Reaction to Wheat? Or Is It Sugar?
Yesterday I decided to do a carb up with dinner and had rice. I figured since I already ate a few carbs, why not eat a few more? I then ate a cinnamon brown sugar pop tart. I then ate a few more. I didn't have any response to it yesterday, but this morning my right knee is hurting. It's aching in the middle of the joint and tender muscles all around. I've been told by a specialist and a physical therapist that when my knee is like this that it's due to inflammation.
Perhaps I do have a wheat intolerance. Or maybe the sugar is what's causing the problem. I read in The Autoimmune Fix that no human is able to fully digest wheat. Although many people are able to digest most of it without any problems, there are many who cannot which can result in Celiac Disease or simply be a wheat intolerance. When your body has an intolerance, it causes inflammation and will manifest in the weakest link in your body's health chain. I can already tell you that my knees are definitely one of my weak links. The three biggest culprits for food intolerance are wheat, diary, and sugar. There isn't any dairy in those pop tarts so I can rule that out.
I have had knee problems for as long as I can remember. When I was in gymnastics at age 12, I remember my knees hurting. I was always watching them convinced that they were swelling (which they weren't - at least not on the outside). When I was in a high school health class I asked my teacher if it was normal for knees to crack. I did a squat to demonstrate my problem and you could audibly hear my knees crackle. My teacher asked if it hurt, it didn't, and he said that he guessed I didn't need to worry about it. Then there's the time when I was on my mission and started running everyday. My right knee flared up so badly that I was convinced I was going to need knee surgery and get sent home. The doctor did an x-ray and had no answers to why my knee hurt. I stopped running and the problem went away. How about just a few years ago when I began running again? I wasn't experiencing any pain so I kept it up. It wasn't until I ran a half marathon that I really did some damage and wasn't able to walk properly for awhile. That's when I finally gave up the notion that I could be a runner. And finally, just last year when I started a new low impact exercise routine that had so many squats in it that both knees flared up. I couldn't bend my knees at all without it being very painful. Even walking on my knees about killed me. Back to the doctor I went, another x-ray (third time - I don't remember much about the second so I'm leaving it out) and I found out I have arthritis in my joints. My left knee is bone on bone in some areas which is interesting because my right hurts more. With my most recent visits to specialists I've been told that I will have to have some kind of surgery to repair/replace (depending on the technology by then) the discs in my knees in 10-15 years. Yay.
I went to therapy within the last year which actually helped a lot. It was a little frustrating because I've been to several doctors over the course of my life and they didn't have solutions for me. One visit to a therapist and she figures it out immediately. She discovered that my quads were very strong while my hamstrings were not. Because of this, my quads were pulling my knees out of place. I focused a lot on my hamstrings and have brought balance to my knees, but even that balance hasn't removed the pain inside and around the joint. I changed my exercise routine to incorporate these practices to ensure my knees stay balanced.
This whole time I've been told over and over that I have "bad" knees. That I need to do low impact exercises, avoid squats and any excessive bending of my knees. What if this whole time my "bad" knees were actually a response to my diet? With all the research I've done, that isn't out of the question. In fact, that's where I'm leaning. What if all the wheat or sugar I've eaten throughout my life has only contributed to the inflammation in my knees which is causing them to be weak? This is all speculation, but now you can see why I'm on this health journey. The damage has been done, but I hope that I can at least slow the progression by making these changes. Who knows, maybe as I fix my diet and allow my body to heal, medicine will figure out a way to regrow discs so I can avoid surgery. That would be ideal, but I certainly won't hold my breath.
Perhaps I do have a wheat intolerance. Or maybe the sugar is what's causing the problem. I read in The Autoimmune Fix that no human is able to fully digest wheat. Although many people are able to digest most of it without any problems, there are many who cannot which can result in Celiac Disease or simply be a wheat intolerance. When your body has an intolerance, it causes inflammation and will manifest in the weakest link in your body's health chain. I can already tell you that my knees are definitely one of my weak links. The three biggest culprits for food intolerance are wheat, diary, and sugar. There isn't any dairy in those pop tarts so I can rule that out.
I have had knee problems for as long as I can remember. When I was in gymnastics at age 12, I remember my knees hurting. I was always watching them convinced that they were swelling (which they weren't - at least not on the outside). When I was in a high school health class I asked my teacher if it was normal for knees to crack. I did a squat to demonstrate my problem and you could audibly hear my knees crackle. My teacher asked if it hurt, it didn't, and he said that he guessed I didn't need to worry about it. Then there's the time when I was on my mission and started running everyday. My right knee flared up so badly that I was convinced I was going to need knee surgery and get sent home. The doctor did an x-ray and had no answers to why my knee hurt. I stopped running and the problem went away. How about just a few years ago when I began running again? I wasn't experiencing any pain so I kept it up. It wasn't until I ran a half marathon that I really did some damage and wasn't able to walk properly for awhile. That's when I finally gave up the notion that I could be a runner. And finally, just last year when I started a new low impact exercise routine that had so many squats in it that both knees flared up. I couldn't bend my knees at all without it being very painful. Even walking on my knees about killed me. Back to the doctor I went, another x-ray (third time - I don't remember much about the second so I'm leaving it out) and I found out I have arthritis in my joints. My left knee is bone on bone in some areas which is interesting because my right hurts more. With my most recent visits to specialists I've been told that I will have to have some kind of surgery to repair/replace (depending on the technology by then) the discs in my knees in 10-15 years. Yay.
I went to therapy within the last year which actually helped a lot. It was a little frustrating because I've been to several doctors over the course of my life and they didn't have solutions for me. One visit to a therapist and she figures it out immediately. She discovered that my quads were very strong while my hamstrings were not. Because of this, my quads were pulling my knees out of place. I focused a lot on my hamstrings and have brought balance to my knees, but even that balance hasn't removed the pain inside and around the joint. I changed my exercise routine to incorporate these practices to ensure my knees stay balanced.
This whole time I've been told over and over that I have "bad" knees. That I need to do low impact exercises, avoid squats and any excessive bending of my knees. What if this whole time my "bad" knees were actually a response to my diet? With all the research I've done, that isn't out of the question. In fact, that's where I'm leaning. What if all the wheat or sugar I've eaten throughout my life has only contributed to the inflammation in my knees which is causing them to be weak? This is all speculation, but now you can see why I'm on this health journey. The damage has been done, but I hope that I can at least slow the progression by making these changes. Who knows, maybe as I fix my diet and allow my body to heal, medicine will figure out a way to regrow discs so I can avoid surgery. That would be ideal, but I certainly won't hold my breath.
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