Thursday, February 21, 2013

Wheat Intolerance, with helpful links

About two years ago I started feeling old. I mean, older than I am. Every morning I would wake up with painfully achey joints. In addition, I was a lovely sight: swollen face and fingers. These symptoms would subside throughout the morning, but it certainly didn't make this non-morning person any more inclined to open her eyes each day.

To cut a long story short, I unintentionally cut wheat out of my diet for a couple days. When I realized I was feeling better and reviewed what I'd eaten, I started to put the pieces together.

Some further self-testing* confirmed my suspicions. Additionally, I discovered that the rebound-hypoglycemia I experienced, especially after eating high-protein whole wheat bread, was part and parcel of wheat intolerance. 

No aches, no swelling, and stable blood sugar resulting in a stable me? Yes please!

BUT WAIT I LOVE BREAD! Yes, it was hard. I would drive past Little Caesars, home of those delicious morsels of Garlic Cheese Bread, crying inwardly about how I would never again taste them. Soft pretzels, pizza, pasta (oh how I LOVE pasta), donuts, subs, tortillas (a good tortilla can be the best part of the burrito!)

I'm sure you're getting a mental image of me as a 300 lb carb-a-holic. Fortunately, I have a healthy BMI and reasonable self-control (sometimes). But I do love bread and this was no small sacrifice. 



Nearly two years down the road of wheat-avoidance (yes, I indulge every one in awhile) I have made some discoveries that I'd love to share with others trudging along this path. And, if you have any hints or recommendations, please feel free to share them!

Gluten-Free Bisquick Mix - makes great pancakes, but I don't recommend the pizza crust recipe.

Heartland Gluten-Free Pasta - amazon sells this as well, but it's much pricier. 

Bob's Red Mill - sells all sorts of flours/starches that when combined appropriately make great quick breads and pie crusts! (that will be another post)

Crunchmaster Multi-Seed Crackers - best price at Sam's Club, but also sold at grocery stores and amazon

Bittersweet Bakery - located in Eagan, MN. All items are wheat/gluten-free! The mint brownie I had was a.m.a.z.i.n.g!

If you're looking for more information about wheat intolerance Wheat Belly is an easy, if fad-ish, read. 

Oddly enough, this book pointed me in the direction of alternative wheats. I'm sure this wasn't the author's intention (especially since he highlights how we are all dying from any and all wheat ingestion). However, I have recently tried baking bread with two of the alternate-wheat-flours he mentions: Spelt and Einkorn. Surprise, surprise, so far so good! No aches, swelling, rebound-hypoglycemia...yet. I'm cautiously optimistic, but not ruling out the possibility of greater exposure causing symptoms.

*I need to be careful how I approach any self-testing - and so do you! I'm currently pregnant with our fourth blessing and this is the first pregnancy in which my hormone levels have been normal and I'm not experiencing pre-term labor symptoms. Could this be related to my wheat-free diet? I strongly suspect so. My wheat symptoms all fall into the auto-immune category, so it makes sense to me that my hormone levels would also be disrupted by the wheat-triggered auto-immune response, and corrected by the absence of the irritant.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Betsy, are you familiar with Enterolab, an online testing lab that diagnoses gluten intolerance as well as Celiac disease and a variety of other intolerances? I am "self diagnosed" as well, but used the test for my daughter as she was having the same symptoms and I couldn't take her gf without some hard facts. We had already done a blood test which came back negative so this was the next option.

    Oh, as a side, I also had pre-term labor problems with my kids, hormone (progesterone) imbalances with pregnancy, and blood sugar problems as well. All of this was gone for my #4 baby as I was newly gf. Thank goodness for the gf diet!

    I had "followed" you here from LMLD because I saw another Betsy who was gf and was currious. Just love the idea of your blog. I have 5 sisters so the theme is dear to my heart. Can't wait to read more.

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