Working with gluten in the air

[TheMikeyB]

Hey all,

I work for a company that supplies brewers with ingredients and specifically in the production department. I was diagnosed with celiac about 2 years ago and have been working for this company for about 4 years now. One of the main machines that I run is a grain mill basically grinds up the barley to separate the hull from the inner kernel. This machine spews out grain dust from barley, wheat, rye, etc. pretty consistently I leave work covered in it. I have talked to my gastroenterologist about it and he didn't seem worried just told me to wear a dust mask... I am just curious what you all think on here. I feel like being covered in it I would have a good chance of contaminating my food on lunch and what also like could it affect me going into cuts and so on or going in my eyes.

Let me know what you think thanks.

[trents]

Welcome to the forum.

You are wise to be concerned about your exposure to gluten in this environment. You would to at least have to come up with some protection to the eyes, mouth and nostrils that was truly filtering the grain dust out. And it would probably be a good idea to shield all exposed skin as there is a strong conviction on the part of some members of the Celiac community that gluten can get into your system transdermally. I would also change clothes and maybe even shower before leaving work if that is possible.

[Ennis-TX]

It would have to be ingested normally to trigger a reaction, that said even the dust that you get in your nose and drains into your stomach trapped in the mucus would trigger a reaction to some degree (We have seen this with flour dust in others). I used to work in a machine shop, dust mask did not matter, you were blowing black stuff out of your nose after work in the shower, only thing that sealed perfectly around the face was a respirator.

You also have to consider we react to crumbs and flour dust if they get in our food, so if you get it all over like you said, you would probably end up bringing some home to inevitably get transferred to something you put in your mouth at some point.

Get your celiac blood test redone and see if your numbers are down if you want to see if your getting exposed still on a regular basis.
In my opinion I would quit...or buy a NBC suit.

[Scott Adams]

Excluding any gluten you may breathe in, not wearing a mask and breathing this dust in is very unhealthy for anyone, and could lead to serious health issues down the road. At the very least I would wear a proper dust mask that covers your nose and mouth. This alone should eliminate the possibility of accidentally ingesting small amounts of gluten. Eye protection might also be a good idea.