Had A Bit Of Gluten By Mistake But Felt Ok

[BarryC]

Yesterday I had some chicken that I was told by the hostess had no gluten in the coating. My wife told me later she checked the box and wheat flour was an ingrediant. I did fel a mild reaction but next day felt great. I wonder if my system has healed to the point it can fight off the gluten to a point? Not that I can go back of course.

[Pauliewog]

In my case I intentionally ate gluten as a challenge. The following day I had a mild headache and thought I was in the clear. HOWEVER, 4 days after the gluten I began vomiting and did so for an entire day. I only ate gluten one day and really thought I was ok. It seems everyone is different and I hope you don't have any kind of delayed reaction like I did.

[GFinDC]

Hmm, depends on what you mean by fight-off Barry. Actually that is a good description of what happens, the antibodies to gluten attack it along with your intestines. If you mean it is being ignored the answer is. (drum roll here), no. You had some symptoms and that means something is going on right? Your gut may not be as inflamed and irritated right now but that doesn't mean it wont go back to being inflamed and irritated. Mild symptoms are not a good indicator of damage. Some people have no symptoms at all and they still have damage to their intestines. That condition is called silent celiac.

You'll get better at not trusting people after a while. most people don't even know what gluten is, let alone where it is found. So trusting people who say that a food gluten-free is taking a risk, unless you can verify their knowledge. You can find answers to many of those product type questions by doing a search on this forum. The same thing applies to products in a grocery store, you can't safely assume anything is a gluten-free product. You need to read the label every time to check ingredients.

[lucia]

I had an experience where I ate gluten (like you completely by accident, served it after being told by the waitress that the chef would leave it out of a dish) and my reaction was very different. I did not have an immune reaction to the gluten. Instead, my body treated it as a toxin and worked to expel it (yes, bad diarrhea for the next four hours, but then nothing). This was after 1 and 1/2 years of being off of gluten and another year of being treated with acupuncture. Relating my experience on the board caused a lot of controversy, but I believe that my system has healed significantly and now processes gluten differently. That said, I am still as-strict-as-possible gluten-free. I wouldn't risk my health, when I know gluten is stressful for my body.

[Roda]

For me my reactions do correlate to how much I ingest. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that you probably just got lucky that your symptoms were not severe. It does sound by your post that you did have some reaction though.

[kareng]

It was just 2 weeks ago or less that you were still eating and drinking gluten so I doubt you are healed. Maybe you will be one of the lucky ones & your reactions will not be too bad. That doesn't mean it is OK to keep eating breaded chicken and drinking beer. Even if you don't feel too bad, you are still damaging yourself.