Gluten free? Dairy Free?

So, I read the book "wheat belly" and realized how harmful gluten is to our guts. (It's a really interesting read, by the way!) Anyways for the last 4-5 months I've been gluten free. I'm currently in a flare and I can say that I haven't seen any improvement by doing that.
As I truly believe my UC has a lot to do with the food I've been eating, I am constantly googling and reading about what other harmful foods are out there that I'm eating! What I've found is "carageenan." It's an additive found in almond milk, and several other foods. But, that's where I get my daily dose is almond milk. Well, it occurred to me that after drinking a glass, or putting it in my coffee I was running (sprinting) to the bathroom. Urgency is the worse of it for me. I've had several accidents in the past few months! As I have been reading about carageenan, I'm beginning to think this is probably worse then the gluten. Or it just effects me more than gluten.

I know every one has their own opinion and how they react to certain foods, but geeeez why is my body so sensitive? Are being dairy free, carageenan free, gluten free all worth it? Do you think just because I havent seen any improvement with going gluten free- should I continue being gluten free?

Are being carageenan free and dairy free two different things? Or is carageenan found in many dairy products AND non-dairy products like almond milk?

Curious to hear what you have to say!!

If you haven't seen symptom improvement after4 months gluten-free then you probably don't have gluten-intolerance. In my case I didn't connect gluten with symptoms because it caused a stop in symptoms because my gut couldn't process it so I really thought gluten was not a problem. But whenever I put it back in my gut reacts with bleeding (too much gluten) or constipation (small amount of gluten). But everyone is different.

Cow milk is also not beloved by my gut. Too bad because I LOVE ice cream. I use coconut milk (skim the cream off the top of the can) to replace milk in my tea. I skip store-bought almond and rice milk because of the "extra" ingredients and just no time to make my own. Cow milk symptoms are multiple BM's the next morning.

Carageenan has been out of my food list for years. Watch out for cream and half and half, they all have carageenan and most ice creams (except Haagen Daz).

Read all ingredients before buying and eating.
Good luck.

While everyone has foods which make their UC worse, UC is an autoimmune disease. It is not caused by foods so, even though by eliminating some foods which may make your condition worse, it is not going to work as an overall treatment plan, maybe just part of a treatment plan. Many times the reason we have problems with foods is because the UC has caused the condition, not the other way around. If you were to heal your colon by whatever method, you could then resume eating these kinds of foods again because it was not them that caused your condition in the first place. You are looking for answers with a prejudiced mind so you are only going to see what you want to see. Obviously, you don't have a problem with gluten.

Carageenan is an additive in many foods. You need to read labels if you want to eliminate carageenan.

People who are intolerant of casein must be very careful because casein appears in many processed foods as well. Sometimes "vegetarian cheese" even has casein!

Lactose is pretty much a part of any dairy product. Sometimes I think it is added into other foods, but not as often as casein.

Lactose intolerance is quite common and pretty much every adult is lactose intolerant to some degree. There is little lactose in aged cheese, so go ahead and eat your cheddar, LOL.

Aged Cheddar it is, kazbern! lol :) Thanks for the info. It's really helpful.

Well there are other pesky things in milk that are hard on the gut not just lactose but from what I read the pesky ingredients are only in cows milk.
That too was on Dr. Wiels ulcerative colitis guide.

I don't think food really had any effect on me for better or worse

It's obvious that both you and noelle27 have no need to avoid gluten. It doesn't affect your IBD. But I am not sure if that is an advantage or disadvantage. The good news is that, unlike some of us, you can eat pizza and have a beer with friends once in a while and not worry about having an accident later on.

OTOH watching my diet gives me the illusion of control over my disease, but I don't know how long that will last.

From my understanding, with or without bowel issues people can develop food sensitivities/intolerance/allergies at any point in their lives and when you have gut issues of any kind they can easily be masked by your gut issues (IBD/IBS/Celiacs, etc.

I've often heard if you don't have gluten/wheat intolerance (Celiacs disease) then there's no need to avoid gluten/wheat, but some people without Celiacs can still have gluten/wheat sensitivities so it's kinda tricky I suppose, and the best way to find out if you're sensitive (not having Celiacs) is to cut wheat/gluten out and monitor your symptoms then slowly add them back in separately and monitor to see how things go and you should be able to determine if you're sensitive to either/both gluten/wheat.

Same with lactose intolerance but you can easily get tested for lactose intolerance (it can be anywhere from mild to severe) it's individual for each.

I've been doing the low FODMAP no fructose diet for almost 2 months now, now into my 3rd week of reintroduction (yay only one week left to go after this week!!) and after the first 4 weeks before starting the reintroduction phase my dietitian said right off the bat it appears that stress is what's driving my issues (with my IBS, CD is in remission) because if it was high FODMAP and fructose and gluten and wheat (she has me eating wheat and gluten free as well) then I should have had much improvement with my symptoms and I haven't.

Even since adding some things back in as she's instructed and carefully following her guidelines, I have not gotten any worse, in fact not much changed but I've been trying to manage my stress/anger much better and have been starting to notice some improvements (it's really hard because I know my menstrual cycle does a doozy on my gut and there's nothing I can do about that at all, I just hope that menopause will alleviate my gut issues, but that generally doesn't seem to be the kind of luck I typically have lol) pretty sad that I'm waiting on menopause to hopefully make my guts smarten up some too :(

Although research cannot confirm either way if food/diet is a trigger for IBD (like they can for the most part for IBS- being spicy, fatty, too much processed foods) that doesn't mean certain foods (even healthy foods) can't aggravate symptoms for IBD same with stress, they know stress can also be a huge trigger for IBS but not necessarily do they know if it triggers IBD though they suspect like with food, that it can aggravate symptoms.

Because not enough is known, people can only try to figure out what exacerbates their symptoms with either IBD or IBS, so that pretty much leaves it to trial and error.

I was diagnosed with IBD about 10 years ago. A couple of years after I had some blood testing done to see what foods I might have sensitivities too. There were several of them. Wheat, cows milk, eggs, to name a few. Over the years, I've learned that when I avoid the foods that I am sensitive too I do MUCH better. I have been off meds for quite a while and my last colonoscopy was also great. However, I haven't been so good with my diet the last few months and I am also experiencing a flare. I know it isn't necessarily the cause, but my diet definitely aggravates things. :(