Very Confused...

[Jen Sims]

Hi! I hope there's someone out there that has had a similar experience. So, I have had issues with my stomach for as long as I can remember, mostly really bad gas. It was always tolerable but just annoying. Well a few months ago it got really bad. I was tested for lactose and sucrose (I think sucrose was what it was) intolerances and both were negative. My doc didn't even suggest that gluten could be the issue. Anyway I decided to go gluten free for a week and see what happened, well I felt great. So I assumed I had some kind of glutten intolerance. Well, i decided to eat a peice of bread and see what happened, nothing, my stomach still felt great. I proceeded over the course of the next week to go back to my old eating habits and for the first 5 days I felt fine. The past 2 days however the issue has returned. So my question is, can it sometimes take time for the gluten to affect you, like it building up in your system or something? I am confused because my symptoms went away so quickly when I stopped eating it but took 5 days to come back. Thanks for your help!

[MySuicidalTurtle]

Hello, and welcome to the board! Your symptoms can come in a whole wide variety and can come differently based on what you ate, when you ate it, what was in your belly, and so on. You can even have damage done without a noticeable outward symptom. That makes this disease very tricky!

[FMcGee]

Hi! Agreed, this disease is not at all straightforward. Can you get the blood test done? You have to do it while you're eating gluten but that way at least you would know whether you need to be gluten-free or not.

[ravenwoodglass]

Yes you likely do have an issue with gluten. It can take up to 7 days for a reaction to occur after you reintroduce it as it can take time for the antibodies to build up. That is the reason an allergist will have you add a food in for a week before deciding that food is safe for you. If you want a diagnosis you need to stay on gluten and then get blood work done. There are false negatives with both blood and endoscopic testing so don't take a negative as proff positive that you don't have issues with gluten.

[leadmeastray88]

Hi there,

Yes reactions can be delayed.. perfect example is on Sunday I found out (after the fact) that I was glutened by my cousin who put onion soup mix on the roast that wasn't safe. I was waiting for a reaction and it didn't come.

Now, this morning (Tuesday) I'm very nauseous and have brain fog something terrible!

So the answer is yes, the reaction time can depend on the individual person - we're all different!