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Hypothetical Question

Andy-oh

By Andy-oh
in Coping with Celiac Disease

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Andy-oh Rookie
Andy-oh
Posted

I know this is a hypothetical question, and a bit silly, but how bad would you feel and how long would it take you to recover from eating 2 weetabix cereal daily for a period of 3 weeks ?

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cruelshoes Enthusiast
cruelshoes
Posted

I used a contaminated toaster once shortly after going gluten-free. I got violently ill, and it took 3 days for the symptoms to go away. I once got into something that had gluten (not just CC, but outright gluten) and it took 3 weeks for the symptoms to go away.

The resolution of symptoms you can feel is much quicker than the resolution of the internal damage. This is to say, the damage to the villi takes a lot longer to get better than the obvious symptoms you can feel. According to Peter Green's book, it takes substantially less less than a tespoon of birthday cake to cause lasting damage to a celiac. One of those wheatabix thingies is a whole boatload more gluten than that. The resulting damage can take months to heal.

Wheatabix is pure wheat. Eating this food would be a very poor choice for a celiac - setting the stage for malabsorption, osteoporosis, anemia and intestinal lymphoma, along with a whole host of other possible ills. I hope you are not considering eating this food. There is no safe level of gluten for a celiac. No gluten ever - period.

Andy-oh Rookie
Andy-oh
Posted
  • Author
I used a contaminated toaster once shortly after going gluten-free. I got violently ill, and it took 3 days for the symptoms to go away. I once got into something that had gluten (not just CC, but outright gluten) and it took 3 weeks for the symptoms to go away.

The resolution of symptoms you can feel is much quicker than the resolution of the internal damage. This is to say, the damage to the villi takes a lot longer to get better than the obvious symptoms you can feel. According to Peter Green's book, it takes substantially less less than a tespoon of birthday cake to cause lasting damage to a celiac. One of those wheatabix thingies is a whole boatload more gluten than that. The resulting damage can take months to heal.

Wheatabix is pure wheat. Eating this food would be a very poor choice for a celiac - setting the stage for malabsorption, osteoporosis, anemia and intestinal lymphoma, along with a whole host of other possible ills. I hope you are not considering eating this food. There is no safe level of gluten for a celiac. No gluten ever - period.

Thanks for the reply, i have not been diagnosed with celiac disease/gluten intolerence and i'm not planning on eating weetabix, that particular food is what made me think i have a problem with gluten/wheat in the first place because after adding it to my breakfast for around 3 weeks i felt awful, thats why i'm now experimenting with a gluten/wheat free diet, in the last 3 gluten free weeks ive experienced quite a lot of depression mood swings fatigue spacey feelings etc and was just thinking that i may still be recovering from 3 weeks of weetabix i consumed, i guess i could be suffering from being heavily glutened and also experiencing some withdrawal symptoms to boot.

melmak5 Contributor
melmak5
Posted

If you are new to the gluten-free game you may also still be consuming something that contains gluten.

I thought I was gluten free for a month and wondering why things weren't improving and come to find out my multivitamin had wheat as its binding starch. Granted not as much wheat as said cereal, but it takes a while to find all the nooks and crannies that gluten hides in.

Hope you start healing and feeling better soon.

spunky Contributor
spunky
Posted

The few times I've accidentally gotten gluten in the past year and a half, it took 3 weeks to totally go away...for me, it's almost like the process of coming down with and then getting over the flu...I might just have two or three days where I think something's wrong, but not sure, followed by a solid week of hell, and then a week or two of things trying to get back to normal. I've only been gluten free for 20 months, though. I'm hoping that as time goes on, accidents are much less frequent, and sypmtoms less severe.

Guest Happynwgal2
Guest Happynwgal2
Posted
I know this is a hypothetical question, and a bit silly, but how bad would you feel and how long would it take you to recover from eating 2 weetabix cereal daily for a period of 3 weeks ?

Interesting question. I would be so sick after just a day or two that there is no way I would finish three weeks. The way I feel when I get glutened is so bad and brings me down into such a nasty depression and sleeplessness along with other nasty side effects, that there is NO WAY I could even finish three days, let alone three WEEKS.

It takes me about a week to get well again if I have gotten seriously glutened without know it... My digestive track goes into defense mode, i.e. diarrhea, cramping and pain that I really just want to avoid at ALL cost...

What would happen after THREE WEEKS, I do not ever want to find out... B) (I already know the answer to that: the way I felt for 50+ years. There is NO way I EVER want to go there again!)

Once gluten free, always gluten free.

:):)

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