I've been a good girl since October 1st, low-carbing it out the whazoo. I reached goal, and I've kept low carbing. Until Friday night. Neither DH nor I wanted to cook or drive, and delivery options are limited. We could have had wings delivered. Domino's makes great wings. But I just was on a wing kick and ate them like 3 days in a row, so that didn't sound good. We finally decided on a single night of real pizza, and enjoyed the heck out of what we ate.

Since then, though, I've been very gassy and haven't had a solid stool. I've been uncomfortable since even before I went to bed Friday night. Which has started me thinking it might be either of these things. I haven't had a high carb meal since I started this, so maybe it's my body reacting to all the carbs? OR, before I started Atkins, this used to happen to me a lot. So, maybe I'm gluten sensitive? I did a little research, and the bloated, gassy thing happens a lot with gluten sensitivities, but I don't think that a test would be accurate, since I have only eaten gluten once in the past 5 months. Either way, it sucks to know that I won't be able to have a pizza every 5 or 6 months, but the way I'm feeling sucks even more!

I'm just curious if this is something that commonly happens when you introduce way more carbs than you normally eat? Because if that's the case, then my plans of going out for Chinese for our wedding anniversary (in October) will have to change to going out for omelettes or something. I really hope not, because I've been telling myself since I started that I can still have carby foods on very special occasions. But not if eating rice or potatoes a couple of times a year is going to affect me like this!

Sounds like celiac disease to me - both diarhea and loose stools are very common.

You could try an experiment.

Go to the grocery store in the frozen foods pizza section. Look for the Annie's brand. She has a RICE CRUST cheese pizza.

Buy one, and also buy all the pizza toppings you like - whatever - mushrooms, olives, peppers, onion, pepperoni, etc.

Then in a couple weeks cook up the gluten free pizza and see what happens.

If you have the same reaction, then it isn't the gluten.

Say, I don't know if you can edit your title, but I'm sure you'd get lots more responses if you could put something like, "Is this celiac disease? Gluten Problems?"

Here's another thread that may be of interest to you:


http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=392168

Thank you, Annie! The post title has been changed, so we'll see if anyone else has any input. I like your idea about the rice crust. I might try that in a few months.

The thread you linked me to also had some great suggestions. I might just go back to induction for a week, until my stomach calms down. As I said, I've had this happen to me pre-Atkins, but it never lasted this long! Maybe because I'd been without wheat for so long, it really shocked my system? It would be my luck to find out I can never, ever have a delivery pizza again!

You will LIKE Annies rice crust cheese pizza, because you will add lots of gluten free pizza ingredients to it, and it will taste better and fresher than anything you can order anywhere. I've never eaten it with out adding lots of peppers, cheeses, olives, etc.

I can't eat more than half of one, once I'm done with all the additions. I've never had it plain.

If you determine that you must avoid all wheat products, do be sure to do some searching online. I learn new things all the time at http://www.celiac.com

It is VERY difficult to eat out, anywhere, if you have celiac disease, because you have no control over the ingredients.

For instance, many spices & herbs sold in America are ground up with WHEAT flour, so you have to make sure that any spices you use are from a gluten free source. McCormicks is one of several.

Oftentimes, people are way more sensitive to wheat after refraining from any.

But this is a genetic auto-immune disorder, and I have read that in some people the gene for celiac disease trns on and off during one's lifetime, until late in life when the disease can manifest as dementia -- but if you remove ALL the wheat from the diet, the dementia disappears.

I mention a few of these things, because it is IMPERATIVE that if you do have celiac disease, that you understand that it is not some "little ol' allergy."

ANY time ANY wheat is ingested, your immune system has a strong reaction which starts to destroy the villi in the small intestine, and this is SERIOUS and can lead to all many of nutritional deficiencies and accompanying disorders.

You might want to read up on the thing in my signature called "The Gluten File" lots of really good info there.

It does sound like you're either gluten sensitive or celiac. It's pretty tough to get a celiac diagnosis and I think there are lots of false negatives. Gluten sensitivity can be just as bad or even worse. So I think either get tested from a lab like Enterolab.com or else just do a dietary trial forget about getting a formal diagnosis.

Also, there's quite a learning curve on how to avoid gluten, things you'd never consider. I'd recommend investigating at http://celiac.com and especially reading their safe and forbidden foods list.

I'm definitely at least gluten sensitive - got myself tested through Enterolabs - and those tests can detect sensitivity, even if you've been off gluten for awhile.

And yes - the gas/bloat etc. is what happens to me if I get 'glutened'. Some pretty bad tummy pain too.

I have eaten potatoes - no problem. Tried some french fries over Christmas vacation. Furthermore - I've also eaten from the *gluten free* menu at PF Chang's restaurant and no tummy troubles.

Yes, you can feel 'uck' from eating carbs after a long while off them - but what you're describing does sound like a sensitivity to gluten. Especially still going on after a few days like that.

In my experience:

High carb gluten-free food: minor uptick on the scale from 'cheating' - this is water weight in response to a higher-carb meal, a wee bit of bloatedness - but you can sort of tell it's water. Also - you can set yourself up for carb cravings too if you go 'off' plan.

Higher-carb or even a low-carb food containing gluten: severe bloating, gas, tummy ache. Stomach blows up like a beach ball or something, and stays that way for awhile. Tummy and digestive 'issues'. Days later, still not feeling good. Other foods start bothering me too - because my digestive system's been 'glutened'. Feels like a pile of rocks in my stomach. Cramps, pains, just awful. Doesn't go away in a day, like the 'high-carb, gluten-free' cheat meal.

Hope this helps a wee bit. Feel better soon!

I haven't tried one yet - but there's a local pizza restaurant near my place with a big sign advertising gluten free pizza.

I felt the same way when I realized gluten was an issue. Like, I don't have a choice anymore if I maybe wanted to have a piece of cake once a year or something. Feeling much better about it all now though.

Going back to induction's a good idea - but take a good look at your salad dressings/sauces/marinades - I found gluten lurking in some of my low-carb favourites and had to get rid of them.

Thanks for all your help, everyone. I was really hoping it was just from cheating. I've heard it makes you feel bad. And I expected a bit of a 'hangover'. This just seems kind of extreme, which is why I got concerned.

I seriously didn't want to go grocery shopping today, because it seemed too long to be away from my bathroom, and I refuse to use a public restroom for certain activities. I think I'll go get tested, even though I really didn't want to mess with it. I was kind of hoping that it was just cheating, because gluten insensitivity seems much more complicated to deal with.

How long will the diarrhea last? Will Pepto help? Should I go to my doctor right now, or can it wait until this episode passes?

The tests are notoriously inaccurate.

Do you have a fever? Any chills? Is there a chance you have food poisoning?

I had diarrhea for years until I read about an old fashioned folklore cure, which said to eat blackberry jam or blackberry preserves several times a day.

The tests for celiac are notoriously unreliable.

You might want to register at http://www.celiac.com where the experts are, they can give you scads of advise.

ALSO, lots of docs are pretty clueless about Celiac Disease, I even had one tell me, when I was very ill and could barely eat anything and was gaunt from losing so much weight, this one doc says to me, "You shouldn't eat so many sandwiches." I had been gluten free for over half a year when I got that 'gem' of medical advice; in fact, I could barely digest anything.

Please ask them about the tests -- even the one that is considered most reliable-- an intestinal biopsy appears to miss 30% of celiacs.

There are many reports about newly discovered celiacs finding out for the first time, and finally eliminating ALL sources of wheat -- who find themselves losing anywhere from 20 to 40 pounds, WITHOUT being on a diet.

Just the exclusion of the wheat does this for lots of people.

How about Immodium?
The first time I had flour after nearly 18 months of it not passing my lips...and I too had pizza!.....I got a bad tummy ache and it didn't digest well at all.
I since learned that there are digestive enzymes that we stop producing when we eat low carb. Thats why we are supposed to gradually add in starchier carb foods.
I find that adding in more fiber foods like sweet potato and oatmeal, can help with the diarrhea. They are both easy to digest and help me alot when I feel sick.
I'd give it a couple of more days before you go to the doctor. Drink a lot of water!!

Also, take some acidophyllus(sp?) for the intestinal flora to rebalance itself or eat yogurt with live culture.

Just realize that typical testing results in frequent false negatives. About 30% of the people with actual Celiac disease will test negative on the blood test but they have the disease which you can see on endoscopy. And the testing doesn't catch gluten sensitive, non-celiac people at all (except Enterolab).

Also, if you've been low carb for awhile your exposure was probably very limited and you could have healed back up again, if it was Celiac and are likely to have false negatives.

Gosh, I wish that had happened to me!