# Doctor Recommended Gluten Free Diet



## woobs81 (Mar 3, 2013)

I'm new here, so forgive me if this question has been asked before.

I've been on medication for hypothyroidism for years now, but was recently told I have Hashimoto's Disease. One of the things my doctor recommended was to go gluten free. He mentioned the makeup of thyroid hormones and gluten are very similar so in theory, my body is treating my thyroid like a big ball of gluten and attacking it.

My question is... if I go gluten free, why all of a sudden would my body stop attacking my thyroid? Wouldn't it still think my thyroid was gluten and continue to attack it?

I've seen a lot of people talk highly of going gluten free when diagnosed with Hashimoto's so I figure why not give it a try. I'm wondering though... does this mean COMPLETELY gluten free? Does it mean reducing my gluten intake? I'm having a hard time determining what's "right" or "wrong" to eat because I don't notice any issues when I am wrong.


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## sjmjuly (Mar 23, 2012)

It means COMPLETELY GLUTEN FREE. If you are going to do it, you have to be 100% dedicated to it. I have hashi's and went gluten free a year ago. HUGE difference. But if I were you, I would have a food sensitivity test first to see if you are truly gluten intolerant. I had one and and it confirmed what the doctor suspected. 
It's my understanding that gluten aggrevates your antibodies and then the war begins. 
Since I started thyroid meds and a gluten free diet, I don't have the raging middle of the night raids on my thyroid any longer. And though antibodies go up and down, mine have consistantly gone down since last year. 
The idea is to calm down your immune response and since your immune system is in attack mode, gluten can just be like throwing gas on a fire.


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## CA-Lynn (Apr 29, 2010)

Agreed, just doing it part-way won't resolve anything.

AND......if you don't test positive to the gluten/celiac tests, why bother even trying to go gluten-free?


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## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

woobs81 said:


> I'm new here, so forgive me if this question has been asked before.
> 
> I've been on medication for hypothyroidism for years now, but was recently told I have Hashimoto's Disease. One of the things my doctor recommended was to go gluten free. He mentioned the makeup of thyroid hormones and gluten are very similar so in theory, my body is treating my thyroid like a big ball of gluten and attacking it.
> 
> ...


"If" you are gluten intolerant, your body would react by producing histamine and then antihistamine which really really worsens any autoimmune condition. It just further taxes your system which is already trying to survive.

You should give it a whirl and see if you feel better. Don't make it complicated. Read labels and do your own cooking.


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## Danniswirl (Feb 23, 2013)

I don't touch gluten. It is poisen to my body. I have hashi and celiac. I would definitely be 10 times worse if I ate it.


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## laff66 (Mar 9, 2012)

Yep, what they said. Its 100% or nothing. supposedly they can detect antibodies (or something related to gluten?) up to six months after cutting it out completely. 
One other thing. Blood tests may come up negative to gluten sensitivity, and you could still have problems with it. I wont go into details, because its kind of gross, but look up enterolabs.com. They supposedly have a more sensitive test. I took it and supposedly I react to gluten, eggs, milk, and soy. Are you kidding me??? I cut out gluten for 4 months and really didn't see much difference. I'm back on it but may try it again, as we were also changing my armour dose around at the same time. Too much going on at once!


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## nvsmom (Sep 30, 2012)

There are no blood tests, at this time, for gluten intolerance that are not linked to an autoimmune attack (celiac). Only celiac disease can be tested for by blood work or biopsy (and I agree - you might want to get tested because once you are gluten free all of your blood tests will appear negative). That's a problem because there are many more people who have Non-celiac Gluten Intolerance (NCGI) than celiac disease; the symptoms and inflammation is the same but the NCGI patient will not experience the villi destruction in their intestines.

If you do cut gluten, give it many many months before you discount it from being a problem. When gluten intolerants go gluten free they will often notice some improvements almost immediately but some symptoms take months or years to really improve. I have celiac disease and it took over 6 months before my joint pain started to go away. Give it a long commitment to be sure.

On a side note, the most popular test given to detect celiac disease is the TTG IgA test. I don't know the exact number (I've seen a few numbers given) but it is specific to celiac disease 75-95% of the time - meaning celiac causes a positive result 75-90% of the time. One of the possible causes of a positive TTG IgA test is thyroiditis (and severe stomach infections like e. coli). I think there is a link between the diseases somewhere.

I don't believe histamines play a large role in gluten intolerance (I could be very wrong), It's not related to allergies in any way. There is definitely inflammation though....


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