Gluten Free diet

Been on one for about nine years Gracesgran, there is a very good firm 'Doves Farm' do,look them up , I buy pasta, flour and many other foods from them, also supermarkets have gluten free shelves , it is difficult at first but after a while one becomes use to it , good luck

Sorry forgot, Margaretta Psttern wrote o book of recipes fir gluten free, she wrote it for arthritis suffers but that doesn't matter

Think I didn't spell her name correctly sorry

I put myself on a gf diet ages ago as I had a permanent upset stomach.

Life is much easier now as there is so much gf food about. Depending how strict you want to be, it's a good idea to check everything for wheat and barley content. Brown sauce, Worcester sauce, some crisps, stock cubes are somethings that caught me out in the early days. But, don't buy things from the free from aisle just because they are there. Ordinary mayo doesn't contain gluten anyway and is loads cheaper. Schar (? sp) products are good but no-one has sorted proper bread although M&S's isn't too bad.

And you can't eat malteasers.

Ask if there is anything I can help with.

My daughter is hypothyroid and follows a gluten free diet which she finds helps. There seems to be enough evidence to support her decisions.

You need to do your research and find out which foods are naturally gluten free first of all, then build your menus around these.

If you look on the ingredients list on most packets they will have known allergens in bold. You can obviously ignore most of those, but look and it will be clear which ones are best avoided.

Then as Annie says there is a huge selection in supermarkets these days, look for the 'Free From' shelves, but still read the labels and check it says GF free. There's everything from GF bread (horrid) cakes (yummy) cereals and muesli (can't tell the difference) pasta, stuffing mix, bread crumbs, pastry (chill counter) etc.

Worth knowing that cornflour is GF (I use it as a thickener) if you're making, for example, cauliflower cheese and I use ground almonds to thicken curries (adds a great flavour)

Good luck

I think I have said this before, do not just put yourself on a GF diet without medical diagnosis or at least a discussion with GP. Doctors will have difficulty making a diagnosis after the gut has calmed down.

harrigran - why waste a hard-pressed, cash-strapped NHS time and money, and not just cut out the middle man?

So you go to GP. You are told to eat normally for 3-4 weeks and come back for a test. You phone for another appointment and see your GP (.again) who organises a test. Six weeks later you get test. Two weeks later you phone up for results...which are probably not through yet. Eventually you get an appointment with GP to discuss one of two posdible scenarios

1) you have celiac disease or a gluten intolerance so go back on diet you originally planned to go on anyway (3-4 months ago, 3 GP appointments and one NHS referrel later)

2) you don't have an allergy to gluten so ...where do you go from here?

If someone chooses to go on a GF diet for a couple of months to see if it makes a difference, it's not going to do them any harm is it and it might do done good.

Thank you all for the very useful, practical advice. The Magarette Pattern book is ordered - and how interesting is the fact that she wrote it to beat Arthritis; my family is riddled with it!

I will start by working out which foods I already eat which are gluten free and go on from there - keeping my diet as normal as possible.

I understand where you are coming from Harrigran, and thank you, but I am not due to see the doctor for a month (when we see if I have finally reached the right level of Levothyroxine). However, I think this is about me being able to do something holistic for myself so will make a start but will explain exactly what I have done when I see her. I really do want to own my own health as much as I can.

Thank you all. This is when GN is at it's best as far as I can see.

My brother has to follow a gluten free diet (he has celiac disease) and whilst he found most gluten free products OK he longed for some decent bread, he described most gluten free bread as tasting of sawdust and cardboard! He has recently discovered a company called Genius and has said their bread is the closest to the real thing he has tasted. I think some supermarkets are stocking this now (although it is expensive).

All supermarkets stockgenius but it is not brilliant. Schar rolls and ciabattas are reasonable.

I was diagnosed with Hashimotos Thyroiditis in 1997 so have taken Levothyroxine ever since. It seemed to take years for this diagnosis as I kept being told by the GP that it was my very busy lifestyle. The thing that seemed to make him take note and arrange a blood test was when I told him I was very cold when no one else was. The tiredness was unbelievable! By this time my reading was off the scale and he was very surprised with the blood result!

In 2002 after about two years of terrible tummy trouble and losing a huge amount of weight. I went down to about 6st I was eventually diagnosed with established sensitive gluten enteropathy. Going on a gluten free diet didn't seem to help much as it turned out I am lactose intolerant and I have problems with yeast and fat in my diet too. The slightest thing still seems to upset my tummy. I can't say that the gluten free diet helps with the Hypothyroidism as it's the Thyroxine that helps with that. I must say there is a huge amount of gluten free foods available now not like when I was first diagnosed over fifteen years ago.

The only type of thyroxine available on the NHS does not help everyone with an underactive thyroid.

My grandson who has just passed his 2nd birthday has been diagnosed as a celiac and dairy intolerant, I always have a supply of the special gluten free bread and a non dairy spread for his visits, he will be with us this week-end. The bread is £3 for quite a small loaf, but I freeze it in two slice portions in little freezer bags he doesn't eat much of it. I did manage to make him a birthday cake for his 2nd birthday with Dove's gluten free self raising flour and "Pure" the dairy free butter substitute he's allowed, it turned out quite well, not that different from one using ordinary products.

I also take Thyroxine for Hypothyroidism and agree with Ana it doesn't make that much difference, have been on in for nearly 20 years now. We have had threads on this subject and not feeling that much better was something that quite a few of us were experiencing. Of course once you have been on a medication for quite a while without a break you don't know how much worse you would feel if you didn't take it. Perhaps I should give a gluten free diet a trial for a while.

In mainstream medicine, T4 drugs are the standard for treatment of hypothyroidism. While these drugs work for some, for many these drugs fail to relieve symptoms. Our bodies need to convert the T4 in these drugs to the active useable thyroid hormone T3. However for many hypothyroidism sufferers, our bodies don’t convert the T4 to T3 and some, like my daughter, and others in here, are left suffering symptoms.

I was sick for many years with chronic fatigue, IBS, long story until I found a naturopath/nutritionist who gave me some good advice. This led me into doing my research and I continue to learn. The main thing I have learned is that all inflammation begins in the gut and when it builds up it settles in the weakest organ. Where does the inflammation come from? We no longer eat whole foods. We are eating foods which have been sprayed with pesticides. Anything that comes in a packet has a list of chemicals in the ingredients. Even the products we use on our skin have chemicals in them. As for gluten...the wheat has been so GMO'd it is not the same as 50 years ago. I could go on and on, but perhaps a good place to start would be some of the books I've read. Google Draxe.com. He's an expert on leaky gut. He has a new book called Eat Dirt. I also found Wheat Belly by Dr William Davis an eye opener. Eat organic whenever you can, cook from scratch using only pure ingredients. I only use coconut oil, olive oil or flaxseed oil. Processed oils can cause inflammation. I am not authorized to give advice, but I've spent the last two years researching this and I am feeling way better, so I do believe in it.

And you can't eat malteasers
You can eat Toblerone though kittylester

harrigran - why waste a hard-pressed, cash-strapped NHS time and money, and not just cut out the middle man?

Because coeliac disease does need the correct diagnosis; you do need to have eaten gluten in the weeks before a blood test to have a diagnosis which will be reasonably accurate; then an endoscopy may be necessary to see the state of the small intestine and to see if the villi in the stomach have been destroyed.
Because the villi have been destroyed then nutrients cannot be absorbed by the body.
Coeliacs have to be very careful indeed not to have any gluten.
The villi can grow back again if the coeliac has been on a strict gf diet but it would take about 2 years.
If a gf diet is not followed then it could lead to many problems such as infertility, anaemia, osteoporosis, bowel cancer, lymphoma.

I agree that you don't have to buy everything from the 'Free From' aisle but you will have to become an avid 'label reader' Gracesgran

www.coeliac.org.uk/coeliac-disease/associated-conditions-and-complications
There is a link on the page to hypothyroidism.

Terribull Although DD cooks almost everything from scratch, she made DGS's birthday cake from two packets of Udi's chocolate flavour cake mix (Tesco), and very spectacular it turned out to be too! Two packets made a lot of cake.

sorry, didn't mean to frighten anyone who has been diagnosed, it is so much easier to follow a gf diet these days.

I understand that Levothyroxine doesn't work for everyone Anya and that we (UK) seem to disregard this more than some other countries. Is it true that we only look at 3 tests while other countries look at 4?

Don't you feel they should be doing more about this as it seems to affect a large number of people - mainly women of course and I wonder if that is why.

Jalima - we know all this

You don't have to have an official diagnosis to eat GF so I don't get your point. It's not as if there's any medication you have to have prescribed. The 'cure' is in your own hands.

I do think that GG

As far as Thyroxine is concerned, from what I have read the US have approved the use of something called "Armour" which is derived from pigs, for some this seems to be more effective in treating the symptoms of an under active thyroid but it is far more expensive to produce than the synthetic Thyroxine that is prescribed in the UK. In any event it has not been approved by NICE, I gather the synthetic drug is cheap to produce, but from forums I have been on this subject it appears that many don't think it works very well for them.

You don't have to have an official diagnosis to eat GF so I don't get your point. It's not as if there's any medication you have to have prescribed. The 'cure' is in your own hands
Just pointing out that some people could put themselves on a restrictive diet without necessarily needing to because they think they have an intolerance to gluten - and in fact CD is an auto-immune disease. And in fact, without a correct diagnosis, they could have something else which would be missed because they think they have a problem with gf and don't go to the GP.

Besides which, there are people out there who do not understand that a coeliac could be very ill if they eat anything that is not gf - understanding is better these days but I have been with DD and heard the tuts and seen the eye-rolling and heard the remarks about 'fussiness'.

That is not the case with Gracesgran, I do understand that.
And I am not trying to tell granny how to suck eggs (although they are gf as far as I know).

I am not coeliac but I am intolerant to gluten. I have suffered with chronic IBS for more years than I care to remember. This condition has ruled my life and inhibited many activities. Around 18 months ago - after trying many so-called cures - I, again went gluten free and also began to follow a Fodmap eating plan. This was fully supported by my GP and directed under a Fodmap-trained Dietitian. You can google Fodmap - loads of information via the Internet. It is restrictive and inconvenient- but what a difference it has made to my life. Plus today - DH was shopping in Morrison's and came across a sourdough- gluten-free loaf ? It really tastes like 'proper' bread - I'll let you know tomorrow how it suits my 'individual' system ?? After trying many of the 'free-from' supermarket products - I am most impressed with the M&S range. Following a Fodmap diet excludes many things for me - onions, garlic, mushrooms just to start with.... BUT it works for me ? Good luck to everyone

there was a recent TV show where everyone was on a gluten free diet & some were given added gluten & others some gluten free additive, the results in both cases were identical showing the placebo effect of the diet, remember that a lot of gluten free stuff is higher in fat & sugar than ordinary stuff & are a lot more expensive.