Going Gluten Free

jimmyjam · Dec 25th 2020, 11:23am

As most of you know, I've suffered on and off for years from abdominal pain and this summer they determined my gallbladder was basically nonfunctioning so they removed it. I still had weird pains on and off. They attributed to "referred pain". Well last week they decided to run some more blood work and test for different stuff including food allergies. So guess what? I'm allergic to gluten. In just four days of being gluten free my gut is so much better- who knew??? So no wheat, barley, rye, cous cous, malt, brewer's yeast, farina, etc. So no beer unless I can find one made with rice and no brewer's yeast :-(. So this will make resupplying on the trail a little more tricky.
2020 just keeps on giving.

Astro · Dec 25th 2020, 1:07pm

jimmyjam wrote:

As most of you know, I've suffered on and off for years from abdominal pain and this summer they determined my gallbladder was basically nonfunctioning so they removed it. I still had weird pains on and off. They attributed to "referred pain". Well last week they decided to run some more blood work and test for different stuff including food allergies. So guess what? I'm allergic to gluten. In just four days of being gluten free my gut is so much better- who knew??? So no wheat, barley, rye, cous cous, malt, brewer's yeast, farina, etc. So no beer unless I can find one made with rice and no brewer's yeast :-(. So this will make resupplying on the trail a little more tricky.
2020 just keeps on giving.

My first thought was great they figured it out. My second thought was wow that will make resupply tougher for you. If just doing LASHes, maildrops work. Personally made over 2,000 miles on the AT that way.

odd man out · Dec 25th 2020, 3:25pm

So is an allergy or Celiac's? I'm not familiar with gluten allergy. Also, I'm confused by the brewer's yeast. Not sure why that would have gluten. There are GF beer made with sorghum or other grains.

max.patch · Dec 25th 2020, 3:33pm

Glad that you got figured out and that the change in foods seems to be working for you.

jimmyjam · Dec 25th 2020, 5:47pm

odd man out wrote:

So is an allergy or Celiac's? I'm not familiar with gluten allergy. Also, I'm confused by the brewer's yeast. Not sure why that would have gluten. There are GF beer made with sorghum or other grains.

I guess it's both. They tell me my blood work says I have Celiac disease, that it's an autoimmune response by my body to gluten.

odd man out · Dec 25th 2020, 5:55pm

jimmyjam wrote:

odd man out wrote:

So is an allergy or Celiac's? I'm not familiar with gluten allergy. Also, I'm confused by the brewer's yeast. Not sure why that would have gluten. There are GF beer made with sorghum or other grains.

I guess it's both. They tell me my blood work says I have Celiac disease, that it's an autoimmune response by my body to gluten.

I guess I think of autoimmune response and allergy as different things. One of the unfortunate things is that it has become trendy for people to go "gluten free" thinking it is good for them, even if they don't have Celiac's. This is a problem since a lot of restaurants have gluten free menu items to cater to this crowd but don't take the steps necessary to make it really gluten free. The smallest trace of gluten is problematic for people with Celiac's and the mass marketing of gluten free food that really isn't is a disservice to those who really need it.

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