Non celiac gluten sensitivity | Fear of Food

Hello!

I'm new here... this is actually my first post.

I've just finished the Unlearn Your Pain course and I really liked it, although it did not solve my pain issues. I have chronic pain all over my body, neck, sciatica, feet, numbness/tingling in my arms/legs, migraine headaches, dizziness, tinnitus... etc. I also suffer from panic attacks and anxiety. This course did help me determine that I do suffer from tms/mbs, within the first hour of beginning it I got a severe migraine attack and my neck pain increased a lot. I've bought a ton of books and I am determined to get better.

I'm now wondering about food issues. I've been gluten free for about two years, although I've never been diagnosed with any intolerance. I've been very into the paleo/primal way of eating although it hasn't helped my pain level much and it has created a lot of issues around food, even thinking I must restrict further and further (no nightshades etc). So, as a step to recovery I have tried eating gluten for about a week and I'm miserable right now.

I developed pain in my joints that I haven't felt for a very long time, it feels like inflammation; especially in my arms and hands, but it's all over my body. I've heard people talking about non celiac gluten sensitivity but is it a real medical condition or not? Has anyone else had issues with gluten? Did you overcome them?

I'm confused if this is indeed a sensitivity or tms. I took a blood test and it showed no signs of celiac disease.

Grateful for help.

Thanks,
Simplicity

 

Welcome. TMS is not about NUTRITION. Keep reading the books.

 

Hi Simplicity,

Welcome. All of your symptoms point to TMS. So you are on the right track.

As far as diet I have found a diet low in carbs and processed foods and high in good fats, moderate in protein, and high in non- starchy vegetables is what comes close to the diet of native people. It's done wonders for my health with fewer colds, better memory, much more energy, and more.

Certainly you can avoid gluten but still end up raising your blood sugar. For more detail please see my article on disease- preventing diet

http://www.rapidrecovery.net/secrets.html

Take care,

Fred

 

Eat what you want ( healthy diet of course ) ....its not about food its about anger we cant let go of properly as TT said read Steve O book.

 

I really believe that celiac is a mind disease. Celiac sufferer always have other tms/anxiety symptoms, and you can not find happy and contented people who suffer from celiac. Only unhappy people suffering from food intolerance problems.
How happy you are and how active you are 99.99% of the time determine how healthy you are. What you put in your mouth can only affect you by how you think it would affect you. Read this: http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/the-roseto-effect.4278/ to see how your emotion and your diet and life style affect your health. Also this: http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/what-if-your-gluten-intolerance-is-all-in-your-head.4253/

If by "native people" you mean Native American Indian then I probably will not want to try your diet suggestion. Around 1400's, before the arrival of the Europeans, the average longevity of the native American ranged from about 18.6 years for the Knolls Indian to almost 43 years for the Indians of Southwest's Pecos Pueblo, and they also suffer many type of diseases. At the present time, the Native American have the second lowest longevity rate in the Western Hemisphere, only a little better than that of Haiti.
We should focus instead on how to be happy, content, and fearless. It doesn't make sense the foods you've been eaten your whole life now suddenly caused problem. Moderation, variety, and more exercise would help more than worrying about what diet is good for us. There are thousand of studies telling us chocolate, coffee is good for us, then there are thousand of studies telling us chocolate and coffee is bad for us. In the eighty vitamin C is the hype, now it is vitamin D and magnesium.
Instead of following suggestion from all these diet gurus, we should spend more of our effort living our life to the fullest. Make friends, spend time with love ones, doing charity work, travel, take on a hobby, stay away from negative people, stop reading diet books...

 

Thank you guys! I'm so happy I found this forum, I've been feeling so lonely in this struggle.

I just bought his book, I'm really looking forward to reading it... I've heard such great things about it.

But celiac must be a real disease surely? It can be determined with a blood test. "Non celiac gluten sensitivity" is a different thing though and can't be diagnosed via a blood test so I'm unsure if this is a real thing or not. It's so confusing!

Yes, I totally agree! I've been so caught up in the whole paleo way of thinking about food for so long now, obsessing over different things... mostly gluten which is described as very, very dangerous. The problem is that I've read so many reports of people getting cured of many different diseases by eating paleo and avoiding gluten that it's difficult for me to accept that I can eat it again.

I did eat gluten my whole life, only deciding a few years ago to stop eating it. Today, after about a week of eating it daily, my joints are still aching... but I will try to keep eating it and working on re-wiring my brain. I guess my doubts about what is causing the pain is making it quite difficult to get better.

 

"If by "native people" you mean Native American Indian"

Hi Balto,

By native people I meant people native to their own countries. What doctors who came in contact with these populations discovered was that diabetes, heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and other diseases common in the western countries were rare. These diseases became common once processed foods such as white sugar and white flour were introduced to them. Within a few decades they too experienced the same diseases in large numbers. Please see my article with more explanation and references at the link I provided above.

 

I would think those diseases became prevalent when indigenous populations started living a sedentary lifestyle, and with the advent of "modern" imaging, lab work AND the epidemic of TMS.

 

"when indigenous populations started living a sedentary lifestyle..."

Hi Tom,

When Dr. Weston Price visited many villages in many countries around the world in the 1930's, he discovered that the change in diet was what explained why one village with access to Western processed foods had bad teeth and bad health and one eating their native diet had great teeth and enjoyed good health, whether it was in the Swiss alps or Africa or Alaska. The level of activity was no different between these two groups. Although infectious diseases might have cut short their life, zs long as people ate their native diet, they had only few cases of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and so on,

It was a great discovery fro me as well to learn this.No more hit and miss with the latest "scientific" research of what to eat to stay healthy. Just eat what people around the world have been eating and staying healthy.

Do a search in Google "Weston Price" and see the pictures he took comparing the condition of the teeth of the two groups of people.

 

Hi Simplicity, and welcome! There are only a few topics guaranteed to get people really excited, and since politics and religion are typically not discussed on this forum, food is going to be the one, so it's bound to be an interesting conversation. I always welcome a chance to add my 2 cents.

I am a HUGE believer in the power of the placebo effect. I really really believe that special diets, ESPECIALLY gluten-free diets, are all about the placebo effect. This is not necessarily a bad thing as long as you know what you're actually doing. I personally make use of the placebo effect as a tool, to help my brain keep my body healthy in certain ways.

I'm not sure that it's been very effective for you, however - and clearly the opposite - the "nocebo" effect - is having its way with you. You expected symptoms to increase by eating gluten, and bam - there they are.

The other thing I believe in is moderation in everything - which means you should be able to eat anything you want to.

I do try to stick with the advice of the rather brilliant Michael Pollan: Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

But, you know, there's a little room for bacon in that advice. To say nothing of fermented plants. And chocolate, of course. All of which were foods I thought I had to eliminate four years ago, before I found Dr. Sarno.

 

Those studies that Fred mentions: the chief culprits of Western contamination are foods that do not qualify as REAL. Contaminated by fake and processed fats and sugars, and designed to be consumed in an addictive fashion.

The fake food industry has a lot to answer for.

 

Hi Simplicity, yes you are right, celiac is a real disease, back pain is real pain, Gout, lyme disease, heart disease, cancer.... they are all real "disease", the conventional medical community said so. They have blood test for celiac and lyme disease, they can see the slipped disc in back pain sufferers' back, they can see the cancer tumor, they can see defects in our heart valve.... But many in the mind body medicine community think those disease although caused real pain, real symptoms, they are originate from our negative mind. Negative emotion, chronic stress, terrible emotional trauma... causes changes in our body. Then fear trigger chronic fight and flight respond which can cause many of those symptoms. Add to it, those nocebo effect and our exposure to wrong and negative news, we can suffer from just about any disease.
Conventional medicine keep thinking that it is what we eat that will effect our body. In Longevity research, expert identify the so called "blue zones" around the world that people tend to live much longer and healthier and claimed that it is because of their diet. ( Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Ogliastra Region, Sardinia; Loma Linda, Calif.; and Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.) Those in blue zone tend to live long into their 80, 90, and 100 with few disease. Expert claim it must be their Mediterranean diet or because all those plant based food and sea weeds they ate. I don't see any study that said it must be their carefree life style or the life long emotional support they received from each other in their close knit family, or their closeness to god in the Loma Linda case... Not all of our ills are from physical causes or defect in our body or our genes.
Talking about gene, they found gene that causes obesity, lazy, anger, gambling, alcoholic, cheating.... We can blame just about everything that is wrong with us to our genetic make up. I can't be blame for being an alcoholic and cheating on my wife because of my messed up gene? Wouldn't it make more sense that our emotion, our trauma, our chronic stress are responsible for all these changes to our genes instead? I personally believe that.
If you hang around these kind of forum long enough you will see tons of people cure themselves from all these horrible disease that science currently have no cure. Lyme, gout, back pain, FM, CFS,..... all with just their mind power.

 

I love this, Balto - you are right on.

My third favorite author (after Dr. Sarno and Dr. Claire Weekes) is Dr. Gabor Mate, MD. Dr. Mate says that cancer, for example, requires a "perfect storm" which starts with a genetic predisposition and includes environmental exposure. But he says that the third side of the triangle is the stress component. Which he describes as the stress of repressed negative emotions. Which is what we here conveniently call TMS after Dr. Sarno - but in reality it goes WAY beyond pain syndromes.

If you are interested in a technical explanation for the physiological changes brought on by stress, Dr. Mate's book "When The Body Says No" is the book for you. It's technical, but also compassionate and beautifully written. It blew my mind wide open. I found it inspiring, because that's when I really knew that I was in charge of my immune system and my health.

 

Hi Fred,
Can you please kindly post your article here if you can. Telling us to go to your site to look it up may give some people the wrong perception, they may think you are here trying to steer people to your site.
Dr. Weston Price did many work and researches around the world, but the foundation that bear his name no longer follow many of his teaching. Here I quote from a research article online: "In 1934, Price wrote a moving letter to his nieces and nephews, instructing them in the diet he hoped they would eat. "The basic foods should be the entire grains such as whole wheat, rye or oats, whole wheat and rye breads, wheat and oat cereals, oat-cake, dairy products, including milk and cheese, which should be used liberally, and marine foods." Yet the Weston A. Price Foundation aggressively promotes the consumption of beef, pork and other high-fat meats, while condemning people who base their diets on whole grains."
I don't believe any food can help or hurt us if we consume it in moderation and vary our food choices. What the Weston Price foundation suggested people eat are just wreckless. Red meat, high fat meat, eggs... The government's nutritional guide line are suppose to be no good according to them.
For another example, "Price discovered many native cultures that were extremely healthy while eating lacto-vegetarian or pisco-vegan diets. Describing one lacto-vegetarian people, for example, he called them, "The most physically perfect people in northern India... the people are very tall and are free of tooth decay." Yet the foundation that operates under his name is strikingly hostile to vegetarians. Sally Fallon, the foundation's president, denounces vegetarianism as "a kind of spiritual pride that seeks ...to shirk the earthly duties for which the physical body is created." She further insults vegetarians by saying they frequently suffer from zinc deficiency, but think it is spiritual enlightenment."

So, be careful what we read on line. a "misprint" can kill you.

 

"Hi Fred,
Can you please kindly post your article here if you can."

Hi Balto,

Yes, I can. It's rather long but here you go:

Disease-Preventing Diet
When missionary and colonial doctors worked with the native populations of Africa, Australia, the North Pole, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands, they discovered that cancer, dental cavities, asthma, appendicitis, hypertension, diabetes, ulcers, and heart disease were rare or nonexistent in these populations. These doctors also noticed that those among the natives who followed their Western diet developed these diseases.

Of course, this does not mean that the natives of these lands were free of disease. They experienced malaria, cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, and so on.

According to award-winning science journalist Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, which is endorsed by Andrew Weil, MD, the search began by these doctors and others to determine what in the Western diet causes these diseases. Researchers came up with a number of hypotheses.

Hypothesis #1: Saturated fat in the Western diet must be the cause. The solution: a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. This ignored the fact that the Masai tribe in Kenya, the Inuit, Pacific Islanders, and other indigenous peoples lived on a diet very high in saturated fat and low in carbohydrates.

Despite a lack of clear evidence, the US Senate published “Dietary Goals for the United States,” making the low-fat diet the official recommendation for preventing hypertension, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and so on. One experttestifying in front of the Senate committee said that there was no scientific evidence for a low-fat diet and that to endorse it would be to gamble with the health of the American people.

Mr. Taubes argues that the recommendation of a low-fat diet has led to the doubling of obesity in the United States in the past 30 years, from 15 percent to 30 percent, and an epidemic of type 2 diabetes. Also, many studies have shown that a low-fat diet, which replaces saturated fat, such as butter, with polyunsaturated fats, such as corn and soy oil, increases the risk for cancer.

Hypothesis #2: Lack of fiber in the diet can lead to constipation, and this can lead to disease. Constipation was observed to be rare among indigenous populations, so one influential doctor concluded that lack of fiber in Western diet leads to constipation and disease. This is another hypothesis that has been shown through controlled studies to be invalid. Although a high-fiber diet is good for preventing constipation, it has not been shown to prevent colon cancer or any other disease so far.

Hypothesis #3: Too much salt in the Western diet caused the indigenous peoples who adopted this diet to develop hypertension, heart disease, and so on. So the official recommendation for the past few decades has been to reduce or avoid salt. So far, studies have shown that restricting salt can reduce blood pressure by 4 or 5 points at best. So if your blood pressure is 160/95, restricting salt may lower it to 155/90—not that big of a difference.

Hypothesis #4: The Western diet is high in refined carbohydrates—white sugar, white flour, and starches—which have become available in abundance only in the past 150 years. When the indigenous peoples adopted this diet, they started to experience cavities, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, heart disease, and so on. This hypothesis has been around almost as long as the other ones, but because no one of great influence has espoused it, the hypothesis has not received the kind of attention it deserves. Also, food manufacturers, whose products are made of mostly refined sugar and white flour, do not favor this hypothesis.

It is well known that those with diabetes have a greater risk of developing many of the Western diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer’s. Scientists think it could be due to high blood sugar, high insulin levels, or both.

1. Cancer cells have more insulin receptors than normal cells.
   
2. Animal studies have also shown the negative effects of refined carbohydrates and high insulin levels. The constant elevation of blood sugar due to white sugar, white flour, white rice, starches, and so on, leads to a high level of insulin in the blood. Prior to the existence of refined carbohydrates, the human body did not have to process a great amount of sugar daily.
   
3. Under stress, our bodies release glucose into the bloodstream to help us fight or flee. This is the case even if the problem is a verbal dispute or a traffic jam. This in turn raises the insulin level in the blood. When we eat foods containing sugars, this exacerbates the situation, leading to excessive sugar and insulin in the blood.
   
4. It has been known for the past 100 years that carbohydrates make us retain fluids and can raise blood pressure. Those who go on a carbohydrate-restricted diet tend to lose five to ten pounds in fluids in the first few weeks. One of my relatives with hypertension stopped drinking or eating anything with sugar, white flour, and starches in general, and ate fruits and beans for carbohydrates (by the way, our bodies can make their own carbohydrate). She lost seven pounds in seven weeks, and her blood pressure has gone from 160/90 to 125/65—back to normal. She no longer takes blood pressure medication. With this new eating regimen, she is also no longer thirsty all the time.
   
5. Mr. Taubes also examines the prevalence of obesity. Native American tribes developed obesity and diabetes once their diet was changed to the government rations on reservations. Their diets became high in refined sugar, flour, and rice, and they drank a great deal of coffee. Despite an active lifestyle, the majority of adults and even many children became obese and developed diabetes.
   
6. There are indications that excess blood sugar and insulin can lead to accelerated aging of the skin and other parts of the body.
   In summary:
   
   It appears that saturated fats in red meat, dairy products, and eggs are not bad for you after all. Salt in moderation is okay. And eating fiber is a good way of avoiding constipation.
   
   If we can avoid white sugar, white flour, and starchy foods and keep our blood sugar and insulin levels stable, we can expect to reduce our risk for cancer, cavities, Alzheimer’s, appendicitis, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and so on, and stay healthier and feel better too. Certainly our genes, our habits, environmental toxins, how we deal with stress, and other factors can increase or decrease our risk as well.
   
   What to do:
   So there you are with a diet full of white sugar, white flour, white rice, pasta, bagels, potatoes, ice cream, cakes, sodas, and fruit juices, and these foods may be causing disease. Now that is a serious dilemma!
   
   Here’s a simple way to incorporate this new knowledge into your life. Begin by modifying dinner: Choose red meat, chicken, or wild salmon, nonstarchy vegetables sautéed in butter, and a side of beans or hummus as your source of carbohydrates. If you get hungry before sleep, have some nuts. This way, for twelve hours or so, your body does not have to deal with elevated blood sugar and insulin levels.
   
   For breakfast and lunch, follow your usual diet for the first week or two, as your body adjusts to no starches or refined carbs. Then begin to change your other meals and snacks accordingly.
   
   Your body will switch from a sugar-burning machine to a fat-burning machine. Use more butter, olive oil, and coconut oil in your diet, and eat whole eggs and red meat. This will help you feel full longer and reduce the cravings that come with sudden sugar highs and the lows that come from eating refined carbs and starches. It will also help your nervous system get the essential oils it needs to function well. I have been on this diet for the past four years and feel great.
   
   A word to parents: I know it’s hard to say no to children when they beg for sweets. But you may be putting their physical and mental health at risk by giving them sugary breakfast cereals, snacks, and desserts every day. I have seen parents give children as young as two sodas for breakfast. Each can of soda contains 12–20 teaspoons of sugar. It is not easy to say no, but it is definitely better for their teeth and bodies to offer them healthier alternatives.
   
   The preceding is an overview of Good Calories, Bad Calories. This book gives you 150 years of research on diet and health. Dr. Weil recommends that all doctors and medical students read it. Here’s an interview with the author, Dr. Weil, and Dr. Oz on Larry King Live:
   
   
   
   This is a link to Gary Taubes’ article “What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” in the New York Times:
   
   http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=2
   
   Here are short videos made by comedian and former health writer Tom Naughton, based on Good Calories, Bad Calories:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Stay informed. Stay well.

 

One more thing: According to Donna Gates, author of The Body Ecology Diet, gluten is not the problem. The real problem is yeast overgrowth in the gut. A low-carb diet starves the yeast and pro-biotics in fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut, will restore the gut to good health.

 

"a little room for bacon in that advice" .... love it!

You make a lot of sense, for sure. I've been so scared to eat gluten and I did expect to get ill in some way. Come to think of it I have experienced joint pain similar to this regarding other food as well, but not to this degree... but again, gluten is what I am most scared of.

It's just recently that I've come to realize that I do have serious issues with food. I had my first panic attack 11 years ago and since then (among other things) I've been obsessing about food, being vegan/vegetarian then paleo (reading countless books on health and diet). In recent years eating mostly vegetables, roots, meat and eggs. But thinking that something (even) in that restrictive diet is making my health issues worse (nuts, nightshades etc).

I've been able to eat dairy-products lately, although thinking that they create problems with my sinuses. I've been scared of eating legumes as well, and even "pseudo-grains" like quinoa and buckwheat (they are forbidden in the paleo diet and considered toxic). But I'm trying to include those too. Now, in the last week I've also included whole grains like spelt and oats and a bit of homemade sourdough bread.

It sounds odd to me now, writing about these healthy foods and being scared of eating them, but I am, I can't deny it. I used to be scared of eating fish because of the toxins... and meat.... and so on... I'm a mess, basically.

I will look up this book, sounds interesting!

 

So today I woke up feeling like I threw my back out. I have trouble moving around. It's been a few years since I felt something this acute (I've been to the ER with something similar). It feels like new issues keep coming up all the time. I decide to conquer my fear of food and not only does my joints start to ache like crazy, my back is now worse than ever. It actually made me smile, because I felt like "ok, brain... I know what you are up to!"

 

"It actually made me smile, because I felt like "ok, brain... I know what you are up to!"

Good for you Simplicity. That is the smile of victory.

"Healing Back Pain had arrived, I rushed to buy my copy. As I was about to step onto the curb from the street with my right leg, I concentrated on making my right knee, which usually felt pain going up even one step, pain-free. This time my right knee did not hurt, but my left knee did! I smiled the smile of victory. This is a characteristic of TMS: The pain moves around once you know the cause."

 

An update:

I e-mailed Dr Schubiner and asked for his help. He said it sounds like a trigger and that I can either work through it now or take a break and take it on in a while. I haven't decided what to do just yet. I'm thinking I might take a step back and work with the other food issues first; the non-gluten grains and legumes, etc. Maybe I took on too much at once.

It's great that you can e-mail him and ask for advice like this.