Reaction To Rice?

[glutout]

Hello lovely people. I think I am having a problem with rice or/ rice based flours. When I eat a pretty good amount of either, it seems that I have trouble sleeping, tossing and turning and my mind races all night. My mind tends to get busy at times, but this was much worse.

I had a food sensitivity test done several months ago and rice was very high, but my doctor thought it was just because I ate it frequently. So many of the gluten free foods are rice based it's hard to avoid. I do not know if I agree with that because there were other foods that tested high and some I never ate at all. So why would that pertain to rice and not the other foods?

Does anyone else react this way to rice, and if so, is it whole rice or the rice flours??

[Strawberry-Jam]

what is this food sensitivity test you speak of, and how/where did you get it done? all I've heard of is allergy testing which is different.

and yes, people here have had trouble with rice. some people cannot eat any grains at all.

[glutout]

I have a health practioner who ordered it for me. It's a blood test by Genova Diagnostics. I got the blood draw at a local lab. It tests IgG levels, as well as total IgE. So it is looking for sensitivites, not really allergies. There's a difference in the antibodies affected. Pretty interesting test.

[Strawberry-Jam]

I want this test!! but I can't afford it till next year...

[kwylee]

I've had a similar test and rice and corn was deemed OK for me. But I do notice that if I eat those everyday for a few days I will feel lethargic. I think my system does better with little or no grains. But since I do have a tolerance for them, I include them for variety, just not everyday, and never two meals in a row.

[Leper Messiah]

Be careful, IgG testing can be very unreliable, as is most food intolerance testing generally. I.e. take one test get one set of results, take the same test the following day and get different results. IgG tends to produce high results in foods which you eat regularly so would tend to agree with your doc, even though I wish it weren't true, would have made my path a lot easier to tread. I spent a stupid amount on a York test which didn't really do anything for me in terms of resolution of symptoms.

However your symptoms (mind racing at night and inability to sleep, I had years and years of this) seem to point towards raised cortisol levels indicating a reaction to something, and plenty of people have issues with rice I'm sure. Best way is an exclusion diet (sorry I wish there was an easier way).

One thing to watch out for is my reaction to eating gluten lasts, on average, 2 weeks so I generally am very sensitive to most things during these two weeks, rice isn't too bad but it's still a bit funny on the stomach however I've got worse reactions with a lot of other things such as corn, soy and dairy that I have to eat it.

If you determine that you are definitely struggling with rice how about other gluten free grains, as I say I struggle with corn (it's not a gluten reaction but enough to make me avoid) but this might be ok for you. If so there are tons of products with corn in them, pretty much all gluten-free breads etc certainly in the UK. Otherwise if you'd prefer something more savoury you could try tapioca, millet, buckwheat etc etc, do a quick google to find gluten-free alternatives.

[Jen Z]

Interesting. I have noticed that when I eat a bowl of plain white rice with non cc'd butter and sea salt, I end up with a mild stomach ache within an hour. Nothing more but enough that I am suspicious. Scary to have a rice issue since it seems to be the basis of all non gluten-free snacky like foods.

[Strawberry-Jam]

and you're sure it's not the butter?

[Jen Z]

No- I a sure of nothing these days. LOL However, the butter is clean.

[Strawberry-Jam]

since a lot of us react to casein, that's what I thought it might be. Eating ice cream makes me feel drunk and gives me muscle aches later.

[Celtic Queen]

I think I'm reacting to rice flour, but not rice itself. For me it's more like an anaphylactic reaction. My eyes start swelling up. I posted this in another section of the boards, but I had a reaction to Betty Crocker gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. It happened twice. But I don't seem to have a problem with regular rice. I don't know why the flour would be different than the regular rice, but it seems to be for me.

The not sleeping at night seems to come from the gluten withdrawal for me. When I was still eating gluten, I slept like a champ. Now that I'm not, it's hard for me to go to sleep and stay asleep. I guess that was one good thing about eating the gluten poison.

[glutout]

Be careful, IgG testing can be very unreliable, as is most food intolerance testing generally. I.e. take one test get one set of results, take the same test the following day and get different results. IgG tends to produce high results in foods which you eat regularly so would tend to agree with your doc, even though I wish it weren't true, would have made my path a lot easier to tread. I spent a stupid amount on a York test which didn't really do anything for me in terms of resolution of symptoms.

However your symptoms (mind racing at night and inability to sleep, I had years and years of this) seem to point towards raised cortisol levels indicating a reaction to something, and plenty of people have issues with rice I'm sure. Best way is an exclusion diet (sorry I wish there was an easier way).

One thing to watch out for is my reaction to eating gluten lasts, on average, 2 weeks so I generally am very sensitive to most things during these two weeks, rice isn't too bad but it's still a bit funny on the stomach however I've got worse reactions with a lot of other things such as corn, soy and dairy that I have to eat it.

If you determine that you are definitely struggling with rice how about other gluten free grains, as I say I struggle with corn (it's not a gluten reaction but enough to make me avoid) but this might be ok for you. If so there are tons of products with corn in them, pretty much all gluten-free breads etc certainly in the UK. Otherwise if you'd prefer something more savoury you could try tapioca, millet, buckwheat etc etc, do a quick google to find gluten-free alternatives.

Thank you for the great info. The IgG test is confusing, because as I stated there were high levels of antibodies for foods I hardly ever eat, so what does that mean? I agree with the cortisol levels too since I have been sleeping very well until the overabundance of rice. I guess I just need to cut it out for a while!

[Leper Messiah]

Sorry I don't think I was totally clear there glutout, the foods you regularly eat influence the test and the test is not therefore completely defined by the foods you regularly eat. So you having foods highlighted that you do not regularly eat is normal for these tests, and certainly in my experience, however a large proportion of the foods identified in mine were those I was at the time eating large amounts of.

Interestingly there is no correlation between IgG and allergies (I know it is intolerances and not allergies being tested but surely your body would react in a similar fashion, albeit more dramatically to allergies). There is plenty online about the fallibility of intolerance testing, I like you did not want to believe it at first but everyone who told me it was a waste of money/time was right. And the worst thing is you can't question it - it is what it is to the company's who offer these tests.

Wish I was more upbeat but I'm afraid it comes down to painstakingly going through food groups to try and weed out the baddies in your personal circumstances.

Again I would re-iterate that I react to most of the main foods you would expect to react to (soy, dairy etc) in the two weeks after being gluttened. After that I can eat more of these things, albeit I don't for the large part, psychological block, call it whatever.

The fact that you say you slept well before eating the rice is very encouraging, it took me ages to get to the point where I'd weeded out the offending food groups enough so that I had a good nights sleep.

[anabananakins]

I have insulin resistance and rice is just too starchy for me. A tiny portion (like, a teaspoon but who can stop at that?) is ok but any more and I get a bit high on the sugar rush and then crash. Could it be something like that?

[glutout]

Maybe so...I, too have insulin resistance, and never even thought of that! Need to watch my starches!!!

[T.H.]

Do you have any problems with corn? If so, something else to consider is that if it's white rice or enriched rice, it will usually have corn contamination. Many white rices use cornstarch in the process of getting it polished and white. Most vitamin enrichment uses corn-based ingredients to deliver the vitamin, as well.

Something that might be helpful if you're avoiding rice is a cookbook "Gluten-Free without Rice" by Nicolette Dumke. I'll be honest, it's not a great bunch of recipes, and it's a very small book. But it has multiple recipes for the each type of food (like crackers) just all with different flour bases. These are just not very exciting, is all. So...more a nice book to give you a basic recipe for you to build off of, if that makes sense?

It was very useful when I needed it, though! :-)

[glutout]

I think corn is the only thing I do not react to!

[Leper Messiah]

Do you have any problems with corn? If so, something else to consider is that if it's white rice or enriched rice, it will usually have corn contamination. Many white rices use cornstarch in the process of getting it polished and white. Most vitamin enrichment uses corn-based ingredients to deliver the vitamin, as well.

Very interesting, I knew straight away with the vitamin tabs I used to take that it had something in them that I reacted to (after investigation found out that they are made from corn, Vit C especially) but I never knew about the rice and that probably explains why although it's by far the best staple food I have, I always in the back of my mind thought I had a bit of a reaction when eating. I guess in the back of my mind I was a bit blinkered and thought 'I have to avoid pretty much every other food, surely not....'

Is there anything corn is not in?!?!?!!? Argh, sorry for the post highjack glutout but be very glad you are not like me and can eat corn, what a nightmare!!