Diet and MS

As anyone who has read my blog knows, I am a huge advocate of diet being part of the management of the disease.  I also know that what affects me doesn't necessarily affect someone else the same way.  For the last six months, we have eliminated gluten from our diet. This plan was based on a lot of research that says the inflammatory reaction that can be triggered by the gluten can make the MS worse.  I am up for trying anything that will help.  In the last week, I had two dishes that probably had gluten--one was made with soy sauce and the other had a small amount of binder. Both dishes were really good.  However, a few hours after, my legs started having the sharp, burning pains, my balance was off, I became very fatigued.  After the symptoms started, I spoke to the cooks and found out the ingredients. The dishes were dinner and I had had some crazy days.  So the question became food or fatigue.

To investigate this, we decided to do a challenge test.  Not a blind challenge.  I am the main cook when I am home and we wouldn't have bought the ingredients to have in the house anyway.  There was a lot of discussion about psychosomatic reaction, but it was the only good way to test it.  Having a reaction a few hours after eating a particular food is how I stopped eating red meat.  Ultimately, whether it is physical or mental, does it matter if you eat something and then feel horrible?

What I know is that shortly after the meal, I felt bloated and lethargic.  A few hours later, my balance was a little off and the sharp burning pains started in my calf and ankle.  I had a tough time sleeping that night.  The next morning, my hands are tingling, my face (trigemminal) is tingling, and my foot is asleep.  I felt none of this yesterday morning.  So, that kind of answers the question for me.  If it is something that makes me feel bad, then I need to skip it.

There are blood tests to check for gluten sensitivity.  There is endoscopy and biopsy to diagnose celiac disease.  For me, if just making the diet modification solves the problem, why do that?  I am just going to stick to my diet and not worry about the "diagnosis."