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Cutting out gluten really changed my life. I went through a phase where I was only eating every other day because I felt so shitty when I did eat. When you end

Cutting out gluten really changed my life. I went through a phase where I was only eating every other day because I felt so shitty when I did eat. When you end up with a disease like this it really exposes our blind spots in medicine. I even somewhat resent that doctors didn't identify this in me when I was young. It was 23 years of sinus headaches until a girlfriend did the research and told me to do an elimination diet. While I had some digestion issues (high fructose foods, probably fructose malabsorption from my small intestine being wrecked) my main problem was sinus headaches. There seems to be an association between chronic sinusitis and celiac, but no studies backing that up. [1] At the end of the day I've cut out gluten, sugar, caffeine, msg, and sodium nitrites as triggers to my sinus headaches. I went back and forth on a lot of these so I am quite sure of the relationship. I really did love bread, sugar, and caffeine and went back to them more than a few times. The best I can describe the symptoms related to the sinus stuff is a withdrawal. For example, I feel OK when eating sugar regularly, maybe a medium bad headache here or there, but when I stop fully I get a horrible one, sometimes accompanied by throwing up, cold sweats, shaking, etc. There is some research into opioid like effects of gluten. [2] I originally came across the concept on some fringe science about the bodies of people with autism treating gluten as an opioid (and advocating a gf diet for them). It resonated with me because the symptoms I experience are very much like a withdrawal. It's hard to talk about though because there isn't research backing it up. If any medical students are reading this and want to study it, it's a pretty undiscovered field. 1. http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease-sinusitis http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease-sinusiti... 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5025969/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5025969/

mattnewton 9y ago
The sinus headaches are related?! I have celiac disease, and I also regularly used to get sinus headaches in college and high school, but I thought that was moving away from east coast allergies that helped. I only occasionally get them now, I should track to see if they clusters with the other, more dramatically obvious gi symptoms when I accidentally have gluten. Maybe it’s access to more gluten free food since leaving college! Is this a known thing? Do you have any papers around the sinus headaches?
- TACIXAT 9y ago
  >Do you have any papers around the sinus headaches? It is understudied, the first link discusses it a bit. A lot of celiacs report it but last I looked for papers I couldn't find any that weren't GI related.
- jrockway 9y ago
  I mean, there are a lot of things that can cause sinus headaches. In a thread about Celiac Disease you're going to read anecdotes about Celiac Disease causing sinus headaches, but that doesn't mean it's what causes yours.
thrwaway109 9y ago
I had the exact same issue and solution. I don't think I am celiac and I ate gluten for over 20+ years. I used to get 3+ major sinus infections a year and doctors wanted to perform nasal surgery on me. After having cut out dairy a few years earlier due to realizing I was lactose intolerant, I then experimented with cutting out wheat. All my sinus issues went away, my headaches went away, my depression went away, my brain fog went away. I suggested this to a few family members, and it had the same affect when they cut the things out. It is crazy that I did not have any doctors ever suggest this to me, and it was just a result of the food I was eating. I wish there was more research and education that went into this, as I imagine it might be affecting quite a few people.
- has2k1 9y ago
  Medicine 200 years from now will be different. Doctors are largely ignorant of nutrition. When you go to the doctor, how often do they ask about the what you eat? Unless you really look unhealthy or you mention some correlation between the symptoms and a specific food, your diet is a lowly weighted factor in your unwell being. I think that will change, and many of the catalysts will be from patients who teased out the effects of nutrition on what ails them. There is also a significant leakage of nutritional advise from sports science, and all this information is finding adherents/testers in the regular world and will eventually (after the pseudoscience is sorted out) have a corrective influence on medicine. I think at some point Medical nutrition therapy (MNT) will be a lot more common and maybe even have specific practitioners, (like physical therapists) instead of being a doctor-nutritionist partnership. The practice will evolve and it will get standardised and taught to "specialists".
- paulsmal 9y ago
  This is exactly my story as well. My life changed dramatically after I stopped eating wheat. I figured it out myself, despite the fact that doctor said I should keep eating wheat and according to my symptoms I should moderately eat animals fat. Like bacon and butter. Suggested diet made it worse! I never thought that Internet is better place to find a cure than clinic, but one day I just simply googled it and do not want to go back! I've tried couple times to eat bread and pasta and after few days I can feel the difference.

mattnewton 9y ago

The sinus headaches are related?! I have celiac disease, and I also regularly used to get sinus headaches in college and high school, but I thought that was moving away from east coast allergies that helped. I only occasionally get them now, I should track to see if they clusters with the other, more dramatically obvious gi symptoms when I accidentally have gluten. Maybe it’s access to more gluten free food since leaving college! Is this a known thing? Do you have any papers around the sinus headaches?

TACIXAT 9y ago
>Do you have any papers around the sinus headaches? It is understudied, the first link discusses it a bit. A lot of celiacs report it but last I looked for papers I couldn't find any that weren't GI related.
jrockway 9y ago
I mean, there are a lot of things that can cause sinus headaches. In a thread about Celiac Disease you're going to read anecdotes about Celiac Disease causing sinus headaches, but that doesn't mean it's what causes yours.

thrwaway109 9y ago

I had the exact same issue and solution. I don't think I am celiac and I ate gluten for over 20+ years. I used to get 3+ major sinus infections a year and doctors wanted to perform nasal surgery on me. After having cut out dairy a few years earlier due to realizing I was lactose intolerant, I then experimented with cutting out wheat. All my sinus issues went away, my headaches went away, my depression went away, my brain fog went away. I suggested this to a few family members, and it had the same affect when they cut the things out. It is crazy that I did not have any doctors ever suggest this to me, and it was just a result of the food I was eating. I wish there was more research and education that went into this, as I imagine it might be affecting quite a few people.

has2k1 9y ago
Medicine 200 years from now will be different. Doctors are largely ignorant of nutrition. When you go to the doctor, how often do they ask about the what you eat? Unless you really look unhealthy or you mention some correlation between the symptoms and a specific food, your diet is a lowly weighted factor in your unwell being. I think that will change, and many of the catalysts will be from patients who teased out the effects of nutrition on what ails them. There is also a significant leakage of nutritional advise from sports science, and all this information is finding adherents/testers in the regular world and will eventually (after the pseudoscience is sorted out) have a corrective influence on medicine. I think at some point Medical nutrition therapy (MNT) will be a lot more common and maybe even have specific practitioners, (like physical therapists) instead of being a doctor-nutritionist partnership. The practice will evolve and it will get standardised and taught to "specialists".
paulsmal 9y ago
This is exactly my story as well. My life changed dramatically after I stopped eating wheat. I figured it out myself, despite the fact that doctor said I should keep eating wheat and according to my symptoms I should moderately eat animals fat. Like bacon and butter. Suggested diet made it worse! I never thought that Internet is better place to find a cure than clinic, but one day I just simply googled it and do not want to go back! I've tried couple times to eat bread and pasta and after few days I can feel the difference.