When it comes to wheat products it can be confusing to know what to do and why. In this article I’ll go through different ways your body can have a problem with wheat and what that means for your Endometriosis.
If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you’ll know that I talk about gluten intolerance quite a bit and you may be wondering if that is the same as Coeliac Disease?
If you react to wheat products, it can be because of:
- Coeliac Disease
- A gluten intolerance
- A wheat allergy
Gluten are a plant protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats. Because the gluten in oats are slightly different from those in wheat, so many of my clients find they’re okay with oats.
Gluten are what makes dough stretchy and helps food like bread and pasta keep their shape. It is often added to foods to make the texture or flavour better and to retain moisture and is found in many processed foods.
A gluten intolerance and Coeliac Disease both mean that your body has a negative reaction to gluten. But the symptoms and how serious this reaction is is different.
Coeliac Disease
If you have Coeliac Disease, you have an autoimmune disease where the gluten trigger an immune response that causes damage to the lining of your intestines. This makes it difficult to absorb all the nutrients from your diet and creates inflammation, which will worsen your Endometriosis. Unfortunately, the damage can reach a point where your gut wall cannot recover. And because it is an autoimmune disease, you’ll have Coeliac Disease for life.
Common symptoms are constipation or diarrhea. Some people have both some. You may also experience nausea, vomiting, flatulent, cramping, bloating, abdominal pain and fatigue. Diagnosis is done through an initial screening and then a biopsy of your small intestines.
Avoiding all gluten is a key strategy to manage your disease.
Gluten intolerance
When I work with clients with Endometriosis, I don’t see Coeliac Disease a lot, but I do see gluten intolerance in around 98% of them. The symptoms of an intolerance or sensitivity are similar but you don’t have the permanent damage to the lining of the intestinal wall. Symptoms are bloating, constipation and/or diarrhoea, nausea, headaches, brain fog, joint pain, fatigue, abdominal pain and depression. These symptoms appear in response to an event of eating something with gluten.
It is not easy to diagnose a gluten intolerance, but a hair analysis test can usually identify it.
A gluten intolerance leads to leaky gut, or gut hyperpermeability, with makes it possible for undigested food particles to enter the bloodstream which in turn will trigger an immune response and increases inflammation. The good news is that your can heal a leaky gut. Going completely gluten free will make you feel better fairly quickly and will allow you gut to start to heal. Some people can go back to eating some gluten containing foods, but most of my clients with a gluten intolerance find that they never really get over it.
Wheat allergy
A wheat allergy is an allergy to the whole wheat grain. You can test for wheat allergy with an IgE test. If you have a wheat allergy, eating anything with wheat will trigger a histamine response with symptoms in your mouth, nose, throat or skin. So you may get a runny nose, sneezing, headaches, hives, and skin rashes. In severe cases it may lead to anaphalaxis.
So, although Coeliac Disease and wheat allergy are serious reactions to wheat, they are far less common in my clients than gluten intolerance or sensitivity. But in all cases, going completely gluten free can reduce the severity of many Endometriosis symptoms and often quite quickly.
If you’d like to have a personal chat about how you can use diet to manage your Endometriosis symptoms, book a free Endometriosis SOS Call: https://theendometriosisnutritionist.online/endometriosis-sos-call/