Do Intolerance Symptoms Increase?

[mammato5]

I am trying to determine if my daughter is gluten intolerant. The first 6 months of her life she was extremely gassy. I removed gluten from my diet, I was nursing her, and she improved w/i a couple days. She is now 14months and I would like to know do we need to continue a gluten-free diet.

This week I have been giving her a little gluten each day. Day 1 she had 3 ritz crackers, no symptoms that I could see. Day 2 3 crackers, no symptoms. Day 3 ritz crackers and a hand full of cheerios, that day she woke up during naps crying, but went back to sleep, not a usual pattern for her. Day 4 cheerios, graham crackers and a cookie woke up still at naps and at night 2x's. Yesterday day 5 the least amount of gluten, but the most interrupted sleep and last night woke up really crying and squirming in my arms, nothing could sooth her. This is how she was before taking out gluten. She had some gas and then calmed down and slept the rest of the night.

My confusion is did it take a few days of eating gluten to see outward symptoms? Can the irritation build in her body over a couple days?

This is new territory for us and would love to hear any opinions and experiences.

Thanks for listening.

[mushroom]

Yes, the more of a substance you are exposed to, the more antibodies are made and the more miserable you can feel. It is the same for all of us in the amount of trace gluten we can tolerate. Some of us are extremely sensitive and make lots of antibodies to very small amounts of gluten, some make fewer antibodies, enough that they think they can get away with eating that food, others do not react until the gluten reaches X parts per million. Some (un)lucky ones get no GI symptoms at all - the antibodies attack other parts of the body than the gut (like the brain ). Once you start making antibodies to gluten, the body tends to be on the alert for it, having become autoimmune to the substance and recognizing it as a foreign invader. The more gluten, the more antibodies, the more symptoms. Vicious cycle. So if your daughter developed her autoimmunity during breastfeeding, she was already predisposed to developing the antibodies. Her body sent out some early warning signals when she was re-exposed to gluten (let's say some ground troops), which were ignored,, so then called in reinforcement troops, and is getting ready to start lobbing grenades . This is my interpretation of what is happening. I do not have scientific evidence to back this up.

[txplowgirl]

I agree with mushroom,

I am gluten intolerant, I went gluten free then after a year I tried to do a gluten challenge. The first 4 days were fine then I slowly started getting sick, couldn't sleep, my body started hurting, fatigue, daily headaches, as well as quite a few other symtopms. By the end of 2 weeks I was so miserable, I was depressed, anxiety was overwhelming. I couldn't do it any longer.

Sounds to me like she is showing symptoms, I would keep her gluten free in my opinion.

[MacieMay]

This is exactly what I experienced with my toddler. She is 21 months now. It would take more than one cracker, for her symptoms to appear. She is not Celiac, she's had ALL the tests (including gene). GI diagnosed her with the intolerance. We have been Gluten-free since Sept. 1st and she has been SO MUCH BETTER. : ) I hope one day we can re-introduce gluten, but I think I am going to wait until she is older (maybe 3 or 4). That's when kids typically outgrow food senstivities and allergies. I hope this helps.

[mammato5]

Thank you all for your quick response today. It has helped to understand more what could be going on inside her little body. We have avoided gluten all day and she has been peacefully sleeping for almost 2 hours today, the first solid uninterrupted nap in a couple days!

Thanks again