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Weird Ways We've Been Glutened


OptimisticMom42

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OptimisticMom42 Apprentice

Hello everyone,

I know this was stupid and I should have thought of it ahead of time but if it can happen to me maybe it could happen to other busy folks.

A co-worker brought in cherry tomatoes from his garden in a reused plastic grocery bag. I grabbed one out of the bag, rubbed it clean on my shirt and popped it in my mouth. A couple hours latter I'm wondering how I got glutened from cherry tomatoes. It had to have been whatever the bag was used for originally. All I can think of is how flour leaks out of those paper bags and gets all over everything.

Another good reason to stop using those plastic sacks and to wash my veggies!

Hope this helps protect someone else,

RA


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runningcrazy Contributor

I'm only glten free while waiting for enterolab results, so I'm not truly confirmed celiac about 1.5 weeks into the diet and feeing great I made "the cravings place" allergen free cookies and a hot one fell off the sheet coming out of the oven and landed on the floor. I know I saw stuff all over the floor but I popped it in my mouth anyway.

Later I was really sick and I remembered doing that. And I was reminded that my sister made real cupcakes there a little before me and that "stuff" I saw on the floor must have been flour!!

JillianLindsay Enthusiast

Mine's a real bonehead move! It was one of my first days on the diet and my first visit to Starbucks gluten-free. The person I was speaking to couldn't help me so after a long time hemming and hawing I just ordered a regular coffee. When I went to put cream & sugar into it I saw a vanilla powder and thought it would be nice to add a little flavour... duh! I sprinkled it on and could have kicked myself. After spending all that time trying to pick a drink I indiscriminately sprinkled on some random powder lol d'oh :rolleyes:

Mtndog Collaborator

So many butthead moves here- the latest one was REALLY wanting a fudgsicle, being really tired and not noticing "malt powder" at the end of ingredients.

That and shampoo or conditioner- so stupid!

Lisa16 Collaborator

I have a short list:

1. vitamins. When I first started I was taking a multi and two days into gluten-free, I looked at the ingredients and it said "derived from wheat."

2. a banana bread lara bar OR the de-icer on the plane. I was going to HI and ate a larabar, once I was firly sure we would be taking off. We were delayed and, well... see the funny ancedotes thread

3. a box of rice chex. I had bought three on special (a 3 for deal) and didn't realize I had gotten one of the old boxes. I was halfway through it and wondering why the heck I was sick when I noticed. DUMB.

4. Teabags. Yep. I got glutened by tea. Always read the ingre3dients-- never assume.

SGWhiskers Collaborator

Eating grapes with freshly washed hands. The soap had vitamin E.

Picking up a bag of garbage with used birdseeds at the bottom. Woosh. Up with a plume of gluten in the face.

Jonbo Apprentice

I've had a few "duh" ones. One was friend offering some craisins from bag she had. Me knowing they are OK, I eat a handful. Not 1 minute after that, my mind thinks outside the box. She's eating fried food and reached in before me. Needless to say not long after it went a little downhill but recovered by the next day fully. When I inquired, she said "Oh yeah, I also ate some of my cheez-its before also when eating them". <_<

Other time was not long after I was diagnosed and still learning, and same friend offered some doritos. They weren't in bag (plastic baggy from home with some in it). I think "Doritos must be fine, corn chips and cheese powder". Eat a few. Learn the hard way. Reading online, fathoms me the original ones have wheat but most other ones didn't.


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ranger Enthusiast

At the hospital with a friend. There was a box of donuts and a pump type coffeepot on the table. She handled several donuts, then got her self some coffee. Then, I got some coffee, opened up my bag of gluten-free crackers and proceeded to eat them. Sick for 3 days - learned that donut crumbs can live on handles! It's a learning curve!

  • 3 weeks later...
StacyA Enthusiast
Eating grapes with freshly washed hands. The soap had vitamin E.

Picking up a bag of garbage with used birdseeds at the bottom. Woosh. Up with a plume of gluten in the face.

I don't understand the concern about vitamin E - or is it just you?

Amyleigh0007 Enthusiast

This isn't weird but it is stupid. Last Christmas I ate handful after handful of a delicious chocolate and peanut butter candy that was on the desk of a co worker. I assumed they were safe. I got very, very sick and when I checked out a bag of the candy at Walmart one of the first ingredients was wheat flour. I no longer assume!!

SGWhiskers Collaborator
I don't understand the concern about vitamin E - or is it just you?

A lot of Vitamin E comes from Wheat Germ. It also goes by tocopherol and tocopherol acetate. Many companies use other sources though. I call the company. I never thought about it in hand soap.

jabberwife Explorer

Lisa16 - What is it about a Banana Bread Larabar that glutened you? I'm confused...is there something I should know?

ravenwoodglass Mentor
Lisa16 - What is it about a Banana Bread Larabar that glutened you? I'm confused...is there something I should know?

Hi, I am not Lisa but she was stating that she wasn't sure what got her. The Larabars are gluten free. No worries if you like them keep feeling safe eating them

summerteeth Enthusiast
4. Teabags. Yep. I got glutened by tea. Always read the ingre3dients-- never assume.

I second you on the tea bags. They didn't happen to be the Tazo green ginger bags, did they? Best tea ever... and now I can't have it.

Also: salad dressing. I was an airhead and forgot to read the label, thinking "Caesar dressing should be safe..." WRONG. I paid for that one... big time.

And lastly, grapefruit shampoo.I wash my hair the morning after I buy it, thinking "Wow - this smells really good". I started to get sick later in the day and couldn't figure out why. I tell Adam, my fiance, and he says "Uhh... your shampoo clearly states "wheat"" (he is allergic to SLS).

jabberwife Explorer

LOL - I was about to say...

larabars are my go-to snack, just in case I don't have time to make something from scratch, or if I'm going somewhere where I don't know where my next meal is or whether I'll be able to eat it!

:)

Thanks.

  • 4 months later...
grainfree Newbie

I had a reaction after eating a cashew Larabar. The ingredients are cashews and dates. According to the Canadian Celiac Association, dates and other dried fruit may be dusted with gluten powder to prevent sticking. Something to consider when reading labels.

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    • trents
      @BlessedinBoston, it is possible that in Canada the product in question is formulated differently than in the USA or at least processed in in a facility that precludes cross contamination. I assume from your user name that you are in the USA. And it is also possible that the product meets the FDA requirement of not more than 20ppm of gluten but you are a super sensitive celiac for whom that standard is insufficient. 
    • BlessedinBoston
      No,Lindt is not gluten free no matter what they say on their website. I found out the hard way when I was newly diagnosed in 2000. At that time the Lindt truffles were just becoming popular and were only sold in small specialty shops at the mall. You couldn't buy them in any stores like today and I was obsessed with them 😁. Took me a while to get around to checking them and was heartbroken when I saw they were absolutely not gluten free 😔. Felt the same when I realized Twizzlers weren't either. Took me a while to get my diet on order after being diagnosed. I was diagnosed with small bowel non Hodgkins lymphoma at the same time. So it was a very stressful time to say the least. Hope this helps 😁.
    • knitty kitty
      @Jmartes71, I understand your frustration and anger.  I've been in a similar situation where no doctor took me seriously, accused me of making things up, and eventually sent me home to suffer alone.   My doctors did not recognize nutritional deficiencies.  Doctors are trained in medical learning institutions that are funded by pharmaceutical companies.  They are taught which medications cover up which symptoms.  Doctors are required to take twenty  hours of nutritional education in seven years of medical training.  (They can earn nine hours in Nutrition by taking a three day weekend seminar.)  They are taught nutritional deficiencies are passe' and don't happen in our well fed Western society any more.  In Celiac Disease, the autoimmune response and inflammation affects the absorption of ALL the essential vitamins and minerals.  Correcting nutritional deficiencies caused by malabsorption is essential!  I begged my doctor to check my Vitamin D level, which he did only after making sure my insurance would cover it.  When my Vitamin D came back extremely low, my doctor was very surprised, but refused to test for further nutritional deficiencies because he "couldn't make money prescribing vitamins.". I believe it was beyond his knowledge, so he blamed me for making stuff up, and stormed out of the exam room.  I had studied Nutrition before earning a degree in Microbiology.  I switched because I was curious what vitamins from our food were doing in our bodies.  Vitamins are substances that our bodies cannot manufacture, so we must ingest them every day.  Without them, our bodies cannot manufacture life sustaining enzymes and we sicken and die.   At home alone, I could feel myself dying.  It's an unnerving feeling, to say the least, and, so, with nothing left to lose, I relied in my education in nutrition.  My symptoms of Thiamine deficiency were the worst, so I began taking high dose Thiamine.  I had health improvement within an hour.  It was magical.  I continued taking high dose thiamine with a B Complex, magnesium. and other essential nutrients.  The health improvements continued for months.  High doses of thiamine are required to correct a thiamine deficiency because thiamine affects every cell and mitochondria in our bodies.    A twenty percent increase in dietary thiamine causes an eighty percent increase in brain function.  The cerebellum of the brain is most affected.  The cerebellum controls things we don't have to consciously have to think about, like digestion, balance, breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, hormone regulation, and many more.  Thiamine is absorbed from the digestive tract and sent to the most important organs like the brain and the heart.  This leaves the digestive tract depleted of Thiamine and symptoms of Gastrointestinal Beriberi, a thiamine deficiency localized in the digestive system, begin to appear.  Symptoms of Gastrointestinal Beriberi include anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, headaches, Gerd, acid reflux, gas, slow stomach emptying, gastroparesis, bloating, diarrhea and/or constipation, incontinence, abdominal pain, IBS,  SIBO, POTS, high blood pressure, heart rate changes like tachycardia, difficulty swallowing, Barrett's Esophagus, peripheral neuropathy, and more. Doctors are only taught about thiamine deficiency in alcoholism and look for the classic triad of symptoms (changes in gait, mental function, and nystagmus) but fail to realize that gastrointestinal symptoms can precede these symptoms by months.  All three classic triad of symptoms only appear in fifteen percent of patients, with most patients being diagnosed with thiamine deficiency post mortem.  I had all three but swore I didn't drink, so I was dismissed as "crazy" and sent home to die basically.   Yes, I understand how frustrating no answers from doctors can be.  I took OTC Thiamine Hydrochloride, and later thiamine in the forms TTFD (tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide) and Benfotiamine to correct my thiamine deficiency.  I also took magnesium, needed by thiamine to make those life sustaining enzymes.  Thiamine interacts with each of the other B vitamins, so the other B vitamins must be supplemented as well.  Thiamine is safe and nontoxic even in high doses.   A doctor can administer high dose thiamine by IV along with the other B vitamins.  Again, Thiamine is safe and nontoxic even in high doses.  Thiamine should be given if only to rule Gastrointestinal Beriberi out as a cause of your symptoms.  If no improvement, no harm is done. Share the following link with your doctors.  Section Three is especially informative.  They need to be expand their knowledge about Thiamine and nutrition in Celiac Disease.  Ask for an Erythrocyte Transketolace Activity test for thiamine deficiency.  This test is more reliable than a blood test. Thiamine, gastrointestinal beriberi and acetylcholine signaling.  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12014454/ Best wishes!
    • Jmartes71
      I have been diagnosed with celiac in 1994, in remission not eating wheat and other foods not to consume  my household eats wheat.I have diagnosed sibo, hernia ibs, high blood pressure, menopause, chronic fatigue just to name a few oh yes and Barrett's esophagus which i forgot, I currently have bumps in back of my throat, one Dr stated we all have bumps in the back of our throat.Im in pain.Standford specialist really dismissed me and now im really in limbo and trying to get properly cared for.I found a new gi and new pcp but its still a mess and medical is making it look like im a disability chaser when Im actively not well I look and feel horrible and its adding anxiety and depression more so.Im angery my condition is affecting me and its being down played 
    • marion wheaton
      Wondering if anyone knows whether Lindt chocolate balls are gluten free. The Lindt Canadian website says yes but the Lindt USA website says no. The information is a bit confusing.
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