How Gluten May Be Causing Your Chronic Pain

How Gluten May Be Causing Your Chronic Pain

Chronic pain affects every aspect of your life. It affects how and whether you can work. It affects your relationships with family and friends. It affects your mood and your outlook on life. Relentless pain becomes an ever-present companion that follows you everywhere, no matter what you do.

Many who live with chronic pain spend a lifetime trying to find the cause of their pain. Traditional medicine often treats the symptoms and treats each pain as its own disease. Take this medicine for this pain. Take a different medication for a different pain. You will often receive contradictory advice. Try to increase your activity. No, you have to rest. Try ice cream. No, try heat. Well-meaning friends and family members will offer all sorts of advice and old wives' tales, and may even accuse you of making it all up.

At what point do you give up on all misguided medical advice and embrace a life of chronic pain?

Before you give up and give in, you need to know a common cause of chronic pain and a problem that can be solved relatively easily. A devious perpetrator may have been quietly ravaging your body for years. Gluten.

What is gluten?

Simply put, gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, malt, rye and some oats. People with a gluten sensitivity often have no idea what kind of destruction this protein wreaks on their bodies. The traditional medical community has only recently recognized how gluten can cause harm.

People with gluten sensitivity cannot digest this protein. As the protein travels through their digestive system, it damages the villi in their intestines, the part of your intestines that collects nutrients from your food. Over time, you lose the ability to absorb nutrients into your body, leading to a variety of health problems including:

• Zöliakie;
• Autoimmunerkrankung;
• Ermüden;
• Anämie;
• Psychische Gesundheitsprobleme wie Depressionen oder Angstzustände;
• ADS und ADHS;
• Reizdarmsyndrom;
• Neuropathie;
• Und chronische Schmerzen.

How does gluten cause chronic pain?

It's hard to imagine that a protein found in the most basic foods - bread, cereal, pasta - could cause so much harm. But when you think about what you're losing by ingesting what is essentially a poison, this actually makes more sense.

Gluten causes chronic pain in two important ways. Primarily, gluten sensitivity leads to inflammation. Inflammation simply leads to pain. In fact, you may have been taking anti-inflammatory medications for years and know full well that your pain is linked to inflammation. Gluten also causes chronic pain through its effect on your neurological system. For example, gluten has been linked to migraines and nerve damage.

So what can I do?

Your chronic pain will never get better until you get to the root cause of the pain. For example, you may have known that inflammation led to chronic pain. However, inflammation is just another symptom, not a cause. Too often, traditional doctors stop diagnosing one step short of the root cause.

If you think gluten is causing your chronic pain, there are several steps you can take. First, you can talk to your doctor about testing your blood for antibodies related to gluten sensitivity. While these tests can detect gluten sensitivity and give you concrete evidence, they are not perfect.

In fact, most of the time when you go to your doctor, the typical test ordered to determine whether you have gluten intolerance is a notoriously poor test. Learn more about why the typical gluten intolerance test isn't enough by reading one informative white paper on the subject.

If the tests come back negative but you still suspect gluten is the culprit for your chronic pain, you can try a gluten elimination diet. This means that all foods that contain gluten (and the list is quite long) are removed for a defined period of time. Once you've rid your body of this protein, you can reintroduce it into your diet. If your symptoms recur, you have your answer.

Don’t give up and give in to a life of chronic pain. You deserve to live a fulfilling, productive and happy life. Chronic pain prevents you from living the life you want to live. It's time to stop treating the symptoms and get to the root cause. A gluten-free diet may be your ticket to a pain-free life.

Inspired by Dr. Karl R.O.S. Johnson, D.C