Gluten Free Diet and Withdrawal Symptoms

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Hi there everybody,

So I've been trying out a Gluten Free, pro-biotic, pre-biotic, Vegetarian and largely sugar-free diet the past three weeks (I was already Vegetarian and largely sugar-free and organic) in order to help with symptoms of Aspergers and ADHD. Unfortunately, I have not been diagnosed with either of these, as the two psychologists I have spoken to and the neurologist who works at my country's autism centre have all told me that are not qualified to give official diagnosis, but would like to see me in order to give an opinion and help managing symptoms. So far they have provisionally told me they suspect ADHD, Aspergers and OCD. In fact the only person who seems convinced to have an answer is my GP who after two meetings is convinced 'do not have autism', ut that's another story!

So basically I'm curious to know if anyone has benefited from changing their diet, and for those who did, did you suffer any withdrawel symptoms after quitting gluten?

I actually thought about quiting the gluten-free diet because I never felt any negative reaction to eating gluten, yet since stopping eating it, I actually feel terrible, and after looking into it suspect I may have gluten-withdrawal symptoms...

I have had a severe back pain for the past week and a half. I really don't understand. I teach English to a physiotherapist and last week she kindly tried to fix it for me. The pain was in the top and middle of my spine, after she cricked my back it went down to my lower back. Except since then it has remained and appears to be moving location every day. Yesterday my spine felt fine except at the bottom, to the left and radiating into my left hip. Sometimes it's just the middle and upper back. Today it feels like my entire spine hurts. I have had back injuries in the past, and maybe once very couple of years I have a few days where it hurts, but normally it's in my lower back. I'm not used to this ongoing, migratory pain situation. Sleeping on the floor and daily yoga is not helping. I feel like I wanna cry it hurts so much and normally I don't feel pain that much!

I've been feeling slightly dizzy the last couple of days. Only subtly, but noticeably.

For the first two weeks of the new regime I almost did not have bowel movements. I now suspect I am intolerant to carrot, which I have suspected before, as things only recovered after eliminating them, and then got worse again after I ate carrot soup one day.

Apart from the physical pain, emotionally I feel better than I have in a long time. I have a history of depression, general negativity and a variety of people in my life who for one reason or another I consider kind of negative influences. This week I just got sick of negativity, of looking on the bad side all the time, became aware of people who bring my mood down a lot and wanted to distance myself from them... I've become much more appreciative of the positive things, of positive influences, and actually feel a desire to be sociable and meet new people which is unlike me! I've been praying a lot despite not being religious.. I feel kind of... happy?

I'd be grateful to know if anyone has any experience of these gluten-free things...

thank you so much for any input, the help from people in this group has meant so much, especially when it's so difficult trying to relate to people who just cannot imagine seeing the world through the eyes of Aspergers etc.

Thank you!

Anytime you massively change your diet, your body will react negatively. It's not an addiction - it doesn't involve the dopamine reward centers of the brain, which is the scientific definition of addiction - but rather your body needing to learn to operate at a different baseline.

My father experienced this twice - first after he started treatment for high blood pressure, and again when he started treatment for type 2 diabetes. His symptoms were a bit different each time, with lowering blood pressure he felt dizzy and had blurred vision, and with lower blood sugar he felt profoundly sad and irritable.

However, if these symptoms don't go away, it could be a sign of a nutritional deficiency. This is the big risk when you try to eliminate a certain substance from your diet without seeking help of a dietary specialist. It may be that you've accidentally eliminated your only source of a vital nutrient because it was also a source of gluten. I have heard of people who've done themselves serious harm by trying to eliminate certain substances from their diet without replacing them with other sources of the same essential nutrients.

Just because stopping gluten has given you physical side effects does not mean you were 'addicted' to gluten (there is no reliable scientific evidence for such a thing). Now does it mean that gluten necessarily was a problem for you to begin with. If these symptoms don't pass, please seek medical help or else resume a normal diet.

I don't get this gluten free fad. As far as I knew coeliacs were the only ones who needed to restrict their gluten intake. All the other research I have read about on the gluten free craze seems to support that for a normal metabolism without coeliac disease, gluten free is actually bad for you. Many gluten free products - such as gluten free pastas and breads - have to raise their levels of sugars and fats to compensate, hardly making them the healthy alternative. An yet, the gluten free craze is thriving. Why?
I was also not aware of any correlation between eating gluten and worsening the symptoms of autism. Where did you come by that information?
Could not feeling better emotionally be due to eliminating the negative influences in your life that were bringing you down rather than the gluten?
I may be all alexithymic about it, but I never really notice changes in diet. I went back to being vegetarian for religious reasons, and never really noted any difference except in my conscience. I had also been drinking at least half a 1 1/2 litre bottle of coke a day for 20 years, and recently stopped drinking it all together, and noticed nothing.
I'm curious about your reasoning here, and why this gluten thing is so popular. There's so many crazy diets around at the moment - paleo and so on.

I think everyone reacts differently to gluten. I'm hypersensitive to everything I eat, and I can't have a lot of gluten, but I feel like I actually need a little bit, because it has a calming effect on me. Without it, I get too high-strung and anxious.

Good luck figuring this out - I know it's tricky when you're dealing with physical pain on top of emotional symptoms!

I've been gluten free and vegetarian for many years, and I feel pretty good! I really have no idea if it affected my asperger's symptoms or not, that's not why I did it (I didn't even know about asperger's when I started), it was family reasons. I will say that after a while of doing it, it will feel perfectly normal, and there are lots of reasons to eat that way, not just affecting aspie symptoms. For example not eating (a lot of) sugar alone is really a good thing, my skin is much clearer when I don't eat a lot of sugar, and my teeth seems to be doing a lot better too! There are a lot of good things about vegetarianism too, health wise comes to mind first, but it's obviously also more ethical and it's surprisingly less load on the environment too.

I remember switching diets being really hard, but like I said, after a while it will seem totally normal and easy if you stick with it. Good luck with whatever you do with it.

It seems that wheat withdrawal can cause back pain. I hadn't heard of that before, but it came up when I googled it.

I got sick whenever I tried to take pro-biotics, but it was general stomach problems.

How were you consuming gluten previously and what do you mean by "sugar-free"? And when you stopped eating gluten-containing foods, what did you replace it with? Well, I guess what I'm wondering specifically, is whether you cut down your carbohydrate intake and whether you cut down your overall amount of calories.

Even though gluten itself is a protein, most people eat gluten primarily as part of bread or similar products that contain a ton of carbohydrates, and even the ones that tout something about "complex carbs" usually have a high glycemic index. (Some people act like whole-wheat bread is not some kind of ambrosial panacea, but... it's still a loaf of sugar.)

If you were eating bread before and you replaced it with something like diary and eggs, you're probably having a carb crash (sugar crash, if you prefer). It's a common problem among people who are trying to reduce carbs. If you replaced it with something like low-calorie veggies, you're probably not getting enough calories at all.

If you are not specifically trying to avoid carbs, try eating extra fruit and root vegetables. You'll still probably feel bad from the diet change, but that should at least mitigate it some.

There are some websites such as this one that list some other ways to mitigate the withdrawal. I'm not sure how legitimate the info is though.


I'm not sure why most people are jumping on the bandwagon, but I can see why people with any hard-to-treat neurological problem or other health problem would experiment with anything non-harmful in hope of relief. (Just because gluten-free pastas and breads are bad for you doesn't mean being gluten-free is bad for you. You could always just not eat bread and pasta.)

I've heard some anecdotes from people having benefits with ADHD and autism when they cut out both gluten and casein. (That is, non-disordered adults reporting benefit for their autistic or ADHD kid.) Not sure if only removing one or the other is supposed to help.

I notice that most of the allegedly crazy diets are all pretty similar. Besides cutting out the obvious sweets, they are all based on not eating grain (or at least, not eating so darn much grain). That makes sense to me. Not sure why wheat is getting a worse rap than the others. Even my friend on the paleo diet avoids gluten more diligently than he does other grains, and when I asked him about it, he said something about gluten being poisonous.