Reactions

[Tim-n-VA]

Prior to diagnosis I would have said I had no GI symptoms. Liver tests lead to blood tests which lead to biopsy. In retrospect those things I thought were a "24 hour flu" or "something spoiled" were likely gluten in hindsight (especially the ones after drinking wheat beer).

Having been gluten free for about a year, I have symptoms with small amounts of cross-contamination from wheat. Today, I wasn't paying close attention and took a bite of candy containing barley malt. I've had no symptoms yet (still plenty of time).

I will not routinely eat barley because I could easily be having internal reactions without external symptoms. It did make me wonder if people find they react worse to one form of gluten versus others?

[holiday16]

This is basically what I was asking the other day, but didn't get any replies so I did a bit of searching and basically what I found is that barley has a much lower gluten content than wheat. I was asking because I had accidentally had something that had been produced on the same lines as wheat products and was sick for 3 weeks. Then I accidentally had something with barley in (it was under natural flavors and I missed it) and the reaction was only for a couple days and not nearly so severe.

I will say that finding this out makes me feel much better about being able to avoid gluten. I'm still just as careful, but I don't feel as paranoid that if I accidentally misread a label and have something with barley in I'm going to be sick for weeks. My daughter had the same thing I did with the barley in and she never reacted which surprised me, but she's not as sensitive as I am either.

[aikiducky]

I guess it's must be an individual thing - I seem too have maybe even more symptoms from barley then wheat, though it's hard to say because i haven't had any glutenings for a while that i know of.

Pauliina

[Yellow Rose]

I was just recovering from being glutened on Sunday. Wheat is definitely the worse for me. My reactions are getting longer and more painful with each glutening. Don't have the gut reaction I have joint and muscle pain that feels like I am being pulled apart with burning and spasms.

Yellow Rose

[gfpaperdoll]

I am 60, when I was 25 I tested allergic to barley & oats. For me barley is a killer & I still remember the last bagel I had about 15 years ago (they all have barley in them) I was sick for three weeks & the barley taste was in my mouth for at least at week. This was still when I was eating wheat on occasion right before I figured out that I had an "allergy" to wheat.

[CMCM]

This can all be so tricky. I had lifelong digestive symptoms which I mistakenly thought was entirely due to dairy. I now know it was wheat. Wheat didn't always make me sick, which added to the confusion. Later I read that your body continually tries to adapt to the invader gluten, sometimes with more success than others.

Then if you go gluten free, you can actually become more sensitive and reactionary than you were when eating it regularly. Perhaps because you have had time to "adapt" with just sporadic exposure.

I've also noticed a change in reactions. Still moderate digestive upsets, but my latest reaction moved into the area of joint aches and pains. Very painful, and this scared me more than the digestive stuff did (perhaps because I'd lived with it for so long!).

And some things always bothered me more than others. Regular soy sauce, for example. I'm not sensitive to soy, but the wheat used in fermenting the soy sauce absolutely killed me. Possibly it was the combination of things. I know with other foods, certain combinations can be very deadly, digestively speaking.

Prior to diagnosis I would have said I had no GI symptoms. Liver tests lead to blood tests which lead to biopsy. In retrospect those things I thought were a "24 hour flu" or "something spoiled" were likely gluten in hindsight (especially the ones after drinking wheat beer).

Having been gluten free for about a year, I have symptoms with small amounts of cross-contamination from wheat. Today, I wasn't paying close attention and took a bite of candy containing barley malt. I've had no symptoms yet (still plenty of time).

I will not routinely eat barley because I could easily be having internal reactions without external symptoms. It did make me wonder if people find they react worse to one form of gluten versus others?