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Different Reactions To Different Glutens?

SharonF

By SharonF
in Coping with Celiac Disease

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SharonF Contributor
SharonF
Posted

I admit, I have not been 100% compliant. I am finding it very hard to adjust my mental attitude, since I used to be able to eat everything.

I have found that if I ingest some barley (I assume it was barley in the Steak n Shake milkshake, anyway), I have a terrible reaction--immediate cramping, diarrhea, etc. If I have wheat, however, it doesn't affect me right away, or even at all, as far as I can tell.

Do other people experience different levels of reaction to different glutens?

I suppose it's too much to hope for that I actually only have a barley intolerance, isn't it.

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tarnalberry Community Regular
tarnalberry
Posted

Depends on your tests? I suppose you could only be allergic to barley, if your intolerance test results weren't positive. But otherwise, I'm surprised, but still believe you. :-) (The reason I'm surprised is that the peptide chain that celiacs respond to is the same between the barley and wheat. Who knows... maybe it's more accessible in horedin than gliandin depending on your digestive system?)

seeking-wholeness Explorer
seeking-wholeness
Posted

WOW, what a timely thread! I am in the middle of dealing with a major "accident" this morning, and I am about 90% sure that barley was the culprit that cross-contaminated my freshly-purchased bag of soy flour.

When I realized that I have celiac disease, I was virtually wheat-free already for the sake of my breastfeeding baby, so all of my reactions were from barley--or the barley scum left on my grain-cooking pot, as I reacted even to rice until I bought a new pot. Now, all gluten-free grains are fine for me. My reactions consisted of rotten-egg burps, waves of nausea, and dark brown liquid diarrhea (with severe cramping if I had actually eaten barley itself). Since I replaced my grain-cooking pot, I can remember only one such reaction, to a Walnut Acres brand juice (I suspect there was some barley malt in there somewhere; it makes more sense than wheat, I think)--until this morning.

My reaction to wheat is not so predominantly intestinal, although my stools do get quite loose and orange and burn as I pass them. Instead, I get a migraine (immediately, even before I finish eating the cross-contaminated meal), a massive outbreak of cystic and regular acne, and severe mood swings that set in three or so days later. (I have been keeping a mood/food chart, or I would never have recognized the connection between gluten and my mood swings.)

I am actually taking a double hit today, as I had a minor wheat-type accident on Oct. 7 (and so am in the mood-swing phase right now) AND I had a major barley accident yesterday that showed up first thing this morning. It's not looking like it's going to be a very good day!

--Sarah

P.S. In case anyone is wondering whether these are separate allergies, I strongly doubt it: the incident that got me looking at celiac disease in the first place was my baby's reaction to a 100% rye cracker!

pturse Apprentice
pturse
Posted

There are 2 gluten-free Luna Bars that the company told me about. They are Peppermint Stick and Chocolate Covered Cherry. They do have some oats so if oats bother you then I would be careful.

The Luna Glow bars however are gluten-free according the company. They just don't taste as good in my opinion.

My GI told me that it is not possible to ingest gluten and have a reaction w/in a matter of minutes or even hours because it takes a few days for food to get to the lower intestines. I argued with him briefly because I swear I had a reaction one night after immediately eating gluten. But what he says made sense. I could have had a mental stress reaction which induced my own fears about ingesting the gluten and thus created my own pain.

tarnalberry Community Regular
tarnalberry
Posted

it certainly doesn't take a few _days_ for food to get through a normally functioning intesting. average clearing time for the human is 18-36 hours. Definitely less than two days. And _plenty_ of us respond to gluten very quickly.

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