A Strange Symptom I've Not Experienced Before

[lisalouryan]

Hello everyone,

I have been recently diagnosed with Gluten Intolerance and have been slowly figuring things out since then.

My question involves the following:

Last night I prepared what I thought was a gluten-free meal for my family and I. Apparently it wasn't because today I'm showing all the signs of having been glutened.

My weird symptom that I haven't experienced before is that last night, several hours after having eaten, I got these pains in my forearms - both left and right - felt as though my hands weren't working.

Today, my arms still feel strange - still a little of the soreness and kind of shaky and weak.

Has anyone else experienced something like this??

Thanks for any insight you can provide, lisalou

[Lisa]

That could be sensitivity to gluten withdrawal. It does take some time to begin to feel better depending on the amount of damage done to you intestines.

This should pass soon.

[jerseyangel]

Hi lisalou, and welcome

You may not have glutened youself after all! Did you have any GI issues, or was it just the arm pain?

The reason I ask is because right after I started the gluten-free diet, I would wake up with the strangest pain in my wrists and hands. I had never had anything like that before--and it was exactly the same on both sides.

Strange sensations, tingling and numbness can all be symptoms of Celiac, and it takes some time for them to go away once you are gluten-free.

[ravenwoodglass]

Hello everyone,

I have been recently diagnosed with Gluten Intolerance and have been slowly figuring things out since then.

My question involves the following:

Last night I prepared what I thought was a gluten-free meal for my family and I. Apparently it wasn't because today I'm showing all the signs of having been glutened.

My weird symptom that I haven't experienced before is that last night, several hours after having eaten, I got these pains in my forearms - both left and right - felt as though my hands weren't working.

Today, my arms still feel strange - still a little of the soreness and kind of shaky and weak.

Has anyone else experienced something like this??

Thanks for any insight you can provide, lisalou

You could have glutened yourself. For many the GI reaction is delayed so be prepared to perhaps have an upset tummy today or tommorrow.

When you have been gluten-free for a while you may notice signs that you were not aware of before that are your body letting you know that you have come into contact with something with gluten. Those signs vary from person to person. For me the signs are a loss of balance and my tummy will start to growl. When that happens I know I am in for a tough couple of weeks.

There is a lot about reactions that are very individual and have to do with the body systems that are most severely impacted. Time will let you know what those are for you.

It can be really hard at first, read as many different posts here as you can and feel free to ask any question no matter how silly it might seem.

I do hope you weren't glutened but if you were don't loose hope. It does get easier.

[lisalouryan]

Thanks for the feedback so quickly.

Yep, regular GI symptoms as well - plus the arm pain!!

lisalou

[RiceGuy]

I did have some pains like what you describe. What I experienced might have no relevancy to your case, but maybe it will help someone in some way.

For me it started at my shoulder blades, but one at a time for a few weeks. My arms did ache and felt weak too. Then the pain was mostly right in the middle, and over a period of weeks it would migrate down my back, into one leg, then the other leg, and kept going back and forth like that for a month or two. From that point the pains seemed to spread out a bit, and I basically ached in several places at any given time. This kept up for months, and got worse and worse until I could barely stand up for days at a time.

Thank goodness I finally figured out I was sensitive to nightshade foods. However, there may have been quite a bit of damage to nerves or something, as it has taken months and months to recover. Initially, I started taking a sublingual methylcobalamin (vitamin B12), which does seem to help. But the real progress I needed didn't begin until recently, when I added a magnesium supplement. It's a magnesium citrate powder, which makes it easy to absorb, and also convenient to add right in to various meals. It also has done wonders for certain digestive issues, as it aids in the digestion of other nutrients. Protein absorption is quite a bit better now, which may be what I needed since nerves and muscles (amongst other things) require protein to be rebuilt.

HTH