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Is It Possible To Have A Reaction From Handling Gluten Food

ami27

By ami27
in Coping with Celiac Disease

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ami27 Apprentice
ami27
Posted

I made cookies last night that were definitely not gluten-free. They were pre-made refrigerated dough, that you just break off and bake. Afterwards I had a headache which I still have today. I feel really bad today and am wondering if I could have been glutened by just handling the dough?

Ami

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gfp Enthusiast
gfp
Posted
I made cookies last night that were definitely not gluten-free. They were pre-made refrigerated dough, that you just break off and bake. Afterwards I had a headache which I still have today. I feel really bad today and am wondering if I could have been glutened by just handling the dough?

Ami

This debate has gone forwards and backwards... can you adsorb it? (possibly but unlikely) but regardless its always a risk, under finger nails and such and really better not done... if you are going to do it then pre-made refrigerated dough is a huge plus over having flour floating around which is a almost dead cert...

Did you dust the cookies etc. ???

In the end I never ever mess about with gluten flour, experience has taught me that sooner or later I mess up...

kbtoyssni Contributor
kbtoyssni
Posted

It's probably not from touching the cookies themselves. It's just way too easy to accidently ingest some or get it around the kitchen and touch it later... It's also possible that you're just sick today, and it has nothing to do with gluten.

darlindeb25 Collaborator
darlindeb25
Posted

Last year, at Christmas time, I made puppy chow for the other employees in my office and my daughter. It's made with Crispex cereal, chocolate chips, peanut butter, and powdered sugar. It is yummy, yet I did not eat any because the cereal had barley malt in it. Somehow, I managed to get glutened by it. I had never reacted to barley, until that time. It was a slow reaction, for me anyways. I had to leave work early the next day with severe stomach cramps, similiar to my reaction to soy, not gluten. It is possible ami, even more so if you make the cookies from scratch.

larry mac Enthusiast
larry mac
Posted

Are you guys sure it's not just "mind over batter"?

best regards, lm

p.s. sorry, couldn't resist making that stupid pun (really, just kidding).

gfp Enthusiast
gfp
Posted
Are you guys sure it's not just "mind over batter"?

best regards, lm

p.s. sorry, couldn't resist making that stupid pun (really, just kidding).

LOL....

darlindeb25 Collaborator
darlindeb25
Posted

Well Larry, if we can't laugh about this, who can?????? :lol:

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kbabe1968 Enthusiast
kbabe1968
Posted

there he goes again! lm....u and my husband must be cut from the same cloth! You make all the jokes he would! :D

Ami...I would say IF it was a glutening it was somehow ingested - how well did you wash your hands, do you bite your nails, etc.

Before going gluten free, I spilled an entire 2 lb jar of wheat flour. I vacuumed it up. Last week, I finally emptied the bag (long story). There was flour everywhere. I'm STILL recovering from it, I think. But I got it in my hair, and I breathed it in, etc. It was EVERYWHERE. I even got hives all up and down my hands. It was BAAAAAAD....

BUT, I still think it has to enter the body to become a problem....

:) Hope you're feeling better

(ps....Darlindeb - try the Health Valley Rice or Corn crunchems??? They're good - I made chex mix with them a couple weeks ago).

larry mac Enthusiast
larry mac
Posted
.....I feel really bad today and am wondering if I could have been glutened by just handling the dough? Ami

I certainly don't know. But something happened the other day that gave me a creepy feeling (just mental not physical).

Our (temporarily living at home 26 yr old) baby boy was heating up some leftover pizza (the real kind) that I had gotten for my wife the night before. We use paper plates a lot and also plastic paper plate holders and trays. I saw him pick up the pizza and then touch his tray with his greasy pizza fingers that just touched the crust. Don't know why it got to me so much, but now I don't really want to use those trays or paper plate holders. And if you follow the greasy pizza finger trail, the microwave handle, the refridge handle, the family size coke bottle, and who knows what else is possibly contaminated. And at the very least with pizza grease, if not gluten. I'm not sure if I even want to live here anymore.

See what you guys have done! I never thought about that stuff before. best regards, lm

larry mac Enthusiast
larry mac
Posted
.....Before going gluten free, I spilled an entire 2 lb jar of wheat flour. I vacuumed it up. Last week, I finally emptied the bag (long story). There was flour everywhere. I'm STILL recovering from it, I think. But I got it in my hair, and I breathed it in, etc. It was EVERYWHERE. I even got hives all up and down my hands. It was BAAAAAAD....

kb,

If that happens again, you better get those emergency hazardous response teams to quarantine your whole house. And then send in a crew wearing those spacesuits with the breathing packs to decontaminate your kitchen. Then I would sell the house and move to another neighborhood where that kind of thing doesn't happen.

best regards, lm

Gentleheart Enthusiast
Gentleheart
Posted

I've been told that gluten molecules absolutely cannot penetrate intact skin. But like everyone else has said, there are many other ways for a person to get glutened from just being around it. If you have any cuts or abrasions on your skin, if you breathe in anything airborne, it gets stuck in the mucous in the back of your throat and you naturally swallow it or if you absentmindedly put your fingers in your mouth or your nose for any reason. All those things could innocently happen and you have been glutened. None of us wants to be paranoid about this. But we sure can't ignore it either.

darlindeb25 Collaborator
darlindeb25
Posted

Awwwwwwwww Larry--sorry about that son of yours. And, by the way, you would have to live in a bubble to stay away from all that. Everywhere you go, you take a chance on being glutened, so you might as well live in your house. :lol:

solange Newbie
solange
Posted

Would it be so odd that one could breathe gluten particles that are airborne from the rising steam/ heat/ smelly air out of the oven while it bakes? would it be so odd that some immune reaction could get started from the lungs?

We know so little about the whole thing. I can tell you that I got (or did I?) glutened by hair products. I was using a new kind of hair mousse that had aveeno in it ( the gluten cousin from oats which is sometimes mistaken by celiacs) on my clients and the next day, my hands broke out with Herpetiformis dermatitis ( that's MY reaction to gluten. ) I gave it away.

The fact is, a riled up immune system can get off easily. . I might have had a skin scratch , or maybe our skin is not that impervious. we do administer ointments through the skin don't we?

lovegrov Collaborator
lovegrov
Posted

Are you sure you didn't just have a headache unrelated to gluten?

richard

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