Jump to content
This site uses cookies. Continued use is acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. More Info... ×

  • Welcome to Celiac.com!

    You have found your celiac tribe! Join us and ask questions in our forum, share your story, and connect with others.



  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A1):

    Celiac.com Sponsor (A1-M):

  • Get Celiac.com Updates:
    Support Celiac.com!
    eNewsletter
    Donate

Veterans

JamesD

By JamesD
in Coping with Celiac Disease

Recommended Posts

JamesD Newbie
JamesD
Posted

Ok you veterans with years of experience being gluten-free. How important is cross-contamination? I have the disease that is mild if that is possible. I have been trying hard to be gluten-free but after reading about cross-contamination, I don't know where to start. I mean you can get sick off a grill if it had something with gluten in it? Or if something touches your plate? I think for the most part it is basically impossible to trace everything from products on the supermarket shelf to your local restaurant. All I do is look for the ingedients and use common sense for the most part. I believe you can't really be 100% gluten free. Is just a little bit going to hurt? I read that some of you cant even share a fork if it touched something with gluten in it. I had the impression you had to eat something in size like a piece of bread or a really small bowl of pasta to have any ill effects on you. So basically what I'am asking is this, if you use common sense and look at the indgredients in your products your most likely ok, right?

Thanks,

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):


Lisa Mentor
Lisa
Posted

James:

Let us know a little about yourself, your diognisis or your symtoms. This will help us help you. If you truely have Celiac Disease, you will have to be gluten free for the rest of your life. A little bit is a no-no. It is all or nothing.

We are glad that you joined the message board and all of us are here to answer any of your question. This is the best source of information that you can find. We are all here to help each other.

So ask away........ :)

Lisa B.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tarnalberry Community Regular
tarnalberry
Posted
Ok you veterans with years of experience being gluten-free. How important is cross-contamination? I have the disease that is mild if that is possible. I have been trying hard to be gluten-free but after reading about cross-contamination, I don't know where to start. I mean you can get sick off a grill if it had something with gluten in it? Or if something touches your plate? I think for the most part it is basically impossible to trace everything from products on the supermarket shelf to your local restaurant. All I do is look for the ingedients and use common sense for the most part. I believe you can't really be 100% gluten free. Is just a little bit going to hurt? I read that some of you cant even share a fork if it touched something with gluten in it. I had the impression you had to eat something in size like a piece of bread or a really small bowl of pasta to have any ill effects on you. So basically what I'am asking is this, if you use common sense and look at the indgredients in your products your most likely ok, right?

Thanks,

James

Estimates are that it takes, at most, the equivalent of 1/48th of a slice of regular white bread to cause intestinal damage. And don't forget that symptoms are not indicative of level of intestinal damage.

1) yes, you can get sick off of a grill that's had gluten if something is left behind that will get on your food

2) yes, you can get sick off from gluten that's just touched your plate if any is left behind

3) yes, you can get sick from just a little bit

4) yes, you can get sick from sharing a fork if it's got any residue left on it that contains gluten

5) yes, you can be 100% gluten free - but not if you're not 100% in control of the production of all of your food (so, in practicality, that means that you can't be 100% gluten free for 100% of your life)

the key here is to get as close to it as possible. we all have to make compromises, and the trick is determining the compromises that are acceptable to you. whole, naturally gluten-free foods won't get you sick, but reduce your options. processed, specialty gluten-free foods could get you sick, but increase your options. it's up to each individual to learn about the risks/rewards and strike their own balance. it's tough, but with the information on this board, and available by calling companies, you can inform yourself well and make intelligent decisions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest Viola
Guest Viola
Posted

Well put Tiffany!

Basically, you need to do as much as possible to control your diet. But then common sense means that you don't share a fork with a person eating gluten, salad bars are a problem because people take the spoon out of a gluten product and put it in an otherwise safe product. All we can do is to be as careful as possible and get on with life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A19):


  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      121,088
    • Most Online (within 30 mins)
      7,748
    Aventine
    Newest Member
    Aventine
    Joined
  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A20):

  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      120.3k
    • Total Posts
      1m
  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A22):



  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A21):


  • Upcoming Events

  • Posts

    • Anmol
      Recently Diagnosed Celiac- Need advice

      By Anmol · Posted

      Thanks this is helpful. Couple of follow -ups- that critical point till it stays silent is age dependent or dependent on continuing to eat gluten. In other words if she is on gluten-free diet can she stay on silent celiac disease forever?    what are the most cost effective yet efficient test to track the inflammation/antibodies and see if gluten-free is working . 
    • trents
      Recently Diagnosed Celiac- Need advice

      By trents · Posted

      Welcome to the community forum, @Anmol! There are a number of blood antibody tests that can be administered when diagnosing celiac disease and it is normal that not all of them will be positive. Three out of four that were run for you were positive. It looks pretty conclusive that you have celiac disease. Many physicians will only run the tTG-IGA test so I applaud your doctor for being so thorough. Note, the Immunoglobulin A is not a test for celiac disease per se but a measure of total IGA antibody levels in your blood. If this number is low it can cause false negatives in the individual IGA-based celiac antibody tests. There are many celiacs who are asymptomatic when consuming gluten, at least until damage to the villous lining of the small bowel progresses to a certain critical point. I was one of them. We call them "silent" celiacs".  Unfortunately, being asymptomatic does not equate to no damage being done to the villous lining of the small bowel. No, the fact that your wife is asymptomatic should not be viewed as a license to not practice strict gluten free eating. She is damaging her health by doing so and the continuing high antibody test scores are proof of that. The antibodies are produced by inflammation in the small bowel lining and over time this inflammation destroys the villous lining. Continuing to disregard this will catch up to her. While it may be true that a little gluten does less harm to the villous lining than a lot, why would you even want to tolerate any harm at all to it? Being a "silent" celiac is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in the sense of being able to endure some cross contamination in social settings without embarrassing repercussions. It's a curse in that it slows down the learning curve of avoiding foods where gluten is not an obvious ingredient, yet still may be doing damage to the villous lining of the small bowel. GliadinX is helpful to many celiacs in avoiding illness from cross contamination when eating out but it is not effective when consuming larger amounts of gluten. It was never intended for that purpose. Eating out is the number one sabotager of gluten free eating. You have no control of how food is prepared and handled in restaurant kitchens.  
    • knitty kitty
      14 year old with Celiac & EOE still suffering...

      By knitty kitty · Posted

      Forgot one... https://www.hormonesmatter.com/eosinophilic-esophagitis-sugar-thiamine-sensitive/
    • trents
      50 YO Male Recently Diagnosed with Celiac Disease

      By trents · Posted

      Welcome to the forum community, @ekelsay! Yes, your tTG-IGA score is strongly positive for celiac disease. There are other antibody tests that can be run when diagnosing celiac disease but the tTG-IGA is the most popular with physicians because it combines good sensitivity with good specificity, and it is a relatively inexpensive test to perform. The onset of celiac disease can happen at any stage of life and the size of the score is not necessarily an indicator of the progress of the disease. It is likely that you you experienced onset well before you became aware of symptoms. It often takes 10 years or more to get a diagnosis of celiac disease after the first appearance of symptoms. In my case, the first indicator was mildly elevated liver enzymes that resulted in a rejection of my blood donation by the Red Cross at age 37. There was no GI discomfort at that point, at least none that I noticed. Over time, other lab values began to get out of norm, including decreased iron levels. My PCP was at a complete loss to explain any of this. I finally scheduled an appointment with a GI doc because the liver enzymes concerned me and he tested me right away for celiac disease. I was positive and within three months of gluten free eating my liver enzymes were back to normal. That took 13 years since the rejection of my blood donation by the Red Cross. And my story is typical. Toward the end of that period I had developed some occasional diarrhea and oily stool but no major GI distress. Many celiacs do not have classic GI symptoms and are "silent" celiacs. There are around 200 symptoms that have been associated with celiac disease and many or most of them do not involve conscious GI distress. Via an autoimmune process, gluten ingestion triggers inflammation in the villous lining of the small bowel which damages it over time and inhibits the ability of this organ to absorb the vitamins and minerals in the food we ingest. So, that explains why those with celiac disease often suffer iron deficiency anemia, osteoporosis and a host of other vitamin and mineral deficiency related medical issues. The villous lining of the small bowel is where essentially all of our nutrition is absorbed. So, yes, anemia is one of the classic symptoms of celiac disease. One very important thing you need to be aware of is that your PCP may refer you to a GI doc for an endoscopy/biopsy of the small bowel lining to confirm the results of the blood antibody testing. So, you must not begin gluten free eating until that is done or at least you know they are going to diagnose you with celiac disease without it. If you start gluten free eating now there will be healing in the villous lining that will begin to take place which may compromise the results of the biopsy.
    • Anmol
      Recently Diagnosed Celiac- Need advice

      By Anmol · Posted

      Hello all- my wife was recently diagnosed with Celiac below are her blood results. We are still absorbing this.  I wanted to seek clarity on few things:  1. Her symptoms aren't extreme. She was asked to go on gluten free diet a couple years ago but she did not completely cut off gluten. Partly because she wasn't seeing extreme symptoms. Only bloating and mild diarrhea after a meal full of gluten.  Does this mean that she is asymptomatic but enormous harm is done with every gram of gluten.? in other words is amount gluten directly correlated with harm on the intestines? or few mg of gluten can be really harmful to the villi  2. Why is she asymptomatic?  3. Is Gliadin X safe to take and effective for Cross -contamination or while going out to eat?  4. Since she is asymptomatic, can we sometimes indulge in a gluten diet? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deamidated Gliadin, IgG - 64 (0-19) units tTG IgA -  >100 (0-3) U/ml tTG IgG - 4   (0-5) Why is this in normal range? Endomysial Antibody - Positive  Immunoglobulin A - 352 (87-352) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks for help in advance, really appreciate! 
×
×
  • Create New...