Gluten Withdrawal

Fields of Wheat by victorgeere - Flickr

It’s been a few weeks now since I tried to cut gluten out of my diet – spurred on by learning that undiagnosed gluten intolerance can cause miscarriage and hoping to cure my migraines as a happy side effect. It has been anything but easy and like sugar, it’s only when you try to cut something out that you realise how prevalent it is in your diet. Bread, pasta, cereal, gravy, yorkshire puddings, fish fingers, Quorn products…. It felt like everything I ate contained gluten.

But gradually as the weeks have passed I’ve managed to cut it right back, with many slip ups along the way of course. I replaced my usual cereal with gluten free ones, likewise with pasta. At lunch time I’m eating more jacket potatoes and omelettes instead of my usual bread-based meals. I know I can buy gluten free bread, but so far I’m not won over by this and plans are afoot to try and make my own (hmmn, can anyone see that working? No, me neither….)

The hardest thing has been finding something to replace my vegetarian meat-substitutes as Quorn is made with wheat. There’s a real possibility that my days as a non-meat-eater may be coming to an end, because I’m just not skilled enough to whip up something using beans or whatever…  After 20 years of no-meat, if I decide to continue down this path I may have to break my vow. So far, I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it, but if I get pregnant, I don’t want the health of my baby to suffer, so it’s looking likely.

The biggest surprise though was rather than feeling better, I started to feel worse, much, much worse. I had migraines for two weeks solid, along with feeling lethargic and fuzzy headed, dizzy and out-of-it. You get the picture. I started worrying I was going through an early menopause, or maybe I had a brain tumour. I felt like an old woman and started feeling properly depressed. At first I didn’t equate it to the gluten, not fully, but I thought about quitting the quitting as it clearly wasn’t doing me any good. But before I did I decided to do a little Googling and lo and behold, I came across masses of anecdotes from people suffering gluten withdrawal. I had no idea it was even possible a food could have such a massive effect but it seems for many people it does.

Anyway, armed with a little knowledge I have stepped up my gluten free campaign even further. I’m feeling a fair bit better now, but I have had a few slip ups so I want to see what happens when I stay well and truly gluten free. It’s still a work in progress.

The sugar free thing is going well though. It’s probably fair to say it has now settled down to a low-sugar diet than no-sugar (mostly due to trying to find gluten free things), but it really is very low sugar compared to previously. I’m no longer tempted by biscuits and cakes so I don’t bother with them, we make our own pasta sauces from scratch and I make sure my breakfast cereals don’t contain sugar. I eat fruit but don’t bother with fruit juices. Compared to going gluten free it’s been really easy and I see no need to go backwards now.