My name is Nick Bayley.  My wife and I are parents to 4 kids and we live in New Zealand.  Here’ s a picture of us with Nana (and our dog :-)) …

How I Accidently Discovered I Could Not Tolerate Gluten/Wheat

I accidentally discovered I could not tolerate wheat in 2015.   Here’s the story of how that happened…

When I was a kid I was fit and healthy.  The main problem I had was recurring tonsillitis, but that was cured by fear.  I’ll tell the story of how that happened another time.

At the age of 14 my parents divorced and I moved from Auckland to Napier with my Dad, while my mother and sister stayed in Auckland.   This obviously was a very stressful time.   And shortly after that for the first time, I experienced what I thought was hay fever.  I had very sore eyes and a runny nose. That slowly got better with time… or so I thought.

At the age of 16/17 I had bad stomach problems and was prescribed all of this medication until I could get into the Hospital for them to take a look at my stomach. When I did get into hospital it was found that I had 3 stomach ulcers.

That was treated and I was sent on my way with a huge amount of Zantac.

Every time I would have a sore stomach I would take Zantac.

In my teenage years I was playing a lot of golf and I just didn’t have the energy to play a lot.  I thought it was because I was unfit, but looking back on it now I realize it had nothing to do with fitness – in fact, I would have actually been very fit at that time of my life.

From the age of 21 to 27 I put on a lot of weight and I was tired and achy a lot.  I had thought it was hay fever but I would take hay fever pills and they didn’t seem to do any good.

From about the age of 27 to 30 I was focusing more on my health and trying to reduce my weight.   Then at about the age of 30 my health took a really big turn and I couldn’t even walk our dog around the block.

You Have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

I went to the Doctor for my lack of energy and they performed a whole bunch of tests and couldn’t find anything wrong so I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I suppose in my doctor’s mind they had ruled out all other possibilities so it must have been Chronic Fatigue Syndrome… right?  I was told to rest when I could, so I did… I rested (slept) A LOT.

So I started to research Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and look for natural cures for it.  I tried a lot of things and eventually, my energy came back.

Around the age of 35/36 I was working out a lot, fasting and trying to get my body in good shape.   I find this hard to talk about what happened next, but in the middle of the night, I was awoken by a very, very sharp pain the right side of my stomach area.

I got up and had no idea what to do.  The pain was like someone was stabbing me.  It was the worst, most intense pain of my life.  I thought I was going to die.

And then, as fast as it came, it went.

Within an hour the pain had gone.

I had no idea what had happened but went back to bed.

Then about a week later the same thing happened but this time it wasn’t quite as intense. This continued happening on a regular basis with differing levels of intensity but always the pain was extreme.

One night when this happened I went to the emergency doctor and they gave me some pills which didn’t help.

I went home and continued to have regular bouts of these attacks of pain, so I went to my personal doctor and went through a whole range of tests again.

This time it was found that I had gall stones.

You Have Gall Stones

I wouldn’t wish gall stones on anyone!

The option at that time was to get my gall bladder out but I said I’m not having that done.  I did a lot of research into Gall Stones and found that a lot of people have a lot of problems after they have their Gall Bladder out and it didn’t seem to cure the pain.  So I decided to research cures for it.

Over this time I became very thin and pale because I was afraid to eat.  Food definitely seemed to be a trigger for the gall stones/pain.

The ironic thing is that not once was I tested for wheat intolerance.  And because I didn’t know what to eat I spent a lot of time just eating chicken soup and bread.  And over the course of about two years I had gall bladder attacks every week sometimes a few times a week. Sometimes they’d last a couple of hours, sometimes five or six hours, a few times up to 12 hours.  The pain was always severe, and I always told my wife it was far worse that childbirth pains. (I guess we’ll never know for sure who had it worse – but my wife never gave birth every week!) I recall a couple of times asking God to either end the pain or let me die. Of course, I didn’t want to leave my family, but I was so tired of it all and the pain was unbearable.

Over this time the best cure I found was to have very hot baths.  Sometimes when the pain was intense I would stay in the bath all day! I asked my wife to keep bringing jugs of boiling water to refill the bath with. She wasn’t happy at all about that because she thought I was scolding myself, but it was all I found to give me relief.

To help me my Doctor thought an operation to open up the Duodenum might help.  So I went into the hospital and had that done.

After the operation, I was in a lot of pain and asked if I could hop in a bath somewhere but the hospital didn’t have one.  So I made the decision to go home straight away and have a bath, which did help.

I wasn’t particularly hopeful of the operation helping seeing as how I had stomach pains right afterward, but over time it did help.

I was very careful what I ate and I did limit wheat but still had it.  And all the while I suffered from muscle aches and hay fever symptoms and would often have sneezing fits and running eyes – along with that fatigue again.

It was very hard to get through the days as I was either tired or had sore eyes.

You Have Hay Fever

My doctor just prescribed me hay fever pills but I didn’t like taking them because they didn’t help so I did more research.

In my research, I came across Candida overgrowth.  And I read the symptoms and I had a number of them like…

• Chronic fatigue
• Brain fog
• Digestive issues
• Sinus infections
• Joint Pain
• Low mood

… so my wife and I completed a program to get rid of Candida because she had some similar symptoms.    As part of this program, we were on a very restricted diet that did not include wheat. After a couple of weeks, we gave ourselves a treat and made butter chicken with homemade naan bread.  I always made the naan bread and everyone in the family loves it.

So here I am, eating my butter chicken and having some naan bread and almost immediately after eating the naan bread I started sneezing and my eyes started watering, just like I had hay fever – but of course I didn’t.  Straight away I jumped on Google and searched what the symptoms of a wheat/gluten sensitivity are. Sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes, fatigue.   I just accidentally discovered I was intolerant to gluten/wheat!

So for years, I would have been sensitive to gluten/wheat and never known it.  I couldn’t believe it!

From that point on I have simply cut wheat out of my diet.  But it’s not that easy to do that.  Wheat is in almost everything!

Not Eating Wheat Is Hard!

Whenever I accidentally had wheat I could tell immediately because of my almost instant reaction of sneezing, watery eyes, etc.  Then for the next week or so I would have a headache and achy muscles and be really tired.  I would need an afternoon nap after I’ve been ‘glutened’.

As time has gone on my tolerance to gluten has become less and less.  Here’s an example of that.  After I found out I did not cope well with wheat I would still make the naan bread for my family when we had Indian, but I never had any.  And as time went on I got wheat sensitivity symptoms from simply making the naan bread… so I had to stop doing that.

Then when I would go out for a meal and there was some wheat in something that I didn’t know about my reaction wasn’t too bad, BUT over time it’s getting worse and worse. And I have found that I’ve been reacting to dairy as well.

So in 2018 I just couldn’t keep living the way I was.  I was scared to eat almost anything.

I vowed to find a solution to my acute sensitivity to wheat and then share it with as many people as I could because I know what it’s like to be in pain a lot of the time.

My Mission To Help As Many People As Possible Tolerate Wheat Again

I know what it’s like to go out to restaurants and be scared to order anything even if they say “it’s gluten free”.

I know what it’s like to go to social gatherings and look at the food on offer and know “I can’t eat any of it!”.

I know what it’s like to tell someone you’re “gluten free” and they roll there eyes thinking you’re on some fad diet.

However, when I started out on this mission I was not trying to find a cure for gluten intolerance.  All I was trying to do was help myself so I could tolerate small amounts of wheat so it wouldn’t affect me for a week when I consumed some.

I have no desire to go back to eating pies, cakes, sandwiches etc.  It feels so much better eating natural food.

In my effort to help myself I spent months studying all the latest research on why intolerance to wheat happens to people that could tolerate it at some point in the past.  And then I became a human guinea pig on the ideas I found.  Little by little I could feel an improvement in my ability to handle small amounts of wheat.  And instead of avoiding things that said… “may contain small amounts of wheat” I ate them and had no adverse reactions.  I’ve spent thousands of dollars and hours researching what it takes to cure a food sensitivity and I fully believe I have the answer to help many people tolerate wheat again.  And I’m going to do whatever it takes to get the information needed to help people like me tolerate gluten/wheat again and start living a good, balanced life.

As an example, here’s a picture of me eating a donut in 2019 before we go on an adventure in the forest….

That was the first donut I had eaten in years.  I only ate it to see if I would react… and I didn’t!

That was the best bit about eating the donut.  After eating so clean for so long I didn’t actually enjoy eating the donut as much as I thought I would.

Anyway, if you don't handle gluten/wheat very well there is hope.  But just eating Gluten Free is not the way to go because you can eat very badly doing that and you will never heal your stomach so you can tolerate wheat ever again.

And in the email report series you've signed up to I want to expose 5 myths/lies about cutting wheat out of your diet so let's get started.  Go and check your inbox now for Myth #1.