Time To Play "name That Gluten"

[raisin]

Here we go again. I've been sick for three weeks strait and am at the point I need help to identify why.

First I thought eating out caused it. No more outback. Then I found out my mouthwash was contaminated, and my deodorant might be. Bye-bye crest. Thought it could be toothbrush, replaced it again. It is possible I eliminated whatever made me sick already in the above list, but to be safe, I would like to make sure none of the people here have issues with the fallowing.

Here are is everything* I was using/eating the past 2 weeks :

• Aquafresh tooth paste
  
• Earth Friendly Products - Dishmate
  
• Hefty paper plates and bowls
  
• Foldgers Simply Smooth coffee
  
• Fresh Express pre-packaged salads
  
• MaraNatha Almond Butter (raw & creamy)
  
• Ener-G yeast-free brown (& white) rice bread
  
• Buffalo Guys Mild Buffalo jerky
  
• McCormic spices (I use pepper grinder & cinnamon)
  
• Enjoy Life Cinnamon Crunch oat-free granola
  
• Lundburg rice
  

*(excludes what I am 100% sure is safe)

[Mother of Jibril]

Your list looks pretty safe... but I'm not the best judge, since there are only a couple of processed foods I can still eat

Have you considered that you might have another food intolerance? I can't eat corn (or anything derived from corn) because it gives me the same kind of abdominal pain as gluten. Dairy, soy, and nightshades are also common problems. What kind of symptoms are you hoping to get rid of?

[raisin]

I have a problem with everything you listed, plus yeast, though corn is just a "maybe" for me.

It isn't long-time or fresh new symptoms, it's more like sudden glutening symptoms that won't go away.

my biggest complaint is that right before sleeping 4 nights out of the past 2 weeks, I have started to feel sicker and sicker until I'd have to sit up form nausea, and shake/shiver for 1 - 4 hours, and the nausea would build, then I'd belch and feel a bit better, over and over during that time. My stomach also just plain "feels weird" (hot? lopsided? prevents me from laying down) until after said hours. I think that is called "Heartburn" (acid reflux??) but I'm not sure what that is.. I used to react like this only hours after eating wheat, especially bread or crackers. Other than that, just general acne, drymouth, bad mood, sleepiness/light headed, itchy skin, etc.

[dilettantesteph]

I and another have found small amounts of gluten in the spice brand you mentioned, less than 20 ppm for those non sensitive people. I found it in organic ground cumin. I bought whole cumin which was gluten free and ground it myself. My cinnamon was good, but that doesn't mean your is. Hope you figure it out soon.

[raisin]

Who needs spices anyway? I can eat my burgers without cinnamon.

Ahh really I have wondered about the spices for a long time - thank you so much for testing them and posting about it. I don't think it's what made me so sick, but it's always better to remove everything risky.

[dilettantesteph]

You are welcome. I went without spices for months, then I got adventurous and got sick. That's when I started testing them. For those non sensitives, again they won't bother you, they were under 20 ppm.

[MaryJones2]

There are some gluten-free things that just bother me so I understand. It's not always gluten but it is frustrating trying to troubleshoot. I'd remove these items and wait a few weeks and add them back in one at a time:

• Fresh Express pre-packaged salads
  
• MaraNatha Almond Butter (raw & creamy)
  
• Ener-G yeast-free brown (& white) rice bread
  
• Buffalo Guys Mild Buffalo jerky
  
• Enjoy Life Cinnamon Crunch oat-free granola
  

[Nantzie]

You've got a few things that might be too difficult to digest. Especially since you're super sensitive and your body never seems to get a chance to fully heal. The first several months (maybe even a year or so?) after going gluten-free, there were still a lot of things that just killed my stomach. I wouldn't get a full-on gluten symptom complex with my usual neuro and mood symptoms, but I would get really bad stomach pain. It was over a year before I could eat an apple without my stomach hurting and I still can't eat too many raw veggies like carrot sticks, although I'm fine with salads. You might want to try taking out the salads, the jerky and the granola and see if that helps.

Nancy

[sbj]

Here we go again. I've been sick for three weeks strait and am at the point I need help to identify why.[*]Fresh Express pre-packaged salads

Pre-packaged lettuce has been known to have problems with e-coli.

"results of our search for brown, gooey leaves might make you say

[raisin]

Raw veggies and apples are actually the only things that calm my stomach.. Which, I have noticed, is rather abnormal around here. Maybe I just don't have much gut damage, you know, all bark and no bite. I have been having full-on gluten episodes though, my mood and brain-fog, everything been happening.

The salad I actually added to my diet post-gluten symptoms, and only eat during a spell of sickness. I always smell it before eating, and pull out the bad leaves (People think I'm neurotic for that, I also claw off the bad spots on apples.), and if it tastes funny I spit it out. I don't think I'm getting e-colied from them (but I don't know the gluten-status of those salads).

I will definitely remove the granola, jerky, almond butter, rice bread, though. And I will replace my pre-made salad with fresh romaine.

[oceangirl]

I'd remove the rice. Working on 4 yrs in, I still cannot tolerate cooked rice. Tinkyada, yes, but not every day-weird, I know. In fact, I'd remove all processed food, cook everything whole for weeks and once I feel better, slowly add things in ONE thing at a time- giving yourself time to react. Slow and tedious, but really helps getting to the bottom of what you can and can't eat.

Good luck; it takes a long while,

lisa

[raisin]

Thanks for the advice ocean girl. Rice is only a problem if I try to pig out on it. I can have at least 1 serving with no issues even on more sensitive days, though. Probably, my body is just used to it, because my family ate more rice than bread when I was a child. I am also removing everything listed (except coffee) from my diet despite the below statement. Better safe than sorry. I bought fresh romaine and now I wonder why I ever liked that packaged junk. (thanks for the push sbj!)

--

I was officially not glutened, it seems!

coconuts are a member of the same family as Soy,* to which I have a known allergy. When I was using soy soap/shampoo, I had almost the exact same symptoms as now, using coconut soap as shampoo, and also mistook it for glutening + a cold. I read that coconut allergies commonly involve an upset stomach, which explains why recently, the more i washed my hands to avoid further "glutening", the sicker I was getting!!

I noticed the eczema on the back of my hands extended to my wrists (eek!) when I washed my hands with my dish soap, which had even more coconut than my hand soap.* I also had dandruff and an itchy scalp, should have been a clue.

* Although coconut hypersensitivity is relatively rare, coconut allergens show immunological cross-reactivity with both soy and walnut proteins (Teuber & Peterson, 1999).

* What is interesting about coconut allergies, however, is that people typically don't have a reaction when they ingest coconut products but rather when they come into contact with them. They have a skin allergy to the oils in the coconut that causes a reaction of dermatitis; this might include redness, itching, swelling, dryness, and other symptoms of irritation.