Typical Symptom?

[suorkaterna]

Hey there everyone, I'm new here. Here's my story.

About a month ago I was down with the flu. After it was over I felt weird for a couple days and then all hell broke loose. I was in the bathroom every five minutes with diahria, my stomach doing lots of fun things with gas. I thought I was still having the flu. So all i ate...was crackers and gatorade. It didn't go away. Finally a friend suggested I might have Celiac. She has it and has heard me complain about bowel issues before. I didn't think it was possible because it came on so fast. I looked in my Gluten Free for Dummies book and read that Celiac can trigger serious symptoms quickly after an illness(like the flu). So i stopped eating the crackers and all wheat/gluten and I got better. I havn't eaten much wheat since, just a few slip ups here and there with mild reactions. Usually the slip ups are things like Malt Balls, soy sauce in dressing.

But this weekend i did a NO-NO. I'm a cook and I had made a new kind of pancake for my guests but there was nobody there to test it for me...yeah, I tried it...and then, I ate the whole pancake. The rest of the day I felt groggy , had a headache, blurry vision and when i went home I went to bed and slept untill the next day. The next day I felt like my "flu" was back. It's two days now and I'm still in and out of the bathroom and sleeping too much.

Is this a typical reaction to gluten for someone who's been off it for a while? I find it hard to beleive one frick'n pancake has taken me out of comission for three days.

[Swpocket]

I think for everyone its different. For me, even the slightest trace of gluten, will leave me sick for a week to even two. I recently stopped eating gluten 2 months ago and I'm still sick from some traces of it from a used butter knife...so it is very possible for it to make you sick.

I'm new to this lifestyle so I don't know very much, but I hope it helps

[ravenwoodglass]

The first thing you need to do is to get to the doctor for a celiac panel. You need to do this before becoming gluten free. While blood tests are notorious for false negatives it is worth your while to get them. The reactions you speak of do sound like gluten reactions and after testing is done then no matter what the results you can go gluten free and then challenge again if you have doubt.

[suorkaterna]

I think it's a little too late to get tested. I refuse to eat gluten, esspecially after this last incident. I know that all the tests require you to be eating it before the test and even then, the tests are not conclusive. Also there's no medication for it so...I might as well just stay far far away from the stuff. I can do that, especially now that I feel the impact gluten has on me. I'm on day three now and it's finally beginning to slow, more gas and less diahria. I think that's "better". It scares the crap out of me that if just one pancake can throw me out of whack like this, what has it been doing to my body for the past 29 years!?! Wheat has been a staple of my diet, esspecially after I went veg. I ate Seitan all the time. No wonder I spent the better part of my 20's sleeping.

Anyhow, does anybody else have stories of how their slip ups effected them?