Was This Due To Gluten?

[FlyGirl]

I travelled for the first time since electing to become gluten-free after having a very positive reaction to gluten (pure wheat or just gluten flour on a rice cake) while doing allergy testing. My single interaction with GI Dr provided a negative blood test. Prior elimination testing for allergens identified strong reactions from dairy and soy so I've been wondering about whether the blood test was in error.

However, fundamentally I'm a believer in science so I'm not sure whether I'm just imagining things or if there is an actual problem. However, except for 3 food challenges, I've been (as far as I know) gluten free since late January. This is a highly inconvenient and annoying dietary change--annoying for me and my long-suffering spouse.

However, I was travelling last week and ended up in the south having a really hard time finding anything other than french fries or a dinner salad that wasn't breaded. At one point I caved and had fried clams. OK, so it wasn't a good choice regardless of wheat allergies, but I'm still trying to figure out what I can and can't eat. 3 months ago I ate wheat whenever I wanted. How bad could it be? Possibly very bad, it seems!

For the next two days my belly hurt every time I ate or drank anything. Pain came in cycles that would last 30 - 90 seconds and then start to fade. After a few minutes it would start again, slowly cycling down to nothing. Unpleasant but not life threatening. After making a meal of fries more than once in the last week, it was OK to not eat much.

However, by the end of the second day it was worse, not better. I also started having diarrhea. Day 3 I was travelling home all day and my belly was bad enough that I just stuck to apple juice and gatorade. Immodium became necessary shortly after rising (and I never leave home without it). By late afternoon for about 4 hours my belly hurt constantly, badly enough that I couldn't focus on anything else. Dragging through airports was pushing me to my limits. The spouse was talking about driving me straight to the emergency room--he's a nurse and thought I had a ruptured ovarian cyst or something. However, as I was lying on the floor in baggage claim (at that point I no longer had any pride), there was some small improvement which continued as we drove home. By the time we made the 2+ hour trek to our town it was clearly not an emergency room event. I even had some rice crackers before I went to bed and there was really no discomfort.

Today, when I woke up everything was fine. After having stuck to rice, rice noodles and egg, not a twinge all day.

Despite my love of the scientific method I don't really want to repeat this experience, although I do really like fried clams. It seems pretty important to know, though, if it was the breading on the clams or something completely unrelated--perhaps a bad salad experience.

For you guys who have screwed up before, does this sound like 'food poisoning' or a gluten issue?

Thanks!

[MDRB]

Hi,

Its always tough with these things because the symptoms of a tummy bug can be eerily close to the symptoms of being glutened. One thing you could do is contact the place that you ate and talk to the chef about the ingredients. I find that its always a good idea to ask the staff about gluten free dishes whenever I eat out, and if they don't have anything I order a salad, no bread, no olives (they are often preserved in vinegar which contains gluten) with just olive oil and lemon juice as a dressing. This usually avoids any problems. Also, depending on where you get fries from, they sometimes contain gluten (I know this is the case with Mcdonalds fries)

I have started carrying around gluten-free snack bars just in case I can't find anything gluten-free to eat. It certainly isn't the mot convenient lifestyle, but it does make us feel better.

[FlyGirl]

D'Oh! I just queried a few fried clam strip recipes and found that they usually also contain dairy. Perhaps it was a double-whammy.

I left on my trip with 8 gluten free bars (Larabars). They were gone faster than I expected. For some reason I couldn't find more at the grocery store there.

Clearly I'm still in training.

[Phyllis28]

FlyGirl,

I suggest that you read the posts in the Travel Catagory of this forum before your next trip. There are lots of great tips for eating while traveling.