<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

It is hard to make a long story short, but here goes: my son would be in a mental institution if he were not on the gf diet and using prescription pancreatic enzymes. The meds that a neurologist prescribed for his "migraine with episodic dyscontrol" (migraine accompanied by an episode of complete change in personality and behavior, to become an aggressive and destructive force of nature) clearly made everything far worse (they were antipsychotic and antiseizure meds). Only the gf diet works. There is a lot of info out there re studies on mental hospital patients (esp. schizophrenics) that can actually go home once they are put on a gf diet, but unfortunately I do not have any links for that information. My son clearly loses his mind with even the smallest amount of gluten cross contamination (or on the skin) - he will ask for something and then wonder why I brought it to him one minute later; he will rip something up and then an hour later wonder who ripped that up. A gluten reaction will plunge him deep into depression for weeks or even months he will not get off the sofa other than to use the restroom, but paradoxically seems also to trigger manic episodes where he is loud and ebullient and planning so much more than he can ever do.--------------------------------------------------------------------------I suffer from clinical depression and I am on prozac and wellbutrin.
Since going gf, I have noticed my temperment has mellowed, and I am not
so depressed. I feel pretty normal (if I ever knew what normal was =)
I also have more energy. I am not ready to go off anti-depressants (and
may never be) but going gf has ceertainly helped me in many ways.
------------------------------------------------------------------------In children going GF
there
is DRAMATIC mental improvement. Recently a woman told me that all three
of
her kids have various reactions to wheat and other allergens.
Most dramatically her one son acted like he was on morphine when he had
wheat and when he's off of it he's a completely different person... she
said
he's "in the moment" now that he's totally GF. ------------------------------------------------------------------------I have two children diagnosed within the last few months with
celiac and both suffered mentally before going on the gluten-free diet.
Both had thoughts of suicide.  Within a week of going off gluten my son's
mental state was noticeably improved.  My son has been diagnosed with
attention deficit and going gluten-free has helped him at least as much
as any medication.  My great hope is that as he recovers from celiac
disease that we will see the attention problems disappear .  My daughter
suffered from anxiety before going gluten-free.  I don'r remember where
I read this, but I understand that celiacs are low in the most common
amino acid in the body, which is a precursor to two neurotransmitters in
the brain.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------I feel for him because I remember the same kind of mental anguish.I
became
very ill with depression,anxiety and psychosis(paranoia and crazy
thoughts )at 17.There was actually a doctor at the time who wanted to
treat
it with diet but it included wheat and it wasn't somethig that I felt
that I
could stick too anyway.I do, to this day, have to watch out for
excessive
carbs and some food allergens that seem to come with Celiac.

 I've been on just about every kind of anti depressant and other
psychotropic drug on the market through the years with just a temporary
relief.

 3 years ago I got hit with severe pain and a variety of other physical
symptoms. That's when I discovered on my own,over time, that gluten was
the
cause of most of my problems.

 My psychiatrist is skeptical that it's gluten but she does consider me
a
success story.

 At 37, I have cut out most meds and no longer have any symptoms of
depression,anxiety, or paranoia and intrusive thoughts. I had cheated a
few
times in the beginning and the reaction always started out as a
physical
reaction but as a couple of days went by while cheating it felt like
the
reaction diffused to every part of my body including the brain.I have
to say
,even though I knew that food was causing the problem,I felt equally
crazy
and depressed.-----------------------------------------------------------------------I have battled depression, fogginess, and sometimes an inability to
process
information that normally I can when I am gluten free. When I eat
gluten, I
become highly irritable, edgy and emotional. I have lost work to all of
these
things and probably have had other neurological problems that can now
be
attributed to celiac's. There are direct and irrefutable evidence that
schizophrenia can be directly related to this disease as well as other
problems. -------------------------------------------------------------------My middle son was gf and wouldn't tell his friends(teenagers) so he ate what they ate in three yrs he was deathly ill contemplating suicide but I kept telling him it'd take three yrs to get better so he could eat gf again like he had. He didn't hurt himself because he knew if he did he'd go to hell as he believed the bible and once one is dead one can't ask God for forgiveness . He went gf and it took three yrs for his mind and body to heal and he's fine you see wheat and gluten are poison that makes the brain suffer so one doesn't think straight .------------------------------------------------------------------My major symptom was severe depression and anxiety.  I would also go
over
and over things that people said the were hurting remarks, or things I
may
have said that I thought in retrospect were wrong or hurtful to
another.  I
awoke each morning with a feeling of doom.  At night I had constant
nightmares and never had a good dream.  I never knew what a good dream
was
since I had undiagnosed CD from childhood.  So nights and days were
horrible, and I kept myself extremely busy to block out the pain.  The
pain
of the emotions and depression and anxiety are worse than physical
pain.
Often I wished that I could have physical pain.  Medication helped some
with
the anxiety, but not with the depression.  Then when I went to a
nutritionist for severe malnutrition symptoms, he did not know about
CD, but
I also went on a diet of a nutritional drink that had no wheat in it.
The
nutritionist put me on small doses of vitamins and minerals 8 times a
day,
plus this nutritional drink.  (I could not tolerate normal doses of
vitamins
or minerals at first.)  Within 2 weeks I was feeling wonderful.  All
the
depression I had had for a lifetime disappeared.  After a year and a
half I
went off the liquid diet (I am overweight and thank God for a physician
who
saved my life and recognized the signs of malnutrition despite my
weight.)
When I went off the liquid diet, I started to get the depression again.
That is when I discovered I had CD.  One has to try the diet and get
low
doses of vitamins and minerals.  I believe it is the malnutrition that
causes the depression and that must be treated in conjunction with the
diet,
because the gut still needs to heal and perhaps up to 2 years before it
can
get normal absorption of vitamins.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------




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