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by DamnInteresting 498 days ago
> I developed gluten/lactose sensitivity during covid times

Same here, at least in regard to gluten. I was in my mid-forties, and I started experiencing painful bloating that often led to difficulty breathing, and after an hour or so of pain, vomiting. The involuntary 'protein spill' alleviated the pain of bloating, but I was left exhausted for the remainder of the day.

At first, these episodes occurred about once every 2 weeks, but they grew more and more common over a few months, until it was a nearly daily occurrence. I had become overweight (I'm still working on that), so my doctor concluded that I just needed to lose some body fat. It felt like there was something more serious more going on, but US health care.

Weeks later, I stumbled upon a science article describing how millions of people develop gluten sensitivity later in life. It described familiar symptoms and progression. As an experiment, I tried eliminating gluten from my diet (which is tricky, that stuff sneaks into surprising places), and I felt much better within a few days.

In the ~2 years since, I've had a few episodes, but I can almost always find a place where gluten snuck into my food (e.g., a taco place that added flour to its corn tortillas). On one occasion, I deliberately ate a bit of bread, and sure enough, 30 minutes later I was begging the porcelain gods for forgiveness.

I miss real bread, but for me, the blowback isn't worth it.

1 comments

100%. it took me years to consider gluten/lactose as the root cause, because I'd been eating them for years and definitely never almost suffocated like the symptoms it causes now for me now.