As I read through this, it keeps making more and more sense....A couple hours after eating gluten the mental symptoms are as follows: social anxiety, slight dizziness, "down" feeling, both wired and tired at the same time, my inner critic gets really super loud...
I tested negative for celiac disease but was dx gluten intolerant and told to eliminate it. I've tested as having extremely low neurotransmitter levels, and have been on high levels of St. John's Wort (herbal serotonin booster) and amino acids to address the deficiency, for over a year. I know this was caused by gluten, because when I go off of gluten, it is like taking a happy pill; in about two days I start to feel "normal" again. And then after about 4 to 5 days I feel like the sun is shining and I finally know what it is like to actually be
happy--and not in a constant self-berating, groggy funk. I liken this effect to a garden hose with a kink in it--you remove the gluten, you take the kink out of the hose, and everything flows as it should.
It was a relief to get to stop gluten (I was eating it in anticipation of a possible biopsy and I was totally miserable).
I can identify with every single mental/emotional symptom described here.
And I used to be a total wheat freak. It was all or nothing for me. I'd go off of it for a few months, and then a day would come along when I would say, a little bit won't hurt. Sooner or later I had to have it every morning to feel "up." On some level I knew it was making me unwell, mentally.
And you know what I think? I'm no doctor, but for what it is worth: just because medicine doesn't have a test to measure the damage gluten does in some people's brains, does not mean that it isn't every bit as serious as celiac disease. It just happens to manifest in some people as one, or the other, or both.
So, as I understand it from reading the articles I'm linking to below, the theory is that the peptide chains in gluten don't break down in the gut. These large opioid peptides go into the brain, and jam into one's opiate receptors. Much like the toxins in our environment that mimic hormones in our bodies and jam themselves rudely into our hormone receptors, the key fits, but not quite. It is like jamming a square peg into a round hole. This places the "kink in the hose." Gluten comes in, and your own endorphins can't go into your receptors, so maybe your poor little natural endorphins give up and go home or something....And eventually the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis gets out of whack, and that's when physical effects of all sorts may ensue. Like adrenal fatigue, PMS, sleep problems,
so-called emotional problems.
Anyway, here are the articles I found a while ago when I was googling this topic. If you've already seen them, I apologize; if not, I hope they are helpful for someone. I hope there is someday a test to see who has this "brain allergy" (an overly mild term, in my opinion) so that they can avoid all the confusion I had for years.
http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2000...5n01-p005.shtmlhttp://developmental-delay.com/page.cfm/248