more time for me to see this WOE as 100% normal. It is, however, becoming routine, comfortable, and closer to my new normal. I think today was a bit of a wakeup for me. I expected that in a year or so, when I'm closer to maintenance and healthier, I'd move to moderate carb and reintroduce things like bread and grains. I see now that there's a very good chance my body is simply better off without grains, and I need to stop seeing keto as temporary.2 -
The positive is that you have yourself in a place, nutritionally, to be able to recognize it! Kudos for that!
This is very true! I ended up having some pretty severe symptoms - migraine, nausea, itching, diarrhea, minor eczema flare on my hands. All symptoms I dealt with regularly, calling it "hormonal headaches" and "possible IBS" and "sensitive skin". It's too coincidental to have this serious negative reaction after eating grains, when I've been great the past few months.0 -
Going low carb cleared up the eczema that I'd been dealing with (unsuccessfully) for years. I find wheat to be the main culprit. I can occasionally have very small amounts, but if I overdo it, the eczema starts to flare up again. I seem to tolerate rice okay, and oats. But then those aren't gluten-grains. I never thought that gluten could be causing my eczema (I had heard dairy could be a culprit, but cutting that out did nothing but make me sad, lol). Two weeks into a LCHF diet (that I switched to in order to lose weight) I found my skin clearing quite dramatically; by six weeks the eczema was virtually gone, with no major flare ups in three years now. Pretty awesome unexpected benefit! 4
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tlflag1620 wrote: »Going low carb cleared up the eczema that I'd been dealing with (unsuccessfully) for years. I find wheat to be the main culprit. I can occasionally have very small amounts, but if I overdo it, the eczema starts to flare up again. I seem to tolerate rice okay, and oats. But then those aren't gluten-grains. I never thought that gluten could be causing my eczema (I had heard dairy could be a culprit, but cutting that out did nothing but make me sad, lol). Two weeks into a LCHF diet (that I switched to in order to lose weight) I found my skin clearing quite dramatically; by six weeks the eczema was virtually gone, with no major flare ups in three years now. Pretty awesome unexpected benefit!
I get those lovely cyst-like bumps on my thighs and bottom. I've had them since I was 12 or so, and haven't had a single one since starting keto. My skin is so much clearer in general, too! Yay for low carb!3 -
I suppose gluten sensitivity is possible, although I don't recall having a reaction like this in the past. I think carb sensitivity in general makes sense as well. I have lived most of my life with crappy skin and crappy hormones and crappy digestive issues, and frequent migraines.
Looks like you did, in fact, have a sensitivity to something and had a "reaction like this," you just didn't know what it felt like to actually feel healthy/good at the time. That feeling of migraines, crappy skin/hormones/GI were your "normal," so your brain adapted and turned the "volume" on the issues way down.
Now, your "normal" is orders of magnitude better, so when you eat something you used to eat and get a recurrence of the old symptoms, they seem so much worse, because the "volume" is back to normal.
I had the same issues, too. I went from 800mg of Ibuprofen nearly every day to zero within about a week of dropping grains. It didn't even cross my mind as something that would be fixed by it until that actually happened. (One thing to note now, though -- I've found that coffee is a "sometimes" trigger for me. I think it might be related to where I'm at in my cycle, though it's been a bit irregular since going off Mirena and getting my tubes tied back in January, so it's hard to pinpoint which part. Should be easier once it settles back out.)
A couple of years ago, grains had crept back into my diet (thanks to a daily habit of breakfast wraps from the nearby coffee joint), and I found myself with a horrible, though small, patch of eczema that would. Not. Heal. I stopped eating grains for a month and found it completely healed by the end of it.2 -
I've posted this elsewhere but it's particularly appropriate here. I went low carb purely for weight loss/weight control purposes. After a couple of months of no grains (low carb or not) I suddenly realized the symptoms of my Crohn's Disease were significantly improved. My gastroenterologist (just like 90% of the medical profession) apparently sees no connection between what goes in our mouths and what happens down the line, so I got no encouragement from him. So who am I going to believe, Dr. X? You or my own lying gut?
At Christmas time I took a couple of hefty licks off the spoon and the beaters while making brownies for a party and blew up like a puffer fish. That was the extent and the end of my grain (and refined sugar)experiments.2 -
I can't have excessive amounts of pasta/bread related products without feeling bloated and gassy...and generally just craptastic. Sugar is similar, but not as profound. If I eat too much (like cake and ice cream, or candy) I don't feel good - but I can't pin down what the 'not good' is, per se. I don't get bloated or anything, I just feel icky. I can eat regular thin crust pizza and have no reaction (besides the sleepy feeling), I can eat a small piece of cake at a party (like a third of everyone elses) and feel like it was more than enough...and not feel too crappy from it, either. I guess it just varies person-to-person...everyone is going to react in their own special way lol. Happily my reactions aren't severe to most things (and I rarely crave things); for once, I'm lucky with something food related!1
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Dragonwolf wrote: »I suppose gluten sensitivity is possible, although I don't recall having a reaction like this in the past. I think carb sensitivity in general makes sense as well. I have lived most of my life with crappy skin and crappy hormones and crappy digestive issues, and frequent migraines.
Looks like you did, in fact, have a sensitivity to something and had a "reaction like this," you just didn't know what it felt like to actually feel healthy/good at the time. That feeling of migraines, crappy skin/hormones/GI were your "normal," so your brain adapted and turned the "volume" on the issues way down.
Now, your "normal" is orders of magnitude better, so when you eat something you used to eat and get a recurrence of the old symptoms, they seem so much worse, because the "volume" is back to normal.
I had the same issues, too. I went from 800mg of Ibuprofen nearly every day to zero within about a week of dropping grains. It didn't even cross my mind as something that would be fixed by it until that actually happened. (One thing to note now, though -- I've found that coffee is a "sometimes" trigger for me. I think it might be related to where I'm at in my cycle, though it's been a bit irregular since going off Mirena and getting my tubes tied back in January, so it's hard to pinpoint which part. Should be easier once it settles back out.)
A couple of years ago, grains had crept back into my diet (thanks to a daily habit of breakfast wraps from the nearby coffee joint), and I found myself with a horrible, though small, patch of eczema that would. Not. Heal. I stopped eating grains for a month and found it completely healed by the end of it.
You make good points.
I've been a chronic eater of NSAIDs too. I keep a bottle around now and it lasts me months- primarily used for PMS symptoms. I don't know that I've ever felt 100% healthy. There's always been something a little off, and dropping carbs has made me feel 1000x better!
My eczema patches are almost completely healed. I've had patches on my elbows for more than 6 months now, as well as on my hands. I was able to stop using steroid creams, and the patches are smooth now. I imagine it will take some more time for the redness to completely heal.
I'm happy to hear that things have been better for you, too! It's amazing what the food we put into our body can do to us - either for the better or for the worse. Kudos to you for finding what makes you feel healthiest.2 -
mandycat223 wrote: »I've posted this elsewhere but it's particularly appropriate here. I went low carb purely for weight loss/weight control purposes. After a couple of months of no grains (low carb or not) I suddenly realized the symptoms of my Crohn's Disease were significantly improved. My gastroenterologist (just like 90% of the medical profession) apparently sees no connection between what goes in our mouths and what happens down the line, so I got no encouragement from him. So who am I going to believe, Dr. X? You or my own lying gut?
At Christmas time I took a couple of hefty licks off the spoon and the beaters while making brownies for a party and blew up like a puffer fish. That was the extent and the end of my grain (and refined sugar)experiments.
Licking the spoon just isn't worth it, is it?!
I went low carb primarily for weight loss and to reverse pre-diabetes. I have found, however, a change in my overall health and wellbeing that really speaks for itself.2 -
absolutely agree, grain-free for me for life!! Also, read an interesting article blaming the use of glyphosate right before harvest of wheat for these symptoms. Apparently wheat fields are sprayed heavily with pesticide just prior to harvest to begin the drying process and supposedly it is easier for the farm equipment to harvest it after it has started to die. I will post a link if I can find it again.1
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Deena_Bean wrote: »I can't have excessive amounts of pasta/bread related products without feeling bloated and gassy...and generally just craptastic. Sugar is similar, but not as profound. If I eat too much (like cake and ice cream, or candy) I don't feel good - but I can't pin down what the 'not good' is, per se. I don't get bloated or anything, I just feel icky. I can eat regular thin crust pizza and have no reaction (besides the sleepy feeling), I can eat a small piece of cake at a party (like a third of everyone elses) and feel like it was more than enough...and not feel too crappy from it, either. I guess it just varies person-to-person...everyone is going to react in their own special way lol. Happily my reactions aren't severe to most things (and I rarely crave things); for once, I'm lucky with something food related!
I used to eat a bag (whole bag...) of popcorn just about every night. I was gaining weight and unhealthy, despite being within my calorie goals. I'd fill up a mixing bowl of air popped popcorn, justifying that it was air popped so it was healthy. I eventually weaned off of the popcorn, other than for an occasional treat. It didn't take me long to figure out that eating a bag of popcorn as a treat would lead to serious bloating (5+ pounds on the scale) the next day, and general feelings of crappiness.
I do still eat popcorn occasionally, but I keep it to a serving - 3 or 4 cups - which doesn't seem to affect me, and is very satisfying. You're right that there are definitely amounts to what we can eat, and that's a very individual limit. I'm glad you've found something that works for you!0 -
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Thank you!0 -
Thanks for the link @mamafazz . The below was news to me. Locally wheat harvest will be starting in about a month so I will keep my eyes open.
"However, just because Roundup doesn’t kill you immediately doesn’t make it nontoxic. In fact, the active ingredient in Roundup lethally disrupts the all important shikimate pathway found in beneficial gut microbes which is responsible for synthesis of critical amino acids.
Friendly gut bacteria, also called probiotics, play a critical role in human health. Gut bacteria aid digestion, prevent permeability of the gastointestinal tract (which discourages the development of autoimmune disease), synthesize vitamins and provide the foundation for robust immunity. In essence:
Roundup significantly disrupts the functioning of beneficial bacteria in the gut and contributes to permeability of the intestinal wall and consequent expression of autoimmune disease symptoms"......
OK I better see the need for Probiotics.
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mandycat223 wrote: »I've posted this elsewhere but it's particularly appropriate here. I went low carb purely for weight loss/weight control purposes. After a couple of months of no grains (low carb or not) I suddenly realized the symptoms of my Crohn's Disease were significantly improved. My gastroenterologist (just like 90% of the medical profession) apparently sees no connection between what goes in our mouths and what happens down the line, so I got no encouragement from him. So who am I going to believe, Dr. X? You or my own lying gut?
At Christmas time I took a couple of hefty licks off the spoon and the beaters while making brownies for a party and blew up like a puffer fish. That was the extent and the end of my grain (and refined sugar)experiments.
That is particularly astounding coming from a doctor who specializes in the digestive tract, of all things.0 -
The concern is can probiotics even survive in your colon with the conditions the round up causes? My guess is not. Our government needs to do a better job at protecting the citizens instead of getting their pockets lined to turn the other way.0
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The concern is can prebiotic even survive in your colon with the conditions the round up causes? My guess is not. Our government needs to do a better job at protecting the citizens instead of getting their pockets lined to turn the other way.
Yet another reason to just stay away from grains to begin with. 0
This discussion has been closed.