Can gluten or wheat allergy/sensitivity cause depression

[SilverLining00]

For years now, if I eat a little bread one day or even for 2 days, I'm okay.  If I eat more than a little for a couple of days, I find my mood crashes and I become more depressed.  Then it takes a couple of days of staying away from that stuff to get my head back on straight.  Has anyone else had this sort of reaction?  Anyone know what it could be?  It's tough to stay away from bread, there are times I just crave it.

[SilverLining00]

Thanks for your reply.  A little confirmation is wonderful.  I do try to stay away from gluten, but the cravings sometimes are just unbelievable.  And, if I have a little, I want MORE and it just goes downhill from there, until I feel all bloated, moody and mad at myself.  If I stay away from that first bite, I think it wouldn't be so bad, but that first bite is always an "I'll just have a little.  A little won't hurt me."  

I actually have a bread recipe which is gluten free and is moist and tasty, the only problem is... I'm lazy.  I've tried some of the stuff they sell in the store, and it's kind of icky.  I'll have to check out the brown rice tortillas, they sound good. Rice cakes too, are good.

It sounds like you have quite a few things to stay away from.  I feel for you, that's tough.  I agree with you, that the mind/body relationship with regards to food allergies should be looked into at a more thorough level.  I know I had to keep my son away from sugary anythings.  I even used to cut his juice with water.  Give him a little and he was doing the indy 500 in my living room.  

[FurballsMom]

I believe that you are at least gluten intolerant, especially to the gluten found in wheat.  And, I believe that you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that it makes you feel depressed.  The rash you get is a tell-tale sign that you are definitely reacting to something.  Even if you were to get allergy tested and it comes back negative for a "true" allergy, you know you're sensitive to the stuff, so you really should avoid it, like a plague.

Oh, and by the way, I have heard about how allergies and sensitivities to certain foods will make kids hyper and will affect their moods, so I know that food sensitivities will affect a person's moods and behavior, too.  I sure wish my mother had been smart enough to pick up on that when I was a kid, because I heard that I had the hyperness and the moodiness even when I was a little kid.  I do remember only getting punished severely, as if anything I were doing was deliberate behavior.  It doesn't do any good to punish people for something that they can't even help, especially little kids.  I know I had to have been sensitive to something that was doing this.  These days, my list of food sensitivities is so very long it's very frustrating, to say the very least.  Knowing what gluten will do to me, I would gather to say that gluten was the culprit even when I was just a little kid.

I don't know how my mother missed that I had all these sensitivities when she told me that I was clearly allergic to tomatoes when I was only a baby.  She thinks I outgrew the allergy.  Well, maybe I don't have a "true" allergy to them anymore, but they aggravate my GERD, as will anything in the nightshade, so I bet I was still sensitive to the things when I was a little kid, since I'm sensitive to them now.  And, I used to really crave tomatoes.  This is important information, too, because people usually crave the very things that they're "allergic" to or sensitive to.

Since discovering gluten and dairy intolerances, I have found a few things that a person can have that are gluten-free.  There are breads now that are made from brown rice.  Just be sure to read the list of ingredients and make sure that they don't have something else you're sensitive to.  Trader Joe's also has brown rice tortillas that only have three ingredients in them, so they're safe for people who need gluten-free breads.  I noticed that the brown rice breads are actually rather expensive, so I opt for the tortillas and rice cakes.  Since I can't eat corn, thus I can't eat popcorn, I actually really like rice cakes as an alternative to popcorn.

[SilverLining00]

Oh yeah, I also get a few small itchy spots, that resemble a tiny blister, that turns into something closer to a small mosquito bite.  They last about a week or so, dry out and flake off.  Very weird.  These show up a couple or few days after I've eaten bread or wheat.