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Junior Member
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 16
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Junior Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 16
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Newbie with multiple sensitivities
Hi, all! I'm glad to have found this forum.
Brief history -- my gut never worked right that I can recall, but I never quite worked out why. I read in another forum about the experiences of people with gluten intolerance (no one officially with celiac disease -- they just found they felt better without the stuff). I tried to make gnocchi that turned into flour bombs. We ate them anyway. I felt absolutely horrid, so I thought I would give gluten-free a try. I didn't really expect much. I mean, I'm 53; if I'm gluten intolerant, wouldn't I already know? I immediately feel better (although the symptoms that cleared up are more like regular allergy ones). I decided to the the whole nine yards with Enterolab. While I'm waiting on the kit and then the results, I continue gluten-free and my gut gets more and more normal.
Two days ago -- I get the Enterolab results back. Two versions of a gluten intolerance gene, but neither of the celiac ones. Everything is over threshold level. So I'm gluten intolerant with malabsorption. I'm also casein and egg sensitive (since I follow a basically vegan diet, my little outside excursions obviously were enough to get the antibodies churning out). None of this surprised me THAT much, although I was surprised by the malabsorption (I'm a pretty healthy sick person, I guess  )
What really blew me away was the finding that I was sensitive to soy and I have had a marginal sensitivity to yeast. I've only been going gluten-free for a little over a month (and I don't think I was as strict as I should have been -- part of me didn't really believe I had a problem). Now I've got to figure out all this hidden soy?
And yeast -- I don't even know WHAT I'm supposed to cut out. OK, things with yeast as a listed ingredient; I understand that  But the lists I find on the internet seem to be for people dealing with yeast infections, which I don't have (that I know of). Things on the lists include stuff like sugar, dried fruit, vinegar, all alcoholic drinks, mushrooms, peanuts, even canned tomatoes. There is no consistency among the lists and I don't even know if they are relevant to someone in my situation.
Plus the fact that my score was an 11 and sensitivity is 10 or above and I never have seemed to react to things with yeast -- my husband thinks it is measurement error. And I WANT to believe that, because I'm coping with eliminating enough else.
I mean, I just went to my first restaurant meal post "diagnosis." Talk about a feeble attempt to communicate. I'm trying to find something without milk, egg, gluten, soy, or yeast and the waitress is looking at me like I am a nut job. So I explain that I just had this testing done so she wouldn't think I'm crazy -- I obviously wasn't ready with my restaurant skills yet 
Enough of my ranting I see there is lots of useful information on this site and I will go through it. It seems researching what I can eat is my new hobby Anyway, does anyone here also deal with other sensitivities, particularly the ones I have? I am hoping there is a good, definitive list out there of what must be avoided for soy and yeast sensitivities.
Also, I'm not sure how strict I have to be with these things. Is it the same as with gluten or won't I have to worry about microscopic amounts?
I wonder how I could have lived so long with all this sensitivity. I'm wondering if the gluten damage (slower because I have intolerance genes, not celiac ones) caused a leaky gut, which caused other sensitivities. Who knows -- if Enterolab tested for corn or other things I could be sensitive to them, also.  Perhaps once I heal, I can have soy and yeast again. I don't really care about dairy and eggs; I had pretty much stopped eating any quantity of them because I couldn't digest them very well.
So if anyone has any words of advice, web site or book suggestions, or even just a "been there, done that" comment, I would appreciate it. OK, group hug  I had to work that one in ...
I have emailed questions to Enterolab, but I thought it would be useful to hear things from the trenches as well.
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