Die-Off vs. Food Intolerance

This has become one of the BIGGEST questions I have asked myself, and tried to answer for others. When you are trying to heal your gut lining through GAPS, they say be prepared for die-off reactions. In addition, you are also coming to know your body more and recognizing which foods your body can't tolerate at this moment. This is one thing that Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride says about the difference:

How can you tell the difference between die-off and food intolerance?  For example, how do you know if flatulence is caused by the meal you just ate or from the meal prior to that one?

The die-off symptoms can be new symptoms or can be your usual symptoms getting worse, when you introduce new diet, probiotics or anti-parasitic, anti-fungal/anti-bacterial remedies.  Food intolerance symptoms appear when you introduce new foods into your diet.  If you have been eating a particular food routinely, which you suspect as causing food intolerances, remove it for 3-4 weeks, then try to eat it again.  Your body will let you know if you are intolerant to it.  Production of gas takes time; it is the pathogens in the gut (usually fungi) that convert food into gas.  So, it is your previous meals that produced the gas.  Every meal sends a propulsion reflex down the digestive system, so that gas in the bowel may be released when you are eating your next meal.

So from my previous post you can see that I had been going through some not so fun arthritic pain for the past two weeks. I thought it was die-off. I have come to learn, that nope, it was a food intolerance manifesting itself BIG TIME! Once I figured it out, and took it out, the arthritic pain went away! So I think right now I will have to cross off beef, pork and possibly chicken from my list. I am experimenting with turkey. So far so good. Luckily there is a Sprout's an hour away from me, near my sister, where they sell also some wild game (Elk, deer, bison....). I will have to check that out, and see if I can alternate. I heard this can be resolved, just need to have it out for a bit. I also tried adding cauliflower back in my diet, and it seemed to cause brain fog. I am LOVING not having brain fog right now. I wish I knew this during mid-terms!

So you may be asking, are these new food intolerances, or did I just not recognize them? This is what Dr. Natasha said in her FAQ:

I am mostly doing GAPS because of multiple food intolerances in my kids and a history of the same for myself. It seems that it really is only getting worse. I need to understand the ‘science’ of why that is.There is a so-called masking phenomenon in food allergies. When the person keeps eating offending foods, reactions to them overlap with each other and it is impossible to know what exactly the person is reacting to. When you start removing foods hidden allergies get unmasked, which is often a nasty surprise. In GAPS people their gut is damaged and porous, so they may react to most foods, if not all of them. As we cannot starve ourselves, we need to ignore those reactions and get on with healing the gut lining. If a particular food is causing an unacceptably severe reaction, then keep it out for a while. But if the reactions are not too drastic, just live with them, while working on your GAPS Introduction diet. In the meantime bio-resonance therapy, medical neutralisation, homeopathy, NES and other vibrational forms of medicine can help you to reduce the severity of reactions.

Some things I am noticing now with my food intolerances are change of thoughts (sometimes emotions as well), increase heart rate, fatigue, joint pain, headaches, foggy thinking, abdominal discomfort, acid reflux, problems sleeping, craving that food, not feeling satisfied after eating, etc. So what do I do? I try to decide which symptoms I can deal with, and which one's I don't want (no joint pain!). I'll due my best to limit the one's I know I react to, and then try them back in, after some time and see if I am stronger. I have seen so many testimonials that people's food intolerances have been fixed through this. Need to keep having hope!

GAPS Diet - First few weeks experiences

I started the GAPS diet a few months ago, and noticed a difference right away. Then I started to get prideful (in a sense), and went through the stages a lot faster than my body was able to. I think my thinking was "I have been eating something similar to this for many moons, so I shouldn't need to be on the beginning stages for too long..." Boy was I wrong!

I began to get sick again, and experience bad symptoms all over about 3 weeks ago. I didn't know what to do. I talked with my doctor and decided to start GAPS all over again. This time just go down to the bare minimum - broth and meat, then slowly add a vegetable in one at a time. (I'm still at broth and meat - but it's ok). My body really needed to heal, and I needed to allow it time to heal. I had a short "honeymoon" period of one day :) Wow! did I love it!!! My brain fog completely cleared, my mind calmed down - no more racing, I could concentrate, my anxiety was gone (especially after eating) and the crazy, depressive thoughts that were becoming increasingly present had stopped.

Then the "detoxing" began. This has been one of the hardest and longest detoxes I have ever experienced. I can see now that one of the problems with the SCD diet is that when  you go on the full version, you then start to eat A LOT of high oxalate type foods - nuts, spinach, quinoa etc. A lot of the substitutions used for baking are high in these. I have been consuming almonds, quinoa etc for a long time now. I can see that they were almost like an opiate for me. Would be my "calming" food. This isn't good, but hard to see when you are in the thick of it. It was REALLY hard to stop eating these things. I noticed I would crave them, even though I wasn't hungry. I finally was able to just stop them 2 weeks ago. What I didn't know was what would happen if you had been consuming high oxalate foods for awhile, and then stop it. The first few days, my large joints were badly inflamed, and it was hard to move. I noticed that it was mostly on parts of my body that I had been having trouble with previously. The inflammation would move as well, almost moving downward. I joined a yahoo support group for Low Oxalate Diet, and discovered that the vitamin Biotin can help with the pain. So I bought some and was surprised at how fast it worked. If you take the right dosage, then within 5 minutes the pain would be gone. I LOVE BIOTIN!!!

I am still feeling the effects of detoxing after 2 weeks, but they are not as severe as when I first started. I am also noticing that I am calming down inside even more than before. It's a great feeling! I went and got acupuncture done yesterday, and have noticed even less inflammation today with my joints.  Tai Ji and some QiGong movements have also been helping.

So what have I learned during this time:

• GAPS has been working for me so far. My digestion problems are much better, as well as the brain fog, and calmer thinking.
• I NEED to go much SLOWER than I originally thought, and have more patience with myself. Luckily my body is really loving the added fat to my diet. I noticed that I feel so much better after eating it, and calmer.
• Fermented foods, and probiotics are beneficial, but also can be strong. These need to be added in slowly to not detox too fast.
• You don't need to just "suffer" through detoxing reactions. There are some great tools to helping reduce or eliminate the symptoms - enemas (the BEST really fast fix), epsom salt baths, activated charcoal, Biotin, magnesium. 
• When I go to full GAPS to watch my oxalate intake, and not get too carried away with all the almond flour, etc. in order to to eat eat baked goods. 
• That I love learning how to cook all these old traditional meals - bone soup/ meat stock, sauerkraut. And am looking forward to learning how to make Yogurt in a crockpot, Kefir, etc. 
• Knowledge is so important. Reading the book has helped as well as finding additional information online, and other people's experiences. Also talking to others, so you can hear yourself as to what is going on, or getting insights from others. Sometimes I don't notice reactions, or things I am doing to hurt myself. I am grateful that my two others sisters are doing intro with me - it does help.