Gluten Intolerance Or Food Allergy, Or Latex Allergy...not Sure...

[Jeff-in-NC]

I am approaching 1 year of being gluten free. I am curious if other people have a history similar to mine and I would welcome ideas or suggestions.

It all started with several months of general IBS sort of GI symptoms. Then around last Christmas I began to notice that I had become very lactose intolerant. I stopped eating dairy, but was still having GI symptoms and they seemed to be getting worse gas, bloating, and abdominal pain led to oily stools, very unpleasant gas, bowel frequency, sleeping difficulties, general malaise and weight loss. I stopped eating gluten and things started to resolve within a few days. After several weeks I began to be able to tolerate a bit more lactose.

After being off gluten for several weeks I was tested for the celiac antibody panel by an allergist and that came up negative. However, after a thorough history she identified a likely latex allergy (which was later confirmed). Interestingly, this came up in the history because I stopped being able to tolerate bananas about 20 years ago. When I eat them I get the same sort of GI symptoms as when I now eat wheat products. Testing for the typical latex food allergy things identifed reactivity to many things that I regularly eat without a problem (tomato, potato) and many things that I have just learned to avoid (like kiwi and pineapple which make my throat itch) over time without ever making the connection to an allergy. Also, I have never had any of the typical food allergy skin rash symptoms.

After being off gluten for about 8 weeks I got in to see a gastroenterologist. When I resisted doing the gluten challenge and endoscopy, she did the genetic test and said that based on the results I was highly unlikely to have celiac. Her message was basically (not an exact quote....), "you don't have Celiac or Crohn's, why are you wasting my time? Food allergies are really rare and hard to characterize. You may or may not have allergies, but I am probably going to be unable to help you.". At that point I just decided it did not matter what it was called. I decided to go it on my own by taking careful observation and slowly testing different foods.

One year out I am still trying to figure out what I can and cannot tolerate. If I eat something out of bounds my GI symptoms return to varying degrees for a few days to a week. So for example, wheat seems to cause the longest lasting symptoms, something like cherries lasts only 1-2 days. Also with wheat I seem to lose any of the lactose tolerance that I have built back up and that takes a long time to return evne to the point where I can tolerate a small amount of dairy.

This website has been immensly helpful to me. Hopefully, this will serve others that have some gluten or wheat related food intolerances.

[Mother of Jibril]

Welcome to the group!

I assume you don't have DQ2 or DQ8... do you know what genes you have? I suspect DQ7, which is associated with gluten intolerance, casein (milk protein) intolerance, grass and pollen allergies, and something called "oral allergy syndrome." What happens is that your immune system can confuse pollens (birch, ragweed, etc...) with fruits, especially bananas, cherries, stone fruits, melons, etc... (tree fruits and members of the ragweed family). It causes what you described... tingling in the mouth and throat, but no other obvious signs of allergy. Also... it's common for people with birch pollen allergies to be allergic to latex.

DQ7 has some of the same amino acid chains as DQ8. It's not as common for someone with this gene to develop celiac disease, but it's definitely possible.

I'm so glad you persisted on the diet even after getting the brush-off!

[Jeff-in-NC]

Welcome to the group!

I assume you don't have DQ2 or DQ8... do you know what genes you have? I suspect DQ7, which is associated with gluten intolerance, casein (milk protein) intolerance, grass and pollen allergies, and something called "oral allergy syndrome." What happens is that your immune system can confuse pollens (birch, ragweed, etc...) with fruits, especially bananas, cherries, stone fruits, melons, etc... (tree fruits and members of the ragweed family). It causes what you described... tingling in the mouth and throat, but no other obvious signs of allergy. Also... it's common for people with birch pollen allergies to be allergic to latex.

DQ7 has some of the same amino acid chains as DQ8. It's not as common for someone with this gene to develop celiac disease, but it's definitely possible.

I'm so glad you persisted on the diet even after getting the brush-off!

Though I am a life scientist, I am not strong in HLA genetics... I dug out my labs (Prometheus) and they only list having detected the HLA DQA1*05 allele and I am DQ2- and DQ8-

I will need to invest some more time in reading up on this, but if you have some pointers I'd be grateful for the help.

[Mother of Jibril]

Wikipedia is actually a great place to start...

Open Original Shared Link

The only "non-celiac" DQ alpha allele that starts with *05 belongs to one of the DQ7 subtypes... so I was right on! Take a look at DQ7.5 on the DQ7 page:

Open Original Shared Link

I'm also a DQ7 (DQ8 is my other gene)... there are lots of DQ7s on this forum.

[Jeff-in-NC]

I think I need to go back to school to figure out all the nomenclature...thanks for the links

[Jeff-in-NC]

The only "non-celiac" DQ alpha allele that starts with *05 belongs to one of the DQ7 subtypes... so I was right on! Take a look at DQ7.5 on the DQ7 page:

So is it true that by exclusion of the celiac genes, and possessing the allele HLA DQA1*05 that I must be DQ7.5? I have been reading through these sites now all day and I still can't seem to make the connection!

Thanks for your help

[Mother of Jibril]

Exactly... the only two DQA1*05 genes are DQA1*0501 (the allele associated with DQ2.5, one of the main celiac genes) and DQA1*0505 (associated with DQ7.5). That means that your full haplotype is HLA-DQA1*0505:DQB1*0301. It's interesting to know the alpha genes... in some cases, it does make a difference. DQ7.5 is the most likely to cause celiac out of all the DQ7 genes because of its similarity to DQ2.5.

Compared to some of the other DQ genes, there's quite a bit of information available... I know it can be overwhelming at first! For example... DQ7 gives you resistance to mad cow disease, hepatitis C, and juvenile diabetes. Too bad it also puts you at risk for things like lupus, APS, allergic rhinitis, gingivitis (there's a discussion going on right now about this in another thread) and multiple food sensitivities.

[gingerbred]

Have you had your HLA type checked. There is a study that found health care workers with HLA Dq8 (one of the two celiac HLA types) are more prone to latex allergy. If you google latex and food allergy cross over you will find a list of foods that may trigger latex like reactions in the genetically susceptible. Pick one at a time and start eliminating them. See if there is any improvement...........gingerbred