For the last few years, I have had a recurring pain in my mid section, between the belly button and the bottom of your ribs. It starts off with a dull ache and slowly gets worse to the point that I just want to go to bed. Then I discovered that Nexium seems to get rid of the pain. So for the last few years, I have spent a small fortune on Nexium and its generic equivalents. The excellent advice from my local doctor was – just take Nexium for the rest of your life – there are a lot of people worse off than you. That last part I agreed with, taking a pill for the next 40 years for a gut complaint without any effort to get to the root cause of it was not my idea of sorting this out.

So I took it upon myself to see a nutritionist. I figured it had to be something to do with the food I was eating. The nutrionist referred me to a doctor who referred me to a consultant for a colonscopy.

I won’t go into the details of the scope but you get the picture. In anycase, the results indicated a level of inflammation in the colon and the recommendation was to trial a wheat and gluten free diet.

The most I had ever heard of gluten free was people giving out about the price of a loaf of gluten free bread. And they were right – it’s outrageous.

Some of the most common irritants in the human diet are gluten, dairy, wheat, soy and eggs. The protocol to treat these complaints is called an Elimination Diet. This is where, for a trial period of time, you eliminate all foods containing these irritants and observe if your symptoms improve. If yes, continue. If no, back to the drawing board.

So my gluten free journey so far has seen me eliminate nearly all types of bread, pasta, pastries, alcohol and wheat based cereals like weetabix and shreddies. I am also cutting out chocolate and dairy at the same time so no cheese or cows milk. I feel good and have lost some weight in the process. I am tracking my food and drink intake manually in a food diary for the 3 week trial period and so far symptoms have improved.

It feels good to be finally tackling this issue head on and with some luck, I will get to the bottom of this health issue once and for all.

Yours in health,

JP