Not Always The Gluten

[KayJay]

I had been feeling sick for the last week, just feeling sick in general and nauseated. I kept going through every thing that I was eating and trying to find what I was doing wrong. Well, it is not always Gluten I started thinking and went to the Dr. I had a UTI.

--I think we are so used to feeling sick that it really doesn't phase us when we feel bad. So remember that other things could be wrong also

[gf4life]

For me it was the opposite. I am so careful about gluten that when I got sick with horrible stomach pain, nausea, exhaustion, dizziness and low-grade fever, I thought I had gotten the stomach virus that has been going around. I thought this was confirmed when my son started throwing up that night. Well everyone else got over it in less than 24 hours, after 5 days I still feel bad.

I finally figured out last night that I think I got gluten contaminated last friday morning. Last friday morning a friend came over with her children. She knows we can't have gluten or dairy, so she brought celery sticks and peanut butter. And I ate some. I don't know where my brain was that day, but it just dawned on me last night that the peanut butter most likely had been contaminated with crumbs! I don't even eat my husband's peanut butter (he is the only one not gluten-free at our house), why would I not realise this before I ate it! I am hoping the pain goes away soon. The nausea comes and goes, but the pain is pretty much all the time. And I am still dizzy and foggy-brained.

I agree that sometimes we think it is gluten when it is another illness, but sometimes it is the other way around.

I hope you are feeling better, Kayjay.

God bless,

Mariann

[Guest gillian502]

Sorry to hear you're both feeling bad. I was curious, when you say, "pain", what type of pain is it? I know that for me, I have severe, deep, achey type pains all across the area right below the navel. The upper abdomen, you might say. I'm not sure if this is my colitis or the celiac disease. What kind of pain do you have when you know you've ingested gluten?

[gf4life]

Hi Gillian,

For the first two days the pain was located in my stomach (so I thought the stomach virus), but after two days it moved down into my intestines and now it is horrible gut pain and a lot of gas. This lower pain and gas is typical for me with a gluten accident, and since the peanut butter incident is the only time I ate something I didn't prepare myself, I figured it was the cause, but you know what, maybe it was both a stoamch virus and a gluten accident. I will probably never know.

It is hard to say what is causing your pain, but it is proably the colitis. It will cause you to have problems with a lot of foods being irritating on your already inflamed and irritated intestines. Not fun. What is the doctor doing to treat your colitis?

God bless,

Mariann

[Guest gillian502]

Hi Mariann,

The doctor is currently treating the colitis with the drug Asacol. I'm eventually supposed to take up to 6 pills a day, but I was having increased abdominal pain with only 2 pills a day, so now I'm down to 1 until my system gets used to it. If not, I'll probably switch to Olsalazine and then to steroids, just until we can get the initial phase of the problem under control. I hate taking drugs, because I'm extremely sensitive to all drugs and their side effects, and I worry about how my body may be affected by them. Asacol is very safe, but I'm trying to get RID of the pain in my gut, not emphasize it! So it's going to take time. I also hate having 2 diseases, because honestly I don't know what's what anymore with my symptoms! I wouldn't know if I had a gluten accident, because I feel pretty bad all the time anyway, and I can't tell the Celiac from the Colitis. I have to assume that I've been doing well on the diet, though, because my endoscopy showed improvement of the villi. Hopefully that will continue.