Abdominal Fever

[twinkle-toez]

Hi, I've tried searching the forum about this, and doing generic google searches, but I'm not really having much success.

I was wondering... I know that quite a few people report fevers when eating gluten - I"m assuming that the fevers are systemic.

I have been gluten-free for 24 hours (to the best of my knowledge), having been on a gluten-challenge for about 5 1/2-6 days.

About a day and a half into the challenge I felt suddenly violently ill. I became nauseous, with a crushing migraine-type headache, and a fever which was systemic. Throughout the duration of the challenge my fever remained, except the systemic fever became mild, and at times, non-existent. However I seem to have permanently retained a raging fever in my abdominal area (and on my back opposite my abdomen). I'm not sure if this is normal for celiac or gluten intolerance... I also have ALOT of abdominal pain - it's very gurgly and each time it gurgles it's extremely painful - and if I feel something move in there, that's also very painful too. It doesn't really seem to matter whether I eat or not, at least not as far as I can tell. And I still have the constant crippling migraine-type headaches with intermittent nausea.

Is this normal? I'd really appreciate hearing people's thoughts/ advice/ experiences...

Thanks in advance.

[K8ling]

woah. I have no idea. Is there an alien in there??

[ravenwoodglass]

It can take some time to get over a challenge. You've only been back to gluten free for a day or two and it may take a while to get back to normal. Especially if you had been gluten-free for a while a challenge can make you even sicker than before you went gluten-free. Also if your challenge was for the purpose of testing by blood or biopsy and you had been gluten-free long enough for issues to resolve do be aware that your test results will likley be negative.

[twinkle-toez]

It can take some time to get over a challenge. You've only been back to gluten free for a day or two and it may take a while to get back to normal. Especially if you had been gluten-free for a while a challenge can make you even sicker than before you went gluten-free. Also if your challenge was for the purpose of testing by blood or biopsy and you had been gluten-free long enough for issues to resolve do be aware that your test results will likley be negative.

Thanks for the advice! I wasn't completely gluten-free before the challenge, but I was significantly gluten-reduced - which I didn't do at all with celiac in mind - I was in the process of trying to eliminate processed foods b/c I was interested in trying a paleo diet (difficult for someone whom only likes chicken and fish). I'm starting to feel better now though. The fever is only intermittent now - I haven't deciphered a pattern, but the longer I go without gluten, it seems to improve. I'm fully expecting the blood screen to come back negative, but I don't really care. I just did it so that I could set it to rest in my mind and in case I had been ingesting enough gluten prior to that to actually test positive, but I"m not holding my breath at all. If I feel better on the gluten-free diet, then I'll stick with it no matter what the test results say.

Thanks again!

[Skylark]

Sounds like you're really inflamed. Do you think an anti-inflammatory like Motrin would help, or just upset your stomach more? Might help the headaches too.

[ravenwoodglass]

Thanks for the advice! I wasn't completely gluten-free before the challenge, but I was significantly gluten-reduced - which I didn't do at all with celiac in mind - I was in the process of trying to eliminate processed foods b/c I was interested in trying a paleo diet (difficult for someone whom only likes chicken and fish). I'm starting to feel better now though. The fever is only intermittent now - I haven't deciphered a pattern, but the longer I go without gluten, it seems to improve. I'm fully expecting the blood screen to come back negative, but I don't really care. I just did it so that I could set it to rest in my mind and in case I had been ingesting enough gluten prior to that to actually test positive, but I"m not holding my breath at all. If I feel better on the gluten-free diet, then I'll stick with it no matter what the test results say.

Thanks again!

You actually can eat chicken and fish on the paleo diet, along with veggies, like carrots, turnips, parsnips, eggs fruits, nuts and berries. It isn't a vegatarian or raw diet. You would avoid grains, sugar, dairy, potatoes and beans and processed foods.

[twinkle-toez]

You actually can eat chicken and fish on the paleo diet, along with veggies, like carrots, turnips, parsnips, eggs fruits, nuts and berries. It isn't a vegatarian or raw diet. You would avoid grains, sugar, dairy, potatoes and beans and processed foods.

I know that you can eat fish and chicken on a paleo diet - what I meant was that fish and chicken/ turkey are the only types of meat that I can stand eating - I hate (always have) the taste of beef and pork - and things like game meat make me cringe a bit b/c I can't help but think of cute bunnies and deer. lol. I was a complete and strict vegetarian up until this past January when I decided to re-introduce fish into my diet so I could get the fatty acids and protein from it while I re-fed and re-built my body (having had a serious relapse of the anorexia). I was pretty ashamed to do it, so there are only 3 people who actually know that I did that. And then in June when I saw the neurologist and he said that all the signs I was displaying pointed to something within my CNS instead of just a peripheral problem I got really scared that I could be missing/ not getting enough of the things that only meat can provide - hence I added chicken back in. Once again, only 3 people whom know me actually know this. It's a tricky bit undoing a vegetarian diet, b/c being vegetarian becomes your identity... it's how people know you and what they expect of you. I'm babbling though. I had heard that the paleo diet can do amazing things for athletic performance and muscle recovery if followed properly, so that was why I was (am) interested in it - to see if it could improve my running (half-marathons) and dancing (ballet).

Anti-inflammatories are a good idea. So far I've only done tylenol, but I stopped that b/c I was worried that it could possibly make an irritated stomach/ GI tract worse - but possibly advil or motrin or something would be better... Thanks!