The gf diet reduced my symptoms tremendously, especially the "generalized" discomfort ones,and I just had to fine tune by discovering and removing other "allergens" for the diarrhea to completely resolve.
For me, if I accidently ingest something with gluten "hidden" in it, I react with D in 24 hrs or with the first food I eat after 24 hrs is up. This has made it extremely easy to locate where gluten was hidden now that I have a routine, and know when something new has been added to my otherwise safe diet.
The last time, it was the "natural raspberry flavoring" in a raspberry salsa, of all things that I hadn't noticed in the ingredients list on the jar.
I doubt that I've accidentally ingested other foods that I have a delayed reaction to as, except for dietary yeast which is naturally occurring on many fruits and vegetables, it's much harder to accidentally eat anything with dairy casein (milk protein) or eggs in it.
After doing pretty well in the early months, I noted a pretty dramatic reaction to some frozen waffles that have soy flour in them after being a bit suspicous of soy all along, so now, I leave out all soy products as well, and have been asymptomatic GI and otherwise for many, many months.
Interestingly, my sister discovered that she has delayed reactions to the exact same "allergens" as I do, but she may not react to soy, although it's possible that she could have a very low grade reaction at this point with no symptoms.
(We have similar genes.)
My mother has a very slight gluten sensitivity, and doesn't have diarrhea with it that we know of, but she has had symptoms of Parkinson's Diease for decades, so it does make one wonder. I wonder if a gf diet would've helped my uncle who died before we discovered our delayed food reactions. He too had Parkinson's.
At any rate, there are some advantages to having family with similar food issues. For one thing, my sis knows the diet in depth now, so it's safe for me to eat anything at her house, and vice versa. For another thing, she comes up with other meal ideas, so that gives me a little more variety, and my bil has become very good at making "allergen-free" goodies, like Namaste cookies using a substitute for the eggs.
I have found that some restaurants are just more into protecting patrons from "allergens," so it's best to find those who are willing to work with you (talk to the kitchen supervisor/chef), and only eat there if you MUST eat out.
I always make sure that wherever I get my food, that all meats haven't been injected, marinated, or seasoned with anything but salt and pepper, and of course, fresh spices, but bottled spices can be a source of gluten due to some of the additives.
Basically, anything that even so much as touches my food must be completely cleaned of any possible contamination from wheat flour, bread crumbs, or foods breaded with wheat flour for examples.
If a grill is used, it has to be scraped thoroughly before the food is laid on the grill in that spot.
You'll soon get the feel for whether or not a chef is used to dealing with "allergic" persons.
I've even been able to train one of the local chefs myself due to the family's long term relationship with this family business. Even so, I always have to get seafood there due to the danger of injected gluten-containing things in the meats that come off the big delivery trucks. French fries off those trucks most always are frozen, and most frozen fries are coated with a little wheat flour.
I've found a few places that serve uninjected meats of all kinds, and it's not unusual that these are the same restaurants where the kitchen staff is so much better acquainted with our dietary needs.
These places will be a little pricier, but then with this disease, eating out is more of a special occasion thing. Also, it's recommended that we tip generously to reward them for their extra efforts. This helps all of us.
By the way, in addition to the wonderful people on this site, I found the local celiac support group a wonderful help, especially when I was just working on eliminating all traces of gluten.
The celiac websites can be very helpful as well, and when/if one suspects or tests positive with the stool test for dairy casein, there is a gfdfdiet.com which can help, and they have a product book that can be ordered separately from their membership, making it a little cheaper since I'm pretty sure the membership materials would be more geared for parents of autistic spectrum children who often benefit from a gfdf diet.
With each "allergen" eliminated, my list of especially PROCESSED type foods greatly diminished, but the store bought cookies that had remained when all else was gone were virtually eliminated when the egg problem was discovered.
Namaste mixes are easy to do, and you can add your own favorite things, like cinnamin and coconut to the cookies, etc. They require eggs, but most of the multi-food-reactive folks among this group don't seem to have a problem with eggs.
I'm fortunate in that I can still eat corn products, but that "allergen" seems to be more prominent among this group than the egg issue.
This is the end of this installment. Will let you know when I think of anything else.
Yours, Luce
Luce's experience
Moderators: Rosie, Jean, CAMary, moremuscle, JFR, Dee, xet, Peggy, Matthew, Gabes-Apg, grannyh, Gloria, Mars, starfire, Polly, Joefnh