Kids With Gluten Avoidance/symptoms?

[Di2011]

I am "undiagnosed" but can't get tested due to $; 38 y/o.

I have always avoided or 'don't like' gluten heavy products. I hid under beds at boarding school to avoid getting caught skipping breakfast, 'don't like pasta', avoided breakfast all my living memory, etc etc and ended up taking up a bakery sales job at 36y/o. I ate lots more bread and was surrounded with "floating flour" for 30 hours a week. I got sicker and sicker and thought the breaking of the Australian drought in the past 12 months was just playing havoc on my "hay fever" symptoms. I spent 3 days in bed with infection (etc), went back to work for a 6 hour shift and came away from that with a head to toe itch ("Mosquito bites" I thought - but in the middle of a very cold winter I should have known better). I never went back to work in the bakery and four months later... I've had so many 'accidental glutening' and 'just a bit will be okay' and 'it can't be as serious as coeliacs' problems that the past four weeks of being ""really serious"" gluten free and limiting processed foods (try one gluten-free cereal box three times without introducing another processed food) that I know now what (specific products) cause me problems.

2 weeks ago I had my first weekend away (Sydney, Australia) from home food and I spent 2 weeks itching and dealing with the consequences of a little bit ((I had checked with chef and was assured the "corn flour" on the squid would be okay)) Two weeks later I have just returned from another trip to Brisbane (my sons national championships for Haidong Gumdo/martial arts) and I feel good. Limited itching ((I think due to Iodine which is required to flare up the Dermatitis Herpetiformis -DH-)) and I ate well. Lots of rice/corn thins, tomato, avocado and thanks to Brisbane for a great gluten-free awareness.

I coughed and did a bit of scratching this afternoon and I can only isolate this to the sharing of a water bottle with my 9 y/o son eating grain snacks and/or everyone on board a flight given biscuit/cookie for afternoon tea....

Tonight my son had *another* blood nose episode.. nearly midnight and despite being exhausted from a 3 day weekend of martial arts national competition in Brisbane.

Any advice on how to avoid him going through 30 years of gluten-yuck?

He is resistant to the idea despite being my **biggest** NO gluten/itching advocate.

He is like me, prefering no bread in the lunch box, for breakfast so I think he has either adopted my habits and/or has a "limited intake" response to the gluten.

Anyone had any similar experience with their kids?

[Di2011]

Just to add:

My son has similar "hay fever" symptoms developing. Last year (while I was working in a bakery and when I developed serious problems) he was diagnosed "asthmatic" which have (since me NOT working in the bakery) subsided (no treatment required for months despite the spring/hayfever season), always refused bread with meals and doesn't like gravy and white sauce with meals etc etc.

I can't find anything online to describe what I now call "accumulated gluten" in my system. I avoided it unknowingly for a long time but it took a few months of overload to get the point where I was so sick and sad and lousy that I could sleep from itching or other problems. Does anyone else see this in their children?

[weluvgators]

Our second child was the one that clued our family to our gluten issues. Mom and kids are now strictly gluten free, and we maintain a gluten free home.

If you are dealing with wheat/gluten "allergy" issues, then the rain barrel analogy that is common in managing allergies may help you understand it. You have a rain barrel - the capacity of your rain barrel can be bigger or smaller due to genetics, sleep, eating and lifestyle choices, etc. Every little bit of allergen and other stressors can fill that rain barrel up - if you are always operating with a nearly full rain barrel, then you will often run over your barrel and experience allergic and deteriorating health symptoms.

If you google "allergy rain barrel analogy" you will find other explanations of this from an allergy management perspective.

Our super silly girl has always avoided gluten, and we are certainly glad that she opened our eyes to our family's gluten issues. And I have allergy induced asthma (it presented as exercise induced asthma many years ago, long before I figured out the gluten problem). Our super silly girl also has respiratory issues with gluten exposure. As we naturally avoided gluten in our efforts to help our super silly child, the rest of us figured out pretty quickly that gluten exposure simply wasn't worth the symptoms.