Going gluten free

To see how this journey started, read my previous post on going gluten free here.

Yesterday we went gluten free!

Yes we have finally reached the moment. Mr PTC has been religiously eating lots of gluten every day for 4 weeks, and I have to say, he was not very happy about it. He had to include a larger proportion of wheat in his diet than he is used to in the run-up to being tested for Coeliac disease. Before all this we frequently had days where we didn't eat any wheat or gluten and I think this may be why he was not showing even more extreme symptoms before. To eat the equivalent of two slices of bread a day for the last four weeks was quite hard for him. He got sick. By Sunday evening he was exhausted and had had three weeks of constant stomach cramps. Poor guy!

So yesterday morning (Monday) he had is blood test at 8.45am and he didn't even have wheat for breakfast. It has now been nearly 48 hours since his last wheat containing meal, and so far not a lot has changed. However, this is what happened during our dietary test at the beginning of the year that made us think we needed to cut wheat/gluten out of his diet. I think it takes him a long time to get stuff out of his system (doctors are always astonished that it takes him 4 hours to react to eating dairy, because apparently it should only take 1 hour). So we will wait and see.

However, there has been one surprising development in this four weeks of eating wheat for me. Mr PTC was away last week on business, and while he was away I went super-healthy, eating lots of fruit, veg, fish and meat, but not a lot else. Basically carbs went to zero. I find this easier without Mr PTC around because he loves starch! Mr PTC arrived back home on Friday and to ensure he got his gluten quota over the weekend we treated ourselves to a few things he thinks he will miss (though I'm sure I can figure out a gluten-free recipe given time). So we had pancakes, yorkshire puddings and scones. All fresh, all delicious, and all full of starch, wheat and gluten. This was more wheat than I normally eat by a loooong way, and infinitely more than I had eaten for previous last 7 days.

Yesterday I felt terrible.

Really terrible. I had stomach cramps all day, and not the type I am used to. I don't know if it was the change in diet, wheat or just bad timing. However, because of it I am also strictly following the gluten free diet for the first month, even though before yesterday I was wavering (I'm sorry, but I love bread, biscuits, pastries and all those terrible bad wheaty delicacies). However, I would prefer to know if I am causing myself damage and change my diet.

So we are both gluten-free, for now at least. After a month, I will allow myself a treat. If I get sick, I will go to the GP too and ask to be diagnosed. That will mean a month of eating gluten followed by a blood test, but I would prefer to know, have it on my doctors notes now, rather than collapse in 20 years time.

We now wait. Mr PTC for his blood test results, me for my body to sort itself out before trying gluten again, and us for the house move in two weeks time. Whatever happens we will remain gluten/wheat free. The contrast in Mr PTC's health was so extreme after being wheat and gluten free for three weeks that I can't see us going back to it permanently. I'm also fairly convinced that too much wheat will exacerbate any hereditary pre-disposition to gluten-intolerance that I may have from my mother, so even if I'm 'fine' I will remain gluten-free most of the time and have the odd treat when out and about. I would prefer to be able to keep on eating wheat every now and then than keep eating it all the time and end up developing Coeliac disease in 10 years.

So watch this space for gluten free recipes winging there way through the internet to you! Oh and did I mention we are moving house in two weeks, and I'll own my first ever home in 9 days? I did? Oh. Well, I'm still excited!

Thanks for stopping by,

Rose

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