Wheat Allergy? Irritable Bowel Syndrome?

[pusskin]

Went to my doctor with a swollen tummy, achy and uncomfortable.
Before I go to see her again she wants me to avoid wheat + Gluten etc.
Where do i start? Any good advice please?

[Mamyalynne]

Have a look on here,it will give you an idea what to avoid/look for.


http://www.allergyuk.org/common-food-intolerances/wheat-and-gluten-intolerance?cookieaccept=true

[Richard1966]

After years of tests and tablets my wife was told by a dietician to try the FODMAP diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP for 6-8 weeks as an elimination diet, then reintroduce one food stuff at at time for a few days to see if there was any reaction. She found she is ok with one slice of bread, but two or more cause problems, the main trigger is online and garlic, but she also reacts to broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. Doesn't leave much but has made her life so much easier. Gluten free bread takes a bit of getting used to, but there are several different makes and some are better then others. All major supermarkets stock them in the free from sections. Good luck.

[pusskin]

Many thanks Mamy, thats a good link to start with.
Giving up my daily bowl of porridge would devastate me!
Must look for wheat or gluten free. (that includes bread)

[pusskin]

Many thanks Richard, will read your and Mamys links now x

[Maydup]

I strongly recommend giving up bread altogether. Rather than look for gluten free bread and pay a mighty price for it, I just stopped eating it - along with cakes, biscuits and pastry. I haven't llooked back. I eat rice cakes for lunch or salads, soups, jacket potato etc. For breakfast I have oat based cereal and / or fruit, or yoghurt.

I don't find I need to avoid every last hint of gluten, but having eliminated the bulk of it I can recommend the results.

[pusskin]

Maydup, now that is very interesting.
have never eaten rice cakes, dont know what they are, so will look up info.
I always eat porridge in the morning 24/7.Mine says its a natural rolled oats source of beta glucan! May have to change that if its not the one for me. I only ever eat wholemeal bread, even though I'm not too keen on it to be honest. I realise I have to change diet to try things out. Most things i eat apart from fresh meat is meat chicken fish etc in batter! Thats why i said where do I start. haha Thank you for your reply x

[pusskin]

Can easily give up most biscuits and cakes as i havent really got a sweet tooth. Well, I'll soon find out when I may find myself craving a few after a while.

[Eve]

I've tried FODMAP too, quite restrictive and didn't work for me but has good reviews! Serious label reading is key though as the things to avoid are in all sorts!

I'm sure you can get gluten free oats, special ones, I'm sure I've seen the in Tesco's with the gluten free stuff. This company do a lot but they aren't cheap, they have the bread in Tesco (as well as Genius).

http://www.newburnbakehouse.com/supermarket-products

The Blue Cheese Flavour Cracker Thins look nice!

Genius here: http://www.geniusglutenfree.com/en_GB/?site=geniusfoods&clear=true

The gluten free bread really isn't great and stupidly expensive. I saw something on Facebook the other day of someone making a "brown bread" out of mainly oats and yoghurt, might be worth looking into. Looked much quicker than making normal bread.

If you check some coeliac sites, they are likely to have ideas and recipes for gluten free and it seems to have become much more common these days so there are special cookbooks about. Pharmacists might have an idea of the best products to buy as people with Coeliac and can get some items on prescription.

Oat cakes and rice cakes can be quite dry and a bit bland so good to have something to go with them.

[Maydup]

Rice cakes are near the crisps in the supermarket. They are usually round and come in a tube like packet. I have them with cheese and marmite, cottage cheese and tomatoes, peanut butter, humous and radishes or any other usual sandwich filling.

Interestingly, I only ever ate wholemeal bread too. It put me in hospital in the end!

How about ham and eggs with some chips instead of the battered fish?

[hc4361]

Are rice cakes as awful as they were 25 years ago?

[Eve]

I can't eat them, or oatcakes, too dry for me but know people who love them!

If you google FODMAP recipes then quite a few come up and you can always google more specifically such as FODMAP stir-fry etc...

[Fanriffic]

If you are diagnosed as having Coeliac Disease this website will become your best resource for information.

https://www.coeliac.org.uk/home/

[pusskin]

Apologies not getting back sooner, been feeling a bit sorry for myself, and tried to not think of food!!!! haha.
Many thanks for all your very helpfull replies. Will head to tescos and have a look around hopefully today. At the moment it seems so hard to not eat the sort of things that i know I like, even though my appetite is quite poor at mo ....maybe thats a good thing.

[pusskin]

Crabsticks, seasticks.
I know it isnt really proper crab, but i love eating them.
I have 20 in the freezer, and do i throw them away as i am trying to avoid wheat, and it says it contains wheat and wheat starch? Cheers Abers x

[Eve]

If they are in the freezer bagged so as not to "contaminate" other things and you have the space then I'd leave them for now and see how it goes. No point throwing away food if you don't know how long you might be avoiding gluten for.

[Eve]

One thing I've found with avoidance diets, especially restrictive ones, is it can be pretty expensive and there can be a lot of food waste.

[Jenarry]

My son has been diagnosed coeliac 5 years now, since he was 4 years old.
His main diet is salad,cheese, vegetables ,fruit and gluten free bread which we have on prescription(although I have heard rumours that this may stop soon) and gluten free pasta,crackers and biscuits which I buy.
The pasta doesn't look great when it's cooking but is just like ordinary pasta when it's done.
Tesco's ,asda and sainsbury's all have a good gluten free range...the larger the store usually larger the range. I would recommend going along and having a look at their shelves.or have a look online. Ocada is one of the easier ones to use where you can select gf only products to be listed . it will give you an idea of things you need to look out for and which products are ok for you.
The last time my son was affected by gluten was when I bought some different yoghurts. :( when i checked the label it said 'may contain gluten' so we stick to usual brands now.

[Eve]

I agree about the pasta, it's ok, only thing I found is that it doesn't reheat so well, say if making batches to reheat. It doesn't re-heat anywhere near as well as normal pasta in my experience so better "fresh", well, as fresh as dried pasta is!