I Think I Got Glutened For The First Time...

[Pamela B.]

I think I know what it feels like to be glutened now, after 3 weeks on the gluten free diet.

I went to Jose Peppers (Mexican restaurant) Friday night for a coworker meetup. First time at a restaurant since going gluten free. I had called ahead of time, they told me they had a gluten free menu, I requested it when I got there, and I ordered off that menu. So far, so good. When I got my food, there was some sort of "cornmeal ball" on the side. I have no idea if there was flour in it or not. I just had one of my coworkers transfer it to her plate and then ate around it. Then I noticed it was all over the bottom of my enchilada. I ate it anyway.

I was ok on Saturday. Went to an organic food expo that morning and met up with some friends while there. They wanted to go eat at a Mediterranean buffet.

Big mistake.

Against my good judgment, I went. I took the buffet and stuck to the plain rice, the rice pudding, and some curry dish.

Yesterday morning, I had what felt like a fatigue flareup times 10. I could barely function. I managed to fight through it and get some stuff done, but it was REALLY bad and I think I'm still feeling the effects of it today.

At least now I know that I'm on the right track with this diet. Ugh.

[zus888]

As you know, I just had the EXACT same thing happen to me. It lasted about 4 days. I noticed the effects the evening after my lunch glutening. The following 3 days were horrible. So horrible, I sought help from my PCP and considered seeing a therapist for my depression. Then, on day 5 I woke up feeling normal again.

I still don't know if it was for sure a glutening or just the ups and downs of the diet, but my gut is telling me it was from gluten. I've had issues with fatigue before, but this was a whole other animal. I'd say just a couple steps shy of how fatigued I felt when I had mono, which was the King of Fatigue.

[Mack the Knife]

Yep. I get that kind of reaction a lot to a minor glutening. Fatigue, kind of achey, slightly nauseous, can't concentrate, really dysfunctional, etc.

Buffets are kind of dangerous. There is lots of potential for cross contamination. People use the serving utensils from the pasta salad for the plain rice or they drop bits of tabbouleh into other dishes as they serve themselves.

The curry might not have been gluten free. Traditionally most curries should be gluten free and if you were eating at a decent Indian restaurant it probably would have been. However, some cheap brands of spice mixtures (ie garam masala, curry powder, panch phoram, etc) use wheat as a cheap filler. I think a curry in a buffet would be quite likely to be guilty of this. It is also possible that the rice pudding may have used a flavour or sweetener that had barley in it.