I had a lot of gastrointestinal issues as a child and only recently discovered that I have Celiac Disease and am dairy intolerant.

As a young child, I was nothing but skin and bones and my body would not absorb anything I ate and in fact, I felt full after eating only a couple of bites of food. If I was forced to eat, I threw up because my body could not handle it. They started me on formula when I was 4 or so. It did not work and I did not gain weight. I went to an alternative Dr. who practiced accupressure and gave me Chinese herbs and elixirs. I had more energy, my immune system was stronger and I was not sick all the time, and I was gaining some weight.

At about age 9, I realized I had a huge belly but still had very skinny arms and legs. My sister made fun of me and said all my baby fat gathered there. It made me self conscious and I began training myself to suck in my gut and have been doing so to this day. I am 24. My belly kept getting larger and larger and I kept getting hungrier. I ate tons of food, more than should be humanly possible for someone of my size. I could not feel satiety (probably the result of my intolerances, but I had not know that at the time.) I did experience horrible stomach aches and gastro problems, but I was too embarrassed to tell my parents when I was younger.

In college, I suffered from an eating disorder, endlessly exercised, ate under 100 calories a day, drank tons of coffee, and still remained bloated.....as in, I looked pregnant. I eventually discovered my intolerances and cut out those foods. Partly due to the disorder and partly to improve my health, I ate nothing but apples and oranges from the school cafeteria. I replaced 1 piece of fruit for each meal of the day, or I would break them up over the course of the day and did this for about 4-6 months. I actually felt very good, was no longer bloated and had energy. When I moved in with my boyfriend, I transitioned to a somewhat normal diet (without gluten and dairy still), and began bloating again.

Today I notice certain things that exacerbate my bloating, including any grains/starches, sugar, fats, concentrated proteins. My body can't seem to process any of it! I still look pregnant but don't know what to do beacuse I cannot give up all of those things and still live healthfully. I take a digestive enzyme, probiotics, prebiotics, glutamine, zinc and a slew of other things. I am mostly vegan, mostly organic and try to eat mostly raw food.

I think mainly I am just looking to find out what this is. I want a name to put to this thing that has been afflicting me for so long. I think the belly bloating is water retention but have no idea what causes it. Maybe if I knew that, I would have a better idea of how to help myself. Does anyone have any insight?

sounds like maybe a gut flora issue. that can take a bit of time to correct. however if it is in fact water retention, regular exercise and reducing sodium intake and/or increasing potassium intake slightly may help. also, if one regularly does breathing exercises or yoga, then they will have a natural tendency towards having a bigger belly, unless countered with lots of core exercise.

i personally find that exercises like jogging, jumping rope, and core work and very helpful in clearing excess gas.

These are all signs of candida, most likely caused by what I call Karen Carpenter's disease.

Not taking in proper amounts of food for long periods means being deficient in several minerals and vitamins, which can lead to several health issues including candida (yeast) overgrowth, which in turn causes gas/bloating and all kinds of digestion issues such as irritable bowel syndrome, none of which are related to dairy or gluten, but can cause some of the same symptoms.

I suggest to anyone who may have fungal issues to research candida and also to watch some mineral deficiency videos by doctor joel wallach on youtube.

Whatever your health issues, you are still young enough to reverse them.

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Let Food Be Your Medicine And Medicine Be Your Food.(Hippocrates)

Having celiac disease is a challenge enough but you may have other things going on like irritable bowel or simply damage from not eating the correct gluten free diet when younger. The allergic reaction from gluten may have damaged the gut over time preventing you from being able to absorb your nutrients correctly.

You must not eat grains and probably protiens. If what you eat causes bloating you must not eat it because you are allergic to it. You may have more than just celiac disease. It could be refractory celiac disease. Look that one up.

As PBC says there could also be a candida issue but for you I do not recommend guessing at your diagnois and trying to treat it yourself. Find your self a good doctor that practices alternative medicine and who can do a dark field live blood analysis. A naturopathic doctor may also provide this service. Dont bother going unless they can do this test. This test can reveal possible issues. There are probably other tests that you need too. You really need a doctor who is willing to figure this puzzle out and he must really know nutrition.

Of course you must remain gluten free and make sure none is slipping in unseen.

It seems to me that you must go about healing your gut and there are several things to consider but a visit to the right doc will help to pin point things.

Since you cant do dairy you should look into making homemade fermented food like sourkraut. There are a few probiotics that are dairy free as Im sure you know my now. There is a book called "preserving food without canning or freezing" by Deborah Madison. Learn how to do this as these kinds of foods will start re-establishing normal gut flora.

Have you ever considered only eating cooked veggies or keeping your raw stuff limited. Of course everyone say that raw is best but I disagree that this is always true. Cooked veggies are easier to digest and sometimes especially for people like you, they can get nutrients in that raw cannot provide because you are not digesting them well enough.

Think about limiting your raw veggies to juice only, as then the nutrients will be more accessible.

I can't stress enough how important naturally fermented and unpasturized fermented foods are. They are a big part of the Hippocrate protocol...and a par that I my self have neglected over time and Im working on re-establishing. they are living foods, alive with the micro-organims that need to be in your gut. .. You can also go to the Hippocrate Inst. website and see if you can find info on their fermented recipes.

The site www.reachforlife.com sell a number of liquid supplements including trace minerals and a vitamin supplement which I think you should take. Avoiding capules may be a good thing as there could be gluetn in them or something else your allergic too. Curcumin herb may also benefit you but you would have to likely take 1 gram 3xday to get a theraputic effect which is quite a bit.


There is a homeopathic remedy that might be helpful. Its called Duodenoheel. Take as directed on the bottle. It may help to reduce some of the inflammation in the gut. you can get this at www.iherb.com I dont know if it comes in liquid or pills but get the liquid. The pills are made of milk sugar, I dont know if you can tolerate that.

Becaue of the overall poor health of the GI track we must assume that you do have a pathogen issue. The dark field live blood analyi may shed some light on this but if it does not you still must not rule out parasite issues or pathogenic microbes in your liver , blood, gut etc. A parasite protocol will be called for. The most powerful thing I know is MMS. Some people with irritable bowel, illioitis, and crohns disease have had good results with mms with near complete if not complete symptom elimination.
Learn about mms here and follow the links offered. www.jimhumble.biz and especially this page: https://www.jimhumble.biz/biz-intro.htm

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Thank you all so much! I very much appreciate your knowledge and resources you have shared with me.

I a going to be doing a great deal of research. Also, I am certainly going to look into duodenoheel. That stood out to me because I know I was born with polyps of the duodenom. My parents never followed up with doctors (especially because they did not notice any dramatic symptoms)when I was younger because my doctors really had no idea what the implications were.