I'm a mom of 1 CD and possible 2 others (test are inconclusive) and pregnant with #4. My body is telling me something, but I can't figure out what. I'm wondering if my body is telling me - no gluten, baby on board is CD too.

Symptoms -
Eat a whole wheat bread with organic PB and Jelly as a sandwich (no hfcs or artifical chemicals in the bread) - within 20 minutes I'm so sleepy I can not keep my eyes open. And Sat I was dizzy with vertigo. This isn't the first time this has happened.
I've eaten a Lean Cuisine meal with pasta and again within 20 minutes so sleepy I can not keep my eyes open, no vertigo though.

But I've eaten other gluten foods without incident. Breakfast crossant with eggs and sausage and cheese, snack of bagel and cream cheese, cookies, English muffin with PB and Jelly, hot pocket etc. No issues what so ever that I recall.

It seems only at lunch time if I eat certain gluten foods, I get sick.

I've thought carbs to sugar might be the reason as well. But again it isn't all carbs and whole wheat carbs convert more slowly to sugar, so it's got to be something else or a combination of somethings.

I know that when I was pregnant I needed an afternoon nap. Since this is #4 is this sleepiness unusual for you?

Are you inside most of the time. There has been some information about getting some sunlight in the morning that will help with afternoon sleepiness. http://www.mercola.com/2006/sep/12/t..._confirmed.htm

Of course, if you ask anyone here, no one will recommend gluten for anyone. Too many of us "don't have CD" but we feel better off gluten.

Anne

I don't react to gluten like it is an allergy. My symptoms are harder to trace back to a meal. Maybe you could avoid gluten in favor of potatoes, rice, corn, sweet potatoes, gluten free cereals, corn chips, avocadoes... (yum, getting hungry just thinking about all the foods on my list), for awhile and see how you and baby feel about it. Isn't it hard to have gluten in the house with gf kids there? I find even my 14 year old son who wants to keep eating gluten gets more and more nachos and less wheat pizza. Doesn't even seem to notice anymore.
Leslie

It hasn't been hard having both in the house, simply b/c only 1 child is GF and he has no desire what so ever for gluten. Last year when he was dx'd we spent months telling him over and over and over again that gluten free won't hurt his tummy, it was nearly 10 months before he would eat and feel hunger. He was 3 1/2, now he's 4 and very happy not to eat gluten. He is so good about asking too.

I would say the majority of food that he can reach is GF, chips, cookies, cereal, etc. And if something has gluten, it goes up high or in the garage. There really isn't too much in the house with gluten, all dinners are GF.

I wanted to put my oldest GF this summer for the month of Aug as a test, but I was so sick in this pregnancy, I was barely out of bed most days. I still have very low energy and need to get to GF baking again.

I do not bake Gluten items at all anymore b/c I just don't want to contaminate my kitchen. I'm gaining back my kitchen downstairs in an apt space we have rented out, so I might make that kitchen be glutened for birthday cakes, guest baked goods etc. Gluten Free kitchen & a Gluten Kitchen!!!

Going GF for me would only be difficult for breakfast. I usually need something quick ie microwave and high protein - microwave breakfast sandwiches. I used to cook in the AM when I only had 1 child, but now my kitchen is always a mess and I don't get to cleaning it up from dinner until the next afternoon. But if I made the committment to do it, I would make it work.

Is similar.

I had huge huge "brain fog" from bread and esp bagels (bagels are typically made from high gluten types of flour).

Before OBT and before I even understood gluten intolerance well, I gave the bagels the heave-ho.

Also, I had a chronic edema of the feet and hands, the hands especially.
My fingers would swell up and I'd have to take my wedding band off.
The swelling episode went away, when I removed gluten.

I also had a chronic GI upset, rapid transit symptoms (food moving thru at very fast rates--sometimes 2 hrs), and cramping. All which I and my doctor "thought" were due to my congenital GI malrotation..a birth defect.

However, I have found for myself at least, that meals that are basically carbohydrate...make me sleepy too. More sleepy than high protein ones.
So I tend to have pasta or potatoes, etc for my nighttime meal, and more protein for lunch and breakfast. A high carb lunch can knock me into naptime too. (high ratios of carbs stimulate serotonin release which is sedating for some people). People vary in this response.

Here is a link you may find useful:
http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_0...ipts/_901.html

I can relate. I'm gluten sensitve.
If I eat an entire bagel, I can fall asleep if I sit down.
I can't eat Rye Toast at all. It makes me exhausted; almost sickly.
I'm weak willed (I suppose) and can't fully follow the diet/program fully...but I don't eat bread anymore and very rarely eat pasta. When I do eat pasta, I eat a tiny amount of the whole wheat kind.
I'm glad I read this thread. It makes perfect sense that if we are going to try eating a little of these foods, to eat them at dinner or bedtime only.

Oh dear IMHO If you are gluten sensitive, I don't think it makes sense to eat gluten at bedtime because it makes you sleepy.

If a person is gluten sensitive that person not only has to be concerned about obvious symptoms but also what may be occuring inside the body without symptoms. Every person with biopsy diagnosed CD was at one time just "gluten sensitive". There was an immune reaction going on but the villi were not yet damaged.

The number 1:133 people have CD is for those without symptoms. It is 1:56 for those with symptoms. Symptoms do not always equal the amount of damage to the body.

Dr. Green in his book, "Celiac Disease: a hidden epidemic". compared eating gluten once in a while to falling down and skinning your knee over and over. Healing will never take place for either of these actions.

It is true that no one knows for sure if all people who have gluten sensitivity will go on to develop CD/DH. No one knows for sure how many will develop brain, thyroid, liver, pancreas, blood and other organ problems that can occur with CD/GS. My feeling is, why take a chance.

What concerns me is that damage can occur that will never reverse. I have gluten sensitivity. I also have peripheral neuropathy. My neuropathy is better now that I am GF but I doubt my feet will ever feel normal. My feet have been painful for 40 years. My son who is in his 20's and is now GF told me that his feet stopped hurting. I hope I have saved him from 40+ years of painful feet.

I cannot, in good faith, recommend eating a "little gluten" if one knows he/she is gluten sensitive.
Anne

Electra -- I've found that when I am pregnant, I get extremely hungry, but if I eat a huge meal, it knocks me out for the rest of the day. The key is the large size of the meal. If instead I have several smaller meals, then I don't get hit with the gigantic sleepies in the same way. I don't think this is gluten-related, since it happens to me even on a gluten-free diet. I don't know if this is what is happening to you, but I figured I'd mention it, just in case.

-Valerie

Yes, I too got very tired when pg... even for the gf one.

Vowel lady: Welcome! Please do be much more careful with yourself. The more strict we are with our diets, the happier we are. It's really worth it!!

I cannot remember where I found this, but when you eat something that you might be sensitive to in the evening the reaction is 10 times worse than if you ate that same food earlier in the day.

I have a 8 YO GD, that has a lot of food issues that we could never pin down, this information helped us, because if she ate oranges early in the day she might not have a reaction but if she ate an orange in the evening, she would break out in hives by the next day. (& yes, she should be GF but is not, hence the worsening food issues. & she just got over a case of walking pneumonia)