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new to the gluten free journey?
Dr. Parker is a board certified psychiatrist with 40 years of clinical experience. He does an excellent job of laying out the nature of how gluten impacts and damages brain and nerve tissue. Dr. Parker’s website is www.corepsychblog.com
You can watch part 2 and 3 here!
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The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Peter Osborne, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Peter Osborne and his community. Peter Osborne encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.
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18 Responses
Very interesting video with Dr. Parker’s discussion about the effects of gluten on the brains well as the body. I have suffered from major stomach issues over the years until it reached the point where doubling meds for “IBS” no longer worked and I tried the gluten free diet…which after only 3 days…is already making me feel better!!! No stomach cramps….no bathroom runs…no bloating…it is incredible!! I have also suffered from anxiety much of my life as well as carpul tunnel syndrome in my adult years…it’s incredible that gluten causes so much damage to the body…
THANK YOU so much for sharing this information!
Charlene,
Thanks for sharing your story! You are very welcome. Be sure to check out the rest of the interview. It is broken down into parts, but the whole interview is about 80 minutes.
I have been enjoying these tutorials. Coming from a large family with tons of mental illness/multiple immune disorders I believe to be caused by an inabilty to tolerate grains, I am grateful for the information.
I’ve been studying about gluten sensitivity (I have celiac disease) and am intrigued by “intestines are the second brain” and “go with your gut”
Having a “schitzophrenic” brother I feel dissapointed and discouraged that Dr. Parker still believes in drugs to treat mental illness.
Many thanks Peter for sending this out and breaking it down into some reasonable sound bites.
The entire issue of immune dysfunction and refractory mental health challenges will continue to become more relevant as the days go by. Those informed in these issues will surely be covering more useful bases than those who don’t!
Many thanks again for the opportunity to work together on this project-
Chuck
Hey Doc,
Thanks for the fantastic interview. I will send you a link with the entire series. I am working on something very big, and would like to have you as a speaker if you are open to it.
All the best
I have a friend who has recently been diagnosed with Idiopathic Trigeminal Neuralgia. At first they thought it might have been MS, and I remember her telling me she didn’t have any gag reflex, but, after tests came back as negative for MS, they diagnosed ITN. I know she had one episode of such severe pain, that she said it was the most painful thing she had ever experienced. The drugs they prescribe to deal with the pain, or any potential pain, apparently leave her feeling like a zombie and she can’t think straight. She also has difficulty sleeping. She basically lives in fear of a recurrence of that painful episode, and is terrified of surgery due to some of the horror stories she has read about some of the results.
Could ITN be caused by wheat/gluten? And more importantly, can her condition be reversed by eliminating grains? If so, which grains? All? Or is it specifically gluten?
The simple answer is yes – Trigeminal neuralgia can be caused by gluten/grain exposure. I have seen this correlation in my clinic many times. That being said, there are other contributing factors to neuralgia – i.e. vitamin B12 deficiency, heavy metal toxicity…
Elimination of all grains is recommended.
All the best,
Dr. Osborne
This video cut off in the middle. Dr Parker and neuropathy. I always learn so much form Dr. O.
Please resend the good link.
Thanks,
Judith
My has ocd anc has tried many medication its a anxiety disorder
Absolutely love your work Dr Osborne. My husband has had a very bad all consuming skin problem for 2 years. Dermatologists, doctors and other medical, people seem flummoxed and with no reasons why and what to do about it. It covers his whole bodyand is a rash that turns into ugly itchy stinging painful deep sores with scratching oozing and bleeding and is a nightmare to live with. We know from past IGG blood tests he has a reaction to gluten and gliadin and dairy. He has raised Iga levels, raised Ige levels and raised CRP levels. Dr Rodney Ford in Christchurch told him it is an imflamatory skin problem and stop all gluten, dairy and all grain.He had your book No Grain no,pain and told us to get it and follow it. After 3 days on no grain, dairy he felt an improvement and after 2 weeks can see a change for which he’s over the moon. One question though,please. The sores are still very painful. Do you think the pain could be due to nerve, neurological causes more than just actual pain from deep sores as the pain seems out of context to me. More amplified. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you for your good work. Sheron Pearson NZ.
I love Dr. Ford! Thanks for sharing Sheron.
The pain could be neurological, but it could also be over sensitization. Give it more time. I would highly encourage your husband to have his nutritional status evaluated. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are a common reason the healing process can be slowed, and B-vitamin deficiency is a common cause of persistent nerve pain.
All the best,
Dr. Osborne
Hello, I am the father of a son who is having trouble with social skills and attention. We have noticed that cutting out gluten makes an improvement. However the dietist in charge of preschool and school kitchen wants to see a doctors recommendation that says that he should avoid gluten for health reasons. Is there any doctor who could issue such a recommendation without seeing us in person? We are located in a small town in Sweden and it is hard to find doctors who believe in benefit of avoiding glute.
Regards
Rasmus
Rasmus
I’ve had gluten issues since I was a child but after experiencing many unusual and extremely stressful events over the course of a few months my issues worsened and it became clear gluten was the cause. I just wanted to throw this out there in case it might help someone else. Before I eliminated gluten from my life I would get a severe and painful ovarian cyst that would break every 6 months. It was in the same spot every time. It stopped after there was no more gluten in my life.
So, my name is Georgia Trewin and I’m 21. Growing up, I had all sorts of troubles, I always had diarrhea, felt sick and I had a foggy head, I couldn’t focus, to the point where I was told I had dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADD. I had to have after school classes because of this, to tutor me to get through school. I scraped 4 GCSE’s and I couldn’t explain to anyone how I felt so foggy and like I hadn’t slept in weeks and that’s why I couldn’t learn. Along side this, I was severely depressed, self harming, couldn’t get off the sofa and was indulging in donuts to make me feel better but I was getting worse (and putting on weight. It got the the point where something had to change, I took gluten out of my diet to see If it would help my poorly tummy. This changed my life completely, I was no longer depressed, I lost 5 stone and haven’t put on weight since, I also managed to persuade a sixth form to give me a chance and I went from having dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADD to A,A,A* in chemistry, physics and biology at A-level, a high 2:1 in international law at university and a graduate job in China.
My mum’s experience is much, much worse. Mum was diagnosed with MS in 2009, it took the doctor 4 days to diagnose this, from the beginning we knew something wasn’t right and within 5 years of this diagnosis mum couldn’t stand for more than 20 seconds, or walk more than 5 feet without sitting down, she had a wheelchair for when we went out the house and a walker for around the house. She was in constant pain which also meant she wouldn’t stay in bed for more than 5 hours, resulting in her getting up at 5am and turning all the lights on and the TV’s at full volume, she had uncontrollable muscle spasms, head rocking and was unable to communicate and have a conversation. She also suffered with visual issues which the optician couldn’t fix as it was her brain rather than her eyes that were the problem.
We got desperate and after looking on google and reading articles about how gluten affected the brain we gave it a go, we had nothing to loose and every aspect changed. We got her back to being able to talk and hold a conversation, have her own opinions. She could walk around our house, to the point where she was changing the room she sat in every 10 minutes, as she walked she could balance her cup of tea on her walker. She could stand normally, shower herself, dress herself, she had no pain and slept for 10-12 hours a night, we had to wake her up in the morning. However, she was loosing weight really quickly and me and dad were accused of starving her, the carers fed her normal food on advise from the dietician and neurologist, who told us we were in denial and gluten wouldn’t make a difference to her condition. We both tried to fight our corner and told all thew doctors we saw a difference but we were ignored.
As a result of being fed normal food, mum deteriorated really, really quickly. Her short term memory was non-existent which resulted in her eating us out of house and home everyday because she forgot what she had eaten and therefore would eat 16 bag of crisps, packets of biscuits, 12 muller corners in a day and still didn’t put on weight. So she was fed high protein and high carb foods to try and help her put on weight, she couldn’t walk, became incontinent both ways, couldn’t hold a conversation, couldn’t eat stuff properly, struggled swallowing, she became so poorly and as a result she had to go into care. She’s now considered to have late stage dementia and chronic brain damage. We argued with the neurologist and he reluctantly did a second MRI, we never saw him again and we had a new neurologist who told us the MRI didn’t show MS at all and in fact she has white brain matter disease, they couldn’t apologise enough for the care we had previously received. We were told that mums issues may be genetic, our never genetics specialist has rule out PKU and other things but both he and our neurologist is baffled at the affect of gluten on our bodies.
I currently feel that I am at the beginning stage and my mum is at the end stage. My dad cant stress enough that I am going through the same things my mum did at this age. I can vouch for what gluten does to my body, whereas my mum cannot. We’ve both been tested for Crohn’s disease due to showing symptoms but it came back negative.
So this is why I am emailing you today, we’re wondering if this sounds familiar in any way, currently my main worry is ending up in the position that my mum is in. From advise from my current doctors I have remained gluten free, my mum has also signed to donate her body to medical science when she dies, if it is gluten ataxia then I presume this would be really helpful.
Thanks for sharing your story. Unfortunately, your story and your Mum’s is a “broken record”. Gluten induced neurological damage is very real, much more common than most think, and often times overlooked.
Make sure to tap into the resources on this site. Many do a gluten free diet incorrectly, and thus suffer continued side effects.
All the best,
Dr. O