Why Don't Fudgsicles Gluten Me?

[CGally81]

Okay, Fudgsicles are one of the foods I ate a lot of when I first went gluten-free, as I went through that horrible "hungry all the time" phase (which is still not over for me, but is slowly improving as the weeks go by). I never got glutened from them. When I ate "gluten-free" cupcakes, I did get glutened from the frosting (it contained barley), and I knew pretty quickly what had happened. When I ate fish with crackers, I got mildly glutened (fish is an antidote to gluten, so the effects were gone within an hour).

But I'd been eating Fudgsicles without looking at the ingredients, and nothing seemed to happen to me as a result of eating them. Not even the slightest sign of being glutened. I eventually did look at the ingredients one day, and saw "malt powder". I'd read that malt is one of the big no-nos for Celiacs, along with wheat, barley and rye. Because malt is often made from barley. Though not always, we're told to be careful and avoid it just in case.

So what gives? I'm not saying I want to be glutened by them. In fact, I stopped eating them a few days ago just to be safe. I also wasn't glutened by the ice-cream cookie-like things I had a few of back in August, despite the fact that "bleached wheat flour" is an ingredient.

I looked on here for "Fudgsicles" and found that someone else had in fact been glutened by them!

Any explanation as to why, then, Fudgsicles seem to affect other people, but not me? Am I less "sensitive" than other people? (I sure hope so! I'd only been having symptoms for 5 months before I went gluten-free, so I'd better not have done too much damage to myself!) Any ideas?

[CGally81]

Maybe your doctor made a mistake in his diagnosis. If you ate bleached white flour, you were definately glutened. I'm assuming you did have positive blood tests or biopsy or both. Right?

~The Spruster~

I'm self-diagnosed. I was suffering severe brain fog one night and looked up "inability to concentrate", which led to "brain fog", which led to possible treatments for brain fog. A "gluten-free, wheat-free diet helps a surprising number of people", one site said. I went on one and it worked. And when I was glutened again, it came back (along with the other symptoms). So, gluten causes it, removal of gluten removes it. Easy to make diagnosis.

Yet I didn't get glutened off the Fudgsicles or the ice cream cookie-like sandwiches. I didn't suffer the symptoms at least, and believe me, I know the symptoms.

[Mtndog]

Could be the amount of gluten- maybe it takes more to affect you than others. I ate a fudgsicle over the summer by accident (with malt powder) and I didn't have a reaction at first (a few years ago my reactions were almost immediate). Several days later- my old symptoms showed up but much less severe.

[Ahorsesoul]

Sometimes you do not have symptoms but that does not mean it can not do damage. You may be one of those people that needs a certain amount of gluten to trigger symptoms.

You can track how you feel over the next few day. Also have someone else track your moods in case it produces symptoms that you may not notice.

[lovegrov]

First, there's just no evidence fish is an antidote to gluten.

As for barley powder, barley is generally lower in gluten than wheat. That does not mean, however, that you should eat it. You shouldn't.

richard

[CGally81]

I would really love to know where you got your information about fish being an antidote to a gluten reaction in one who has celiac disease. Could you please provide me with a link?

~The Spruster~

I forget, as I never bookmarked it. I was looking up all sorts of stuff online, but I do remember multiple sources saying that fish oil or fish itself contained naturally-occurring L-glutamine, which stops celiac symptoms.

Also, from my experience, eating fish (flounder) on days when I'd been glutened (before I knew what my problem even was!) caused me to feel absolutely fantastic shortly afterwards. Not to mention the one time after going gluten-free that I got glutened by accident from fish with crackers - the crackers themselves - I only suffered very mild symptoms, and only for an hour. No brain fog, but 2 rushes to the bathroom and some stomach noises, but shortly after that, they were all gone. There's no doubt in my mind that if I had eaten only the crackers and not the fish, things would have been a lot worse, but I'm convinced that the fish (more specifically, its L-glutamine) fought the symptoms and stopped them.

Btw, L-glutamine itself can be bought in either pill or chewable form. I can't swallow pills, so I bought chewables. It's said to help speed up the process of healing the gut. (I stopped eating them. I probably should go back to them, but I see them as more something to keep around as an antidote in case I get glutened again)

[CGally81]

Sometimes you do not have symptoms but that does not mean it can not do damage. You may be one of those people that needs a certain amount of gluten to trigger symptoms.

You can track how you feel over the next few day. Also have someone else track your moods in case it produces symptoms that you may not notice.

If I need a certain amount to trigger symptoms, I am lucky. But I will try to avoid all gluten, period. Guess that means no more Fudgsicles, in that case, even though they never made me feel bad before.

[CGally81]

Could be the amount of gluten- maybe it takes more to affect you than others. I ate a fudgsicle over the summer by accident (with malt powder) and I didn't have a reaction at first (a few years ago my reactions were almost immediate). Several days later- my old symptoms showed up but much less severe.

Awesome. Sounds like you've healed quite a bit if your reactions are less severe than they were before. I can't wait to get to that point.

[JNBunnie1]

Awesome. Sounds like you've healed quite a bit if your reactions are less severe than they were before. I can't wait to get to that point.

The consistent low level of gluten you've been ingesting (fudgesicles, fish with crackers, ice cream cookie sandwich) may be contributing to your constant feeling of hunger. Something to think about before deciding to be careless with the diet.

[ENF]

Is it possible that you don't have Celiac Disease?

[CGally81]

The consistent low level of gluten you've been ingesting (fudgesicles, fish with crackers, ice cream cookie sandwich) may be contributing to your constant feeling of hunger. Something to think about before deciding to be careless with the diet.

Maybe. The hunger goes up and down still, and still has the gradual "down" trend, even if it goes back up other days. I stopped eating Fudgsicles a few days ago because of that. The ice cream cookie sandwiches were a one-time thing, when the hunger first started. The fish with crackers was a one-time thing, and it had definite "glutened" effects.

So the only thing I'd been consistently eating was Fudgsicles, and possibly some turkey lunchmeat (which is a gluten-free brand itself, but others here said that cross contamination can be an issue due to sharing the same knife or cutting board). I think my breakfast protein will now come more from tunafish instead.

[kaki-clam]

Fudgicles are delicious and they should harm no one...they know their role!!! Hope you get everything figured out

[CGally81]

Is it possible that you don't have Celiac Disease?

Now, I'd read that those who have "gluten intolerance" instead of "celiac disease" can technically have a "low gluten diet", whatever exactly "low" means.

But I'd definitely been getting glutened HARD by whole wheat bread, and Peter Pan peanut butter (not other brands though), and soft pretzels from the pretzel factory. I didn't get it quite as quickly from granola bars, but still got it, same symptoms and everything. That was before I decided to go gluten-free. And even after that, I still got glutened by Peter Pan peanut butter itself, as well as frosting on an otherwise gluten-free cupcake, and to a much milder extent, the crackers on fish (I still think the fish itself was the antidote).

And I'm still going through the recovery symptoms. Like I have the occasional muscle twitches, pins and needles, itchiness, chills in the legs or forehead, and I got those symptoms real fast like 2 weeks after I went gluten-free. I get them off and on now, though not nearly as badly as before.

So I have something, definitely. Maybe a somewhat milder form of it. Due to detecting it early (after 4-5 months of obvious symptoms) and therefore not letting it get as bad?

[ENF]

I'm just wondering if you have the autoimmune responses, including villi damage and antibodies, that are usuallly necessary for Celiac Disease. You also have to have the genetics.

[CGally81]

There is no way you were getting glutened from Peter Pan peanut butter. It's gluten free. Open Original Shared Link

I'd read that online also, but I definitely know how I felt that day, and I know that's what I ate. And it went away when I stopped eating it. I don't get it myself, but I now don't trust that brand.

[CGally81]

I'm just wondering if you have the autoimmune responses, including villi damage and antibodies, that are usuallly necessary for Celiac Disease. You also have to have the genetics.

I don't know. I didn't get tested for that. I got my blood tested for everything but vitamins, but I didn't get an entero, and now that I stopped eating gluten, I'm not going to start just for it. I didn't do the genetic test either.

But I do know that I'd been suffering the effects of being glutened when eating gluten, for months before I figured out the cause, and it went away when I stopped eating gluten. Maybe I am not as sensitive in some ways as other people, but everything else seems to line up. Heck, I'm going through the same withdrawal symptoms that other people have reported, including the "hungry all the time" phase.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

I'm just wondering if you have the autoimmune responses, including villi damage and antibodies, that are usuallly necessary for Celiac Disease. You also have to have the genetics.

It's certainly a fair question to wonder whether the CGally was making antibodies to gluten. However, at this point, he or she would have to go back on large amounts of gluten for several months for any testing to be valid, and, given, the described reactions, I doubt CGally would want to go through that when it's clear that either wheat or gluten is causing problems.

But the idea that you have to have the "genetics" to develop celiac disease has been disproven. I know a lot of doctors and others insist that you have to have the genetics, but the facts prove otherwise.

There have been several members on this board and other celiac boards as well in the last few years who DID have bloodwork-and-biopsy-diagnosed celiac disease, but did NOT have the so-called celiac genes.

From the Washington Diplomat (Open Original Shared Link):

Although DQ2 and DQ8 are the strongest genes involved in celiac disease, they

[ravenwoodglass]

I'd read that online also, but I definitely know how I felt that day, and I know that's what I ate. And it went away when I stopped eating it. I don't get it myself, but I now don't trust that brand.

By saying you don't get it yourself I assume that means you dipped into someone elses jar. It was not the Pnut butter that got you it was crumbs from others uses before you. You need your own jar.

[OliveBranch]

Isn't it also possible that the original poster is developing other intolerances in addition to gluten, and that perhaps there is something in the Peter Pan that is not 'glutening' him per se, but still giving him symptoms in its own right? I certainly have found that giving up gluten alone is not enough, at least during the healing process.... right now there are many other ingredients I have to avoid. So maybe this is an issue not of gluten v. no gluten but gluten v. other problem foods.

That said, I believe the other advice given here is valid, too--the shared jar of PB could definitely have been a problem.

By saying you don't get it yourself I assume that means you dipped into someone elses jar. It was not the Pnut butter that got you it was crumbs from others uses before you. You need your own jar.

[CGally81]

Now help me see if I've got this right. You got glutened from gluten free cupcakes and gluten free peanut butter (Peter Pan). But... you didn't get glutened from daily fudgesicles that contain Malt powder and ice cream cookie thingy's made with bleached wheat flour. And you only get a little glutened if you eat fish with your crackers. That's very intestering.

I hope you forgive me, but I'm not going to try your way of following the gluten-free diet.

The cupcakes contained frosting that had barley as an ingredient. It was the frosting. I ate the rest of the cupcakes after lopping off their tops, and they themselves didn't bother me.

As for the fish with crackers, bear in mind that fish (flounder specifically) had been serving as a sort of antidote for me. In the past, it made me feel great after I ate fish if I'd been feeling bad from having been glutened earlier. So I think that I had in that instance essentially eaten gluten (crackers) and antidote (flounder) at the same time.

But the Peter Pan peanut butter thing I don't get.

[CGally81]

You forgot about all the fudgesicles with the malt (barley) and the ice cream cookie thingy's with the bleached wheat flour. Did you eat fish with them too?

Nope. I don't get why they didn't seem to gluten me. Smaller amounts of gluten? Either way, I'm avoiding them for good for now, hoping my hunger will go down. I'm past the "put on muscle rapidly" part of the hunger thing, and am now putting on my gut.

For the past two days, I didn't eat any Fudgsicles (and the ice cream cookie things were a one-time thing anyway), and I also am now avoiding turkey lunchmeat for fear of CC in the cutting process. I noticed that last night, after having dinner at 7:30pm, I didn't feel a huge burning need to go downstairs for more food later, even 3 or 4 hours later (I went to bed at 2am). So maybe I was still getting mildly glutened in some way, and having a different side effect.

[Lisa]

I would suggest that you be tested, first, by conventional means. Experimenting with partial avoidance cannot be successful, should Celiac be your issue. The gluten free diet must be absolute for an extended period of time.

This is the Serologic Blood Panel to request from your doctor:

Antigliadin antibodies (AGA) both IgG and IgG

Anti-endomysial antibodies (EMA) - IgA

Anti-tissue transglutaminase antibodies (tTG) - IgA

Total IgA level.

[ENF]

But the idea that you have to have the "genetics" to develop celiac disease has been disproven. I know a lot of doctors and others insist that you have to have the genetics, but the facts prove otherwise.

There have been several members on this board and other celiac boards as well in the last few years who DID have bloodwork-and-biopsy-diagnosed celiac disease, but did NOT have the so-called celiac genes.

From the Washington Diplomat (Open Original Shared Link):

Although DQ2 and DQ8 are the strongest genes involved in celiac disease, they