Re: Coping with Food Sensitivities

December 27, 2009

Hi Ruty: When you say that eating 'sweets' and wheat based foods cause a rash,

do you mean 'sweets' which contain wheat or gluten (also from barley and rye)?

Or do you mean 'sweets' that don't contain wheat, like candy or wheat free ice

cream? If you really suspect that gluten containing foods cause your rash, why

don't you talk to your doctor and get a food allergy test? You could have gluten

intolerance related eczema or even have DH (dermatitis herpetiformis), the skin

form of CD. If your doc or an allergy test could tell you for sure whether

gluten caused your reactions, you wouldn't have to wonder whether or not you

could eat gluten.

If you have a firm diagnosis, you could begin to find gluten free substitutions

for all your favorite treats. I'm familiar with gluten free foods and can assure

you there are gluten free versions of just about anything you like. Even with 7

food restrictions, I don't feel 'deprived', because I can either buy or prepare

any of the sweet treats I formerly enjoyed. Rather than focus on 'deprivation',

I focused on 'substitution' once I had accurate diagnoses.

However, I could have never abstained from those 7 different ingredients without

feeling deprived, had I not had a diagnoses which correlated my reactions to

actual food allergies. Before I was diagnosed with CD, I was misdiagnosed with

'IBS' and given an 'IBS' diet sheet. Then I swung between avoiding foods on the

'don't eat' IBS list and bingeing on those foods, because I never felt better

when I avoided the foods and didn't feel much worse when I ate them. However,

when I ate what my doctor recommended, wheat bran (because I had IBS with

constipation) and dairy products (for calcium) I felt much worse. So much for

the IBS diet sheet!

After I was diagnosed by blood test with each of my food allergies and abstained

from each of the those I felt better and better the longer I abstained. Those

diagnoses and direct correlation between substituting allergen free foods and my

well being convinced me to continue to abstain. When I accidentally ate any of

the allergens, my painful reaction symptoms convinced me to continue to abstain.

However, if I had never been officially diagnosed, I might still swing between

abstinence and bingeing on foods I thought MIGHT be 'bad' for my body.

SUE

>

> Hi.

> Yes, I actually get a rush (from a very small age) when I overeat sweets

(meaning - eating about 2 portions or more of any sweets), and lately when I

overeat bread (even whole-wheat). And yet this rush is not painful, so I don't

get any scary symptoms which will cause me this. But when it's itching badly I

tend to scrach it to the point of blood, and that might leave scars. But still

it doesn't scare me that much as to cut back on this... and during the time

before my periods I crave for sweets so much that the itching is REALLY bad,

because I eat a lot of gluten-containing sweets... So I don't quite know how to

balance my cravings (and alowing myself eating what I want) with my body's real

need for health. And for me restriction=binging which leads to feeling ashamed

and fat...

>

> Ruty

>

December 28, 2009

Hi, Sue.

I don't know if I can call it " unfortunatelly " , but I HAVE been tasted for CD,

and I'm negative... And when meaning gluten - I mean when I eat too much sweets

(of any kind) andqor too much WHEAT containing products (not barley and stuff,

unless they contain a lot of sugar). Meaning - sugar andqor a HIGH amount of

wheat cause me this rush.

Right now I'm focusing on giving myself the freedom to eat maybe more sweets

than it's good for my body but I feel that in a few days the crave will subside,

because it's been only a few days since I legalized things completely, and then

I believe I won't have to binge on sweets to get satisfaction.

hugs,

Ruty

> >

> > Hi.

> > Yes, I actually get a rush (from a very small age) when I overeat sweets