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Here are the things that I noticed, although acknowledging that they might be at least partially due to continued improvement from the original stopping of the supplements/herbal remedies.
1. I have asthma, and have been troubled for about the past 10 years with an increasingly raspy voice and lots of throat clearing from the mucus associated with the asthma. I joked that I sound older than my 92-year-old mother. When I use the steroid inhaler to help with bronchitis from a respiratory infection or hay fever for several weeks, my voice gets even worse, as hoarseness is a common side affect. Well, after 2 weeks GF, I am much improved, so much so that my husband told me that I was sounding like my old self again. It's been really wonderful, since I've been a bit self-conscious about having such a poor voice. It's been pretty dramatic!
2. My left hand has had problems with trigger finger, an inflamation of the tendons of the fingers. I had surgery, a trigger finger release, last fall and then noticed a similar problem developing with the adjacent finger. However, in the past 2 weeks I have noticed a considerable improvement, although it's certainly not back to normal.
3. I have been bothered with dry, irritated eyes since menopause, but have noticed some improvement.
4. My energy level and mood has continued to improve.
5. My gut has continued to improve a bit, although it was doing pretty good before I started. I would say that the number of BMs have decreased from mostly 3 per day to mostly 2. The gut rumbling, although it was doing pretty good before, is a bit less too. I am also able to eat a wider variety of foods without problems.
So in summary, I would say that all of my non-gut inflamatory issues have shown a significant improvement after only 2 weeks, and I'm hopeful that I will continue to make progress. I sent off my sample to Enterolabs today for test for anti-gliaden sensitivity, so should get that result back in a few weeks.
The GF diet has been pretty easy, as I was already DF, and my daughter-in-law and 2 grandkids have CD, so I'm familiar with the GF diet from their visits. My husband has been extremely supportive, especially since seeing the improvement in my energy level, mood and voice. He has no problem with the GF substitutions, since he can still have his microbrews!
