okay. I give.

The verdict is in. Gluten does make my joints hurt more. No eating it makes them hurt less. I still hurt enough that I thought it didn't really help.
The way elimination diets work is that at some point one retries the eliminated food. I hurt enough that casual observers could see that I was hurting. Plus, I had a strange discomfort in my stomach. Not a pain really. The best description is discomfort, unease. It is an odd, difficult to describe feeling. I had not expected it to be connected to the gluten, but I had noticed that my stomach felt calmer.
Huh. Whaddaya know.