Going Gluten Free

Well, the girls in the house are going gluten free.

After being so sad for Karis that she was sick again, I mentioned to the doctor that I wonder if she has some sort of allergy that is keeping her sick all the time.  I asked if we could do an allergy blood test.  He told me that while it is completely up to me, the test often comes back saying that people have more allergies than they do, so people start eliminating things that aren't necessary.  Plus, it doesn't show any intolerances.

He told me that really the best way to find out if certain foods are an issue is to eliminate them completely, 100% from the diet.  We have done that with dairy, and her digestion is better (she used to have accidents without even knowing it because of chronic constipation), but she still has a lot of symptoms of gluten intolerance.  In fact, I have done quite a bit of research the past few days and realize that she experiences about 7 of the symptoms out of the 10 most common.  That's a really good argument for a gluten intolerance.

I read this article yesterday, and it is a good breakdown of what I have seen in my research: 10 Signs Your Kid is Gluten Intolerant.

Karis' symptoms are: digestive issues, fatigue and brain fog, dark circles under her eyes, frequent colds (and strep, and sinus infections), runny nose that doesn't clear up (and cough), headaches, "mood issues" (mostly the inability to concentrate, and we have been considering ADD).

I have about 4 of the symptoms myself, and the biggest is my anxiety.  I wonder if it has anything to do with gluten.

The only way to really find out is by eliminating :-).

We're going to eliminate for about a month and do a food/symptoms log.  I imagine that the further away we get from having gluten in our system, our symptoms should get better and better.  If not, then there's something else involved!

I'm adding in probiotics as well for a little while to aid in healing the gut.  We'll continue the cod liver oil and whole foods vitamins, as well as using oils for seasonal allergy symptoms.

Between oils and eliminating gluten, I'm hoping to have a healthier girl in a month or so!

I've honestly been wanting to do this for a long time.  It took me hearing from the doctor to try eliminating to begin researching.  Not sure why... I typically don't wait for the doctor to tell me before doing things.  But I guess this one is so hard that I didn't want to :-).