"testing" For Super-Sensitivity

[Strawberry-Jam]

hello, fellow coeliacs.

I am having a relapse of my gluten symptoms prior to diagnosis. I figured it was probably a comorbidity--salicylate intolerance, fructose malabsorption, etc.--but I've tried several diets for these things and nothing seems to be helping. Granted, I only stay on the diets for one or two weeks at a time, but I'm wondering if since it feels like gluten, why wouldn't it be gluten?

I was wondering if there is a way to avoid possible cases of CC for enough time to know that's what it is.

What if I only stuck to meats, eggs, and things with peels and rinds like squash, bananas, avocados? Or things like potatoes and carrots that can be scrubbed and peeled?

at the moment my intended diet is:

- meats

- eggs

- canned green beans

- frozen brussels sprouts

- white potatoes

- sea salt

I picked those two veggies because they are low-sal.

I have also been eating a lot of cashews lately, and just broke down and bought a jar of peanut butter even though I'm supposed to be off legumes because I can't have any candy or fruit or anything right now and I just wanted something sweet because I couldn't stop thinking about cake and peanut butter is the closest thing! TT_TT I did get a kind without sugar though.

I dunno what to do at this point. I usually eat 100g of cashews for lunch, or a larabar (but I only have three left because what I had was mailed to me from the states and you can't get those here), because I have to eat something that doesn't need to be microwaved or reheated while I am walking from my first job to my second. Breakfast is usually eggs and potatoes or leftovers from supper. Supper is whatever I have.

What can I do to see if it is super sensitivity that is my problem? I keep a food and symptoms diary but cannot find correlations. I use only gluten-free supplements and have just started on l-glutamine and a probiotic. I avoid soy and dairy like the plague, and try to avoid corn as well. I rarely eat at restaurants and in fact have eaten at only one in all of Dublin and it is one that is well-known for being allergy-friendly.

If I avoid nuts, beans, legumes, and grains for a while, as well as carefully washing and peeling all veg or fruits, will I know soon if I am super-sensitive?

and if I do such a thing, what can I possibly eat when I'm on the go and have no recourse to a microwave or kitchen? something I can put into my purse and carry around with me, like I do with my 100g packets of cashews now?

[bartfull]

  On 11/5/2011 at 2:11 PM, Strawberry_Jam said:

hello, fellow coeliacs.

I am having a relapse of my gluten symptoms prior to diagnosis. I figured it was probably a comorbidity--salicylate intolerance, fructose malabsorption, etc.--but I've tried several diets for these things and nothing seems to be helping. Granted, I only stay on the diets for one or two weeks at a time, but I'm wondering if since it feels like gluten, why wouldn't it be gluten?

I was wondering if there is a way to avoid possible cases of CC for enough time to know that's what it is.

What if I only stuck to meats, eggs, and things with peels and rinds like squash, bananas, avocados? Or things like potatoes and carrots that can be scrubbed and peeled?

at the moment my intended diet is:

- meats

- eggs

- canned green beans

- frozen brussels sprouts

- white potatoes

- sea salt

I picked those two veggies because they are low-sal.

I have also been eating a lot of cashews lately, and just broke down and bought a jar of peanut butter even though I'm supposed to be off legumes because I can't have any candy or fruit or anything right now and I just wanted something sweet because I couldn't stop thinking about cake and peanut butter is the closest thing! TT_TT I did get a kind without sugar though.

I dunno what to do at this point. I usually eat 100g of cashews for lunch, or a larabar (but I only have three left because what I had was mailed to me from the states and you can't get those here), because I have to eat something that doesn't need to be microwaved or reheated while I am walking from my first job to my second. Breakfast is usually eggs and potatoes or leftovers from supper. Supper is whatever I have.

What can I do to see if it is super sensitivity that is my problem? I keep a food and symptoms diary but cannot find correlations. I use only gluten-free supplements and have just started on l-glutamine and a probiotic. I avoid soy and dairy like the plague, and try to avoid corn as well. I rarely eat at restaurants and in fact have eaten at only one in all of Dublin and it is one that is well-known for being allergy-friendly.

If I avoid nuts, beans, legumes, and grains for a while, as well as carefully washing and peeling all veg or fruits, will I know soon if I am super-sensitive?

and if I do such a thing, what can I possibly eat when I'm on the go and have no recourse to a microwave or kitchen? something I can put into my purse and carry around with me, like I do with my 100g packets of cashews now?

I'm pretty sure sals do me in too. You know that peanut butter is full of sals, right? And are you peeling those potatoes? The other thing I can think of is the corn. It is fairly high in sals and it is in everything, including the plastic lining in the cans your green beans come in. I found out the hard way that at my sensitivity level, the corn in the new plastics definitely gives me a reaction. And the frozen brussels sprouts may be dusted with corn starch to keep them from clumping.

My diet consists of old white potatoes, peeled

Brown rice

Meat

Cauliflower

Starbucks ice cream ( )

Kettle Brand potato chips

I'm sure I'm not getting enough nutrition, but at least I'm getting more than I did before - I didn't digest my food before.

For something sweet that won't melt like the Starbucks, pears that have been peeled are really good. Maybe you could do something different for lunch and have some hard boiled eggs, sliced peeled pears, and a rice cake for lunch?

[dilettantesteph]

With the meats, you need to get stuff packaged at the meat distributor and not recut up at the store. There is a lot of cc possibility in there when it comes to super sensitivity, especially if they have a bakery or process sausage. Avoid poultry. They seem to be a problem for super sensitives unless you can find some exclusively pasture fed.

You should know in a week or two.

Can you cut out the supplements? There were an issue for me.

If you do eggs, try to find ones from pasture fed chickens. They are an issue for the most sensitive too.

If you eat frozen veggies, see what else they sell to see if there might be cc issues. I can't do frozen produce. Same with canned. Can you do fresh? Even better, get it from the farmer's market.

To do this you really need to have a lot of determination. I regularly have to go on a simple diet like this to figure what is getting me this time. It is very hard, but definitely worth the effort.

Good luck.

[dilettantesteph]

For quick eating you can make potato chips with a dehydrator.

[Strawberry-Jam]

wow... this is intense. I'm so sorry you guys have to go thru this. I really, really hope that I'm not so sensitive that I can't eat chicken! Surely gluten can't end up in the muscles of the bird?? What if I get a whole chicken and wash it really well, or cuts of chicken that are very easy to wash?

I don't think the meat I get is packaged at the store, because we don't have a meat counter. Perhaps I will avoid minced meat though and go for cuts of meat that I can rinse/wash... just in case....

[dilettantesteph]

Thanks. Compared to being sick all the time, the effort we have to go through is nothing. I am so thankful to have been able to achieve good health.

[Bubba's Mom]

I can't tolrate Lara bars at all. They are mostly dates, which are VERY high on the salicylate index.

If I eat them I get a heavy feeling in my belly, followed by nausea and pain.

[T.H.]

  On 11/6/2011 at 8:00 AM, Strawberry_Jam said:

Surely gluten can't end up in the muscles of the bird?? What if I get a whole chicken and wash it really well, or cuts of chicken that are very easy to wash?

From what we've been able to figure out, it's during the defeathering process. Birds are usually put into a drum-like machine that rotates and plucks the feathers off. However, the bowels are usually not completely emptied/eliminated before this process, so a little of the stomach/bowel content tends to coat the skin and anywhere else it touches during this time.

It is sterilized afterward, but that doesn't always get it all off, you know? Very hard to scrub a chicken down without scrubbing off the skin, LOL.

Some sensitive folk I know have had better luck if they remove the skin and then wash the chicken flesh after that. It's not perfect, and the most sensitive still seem to have issues, but again, it has helped some.

Also, there is the anti-bacterial wash that most meats are subjected to. Typically there is a diluted bleach wash for most meat, and then some meat has other washes as well. Beef frequently has a (just barely) corn cc'd citric acid wash. Fish as well - fish will even have citric acid mixed with the water for the ice on the boats, now, sometimes. Citric acid penetrates the first few layers of skin, which is why it's so effective against the bacteria, but that means we can't really wash it off, either.

A little chicken has this, but the citric acid isn't commonly used with poultry yet, last I heard, although I believe...maybe it is used more frequently to wash the outside of eggs, now? Can't quite remember there.

Also antibiotic residue in some meat - not usually poultry, I don't think. Pork, beef, and fish have that, more. fish have the most, as i recall.

Sigh...I just want to hire someone to kill something and hand it to me these days, I swear!!

[Strawberry-Jam]

I don't know WHAT I am sensitive to... but I can't cut everything out, can I?

Gonna do the peels/rinds thing soon, I think. I seem to always have reflux after breakfast but not always after supper. Funny thing is I don't always eat the same thing for breakfast--could be potatoes, could be eggs, could be nothing but rooibos tea. I'm gonna stop talking my morning supplements and see if it might be one of them.

If my reflux is on a delayed reaction from the day before, though, then I'm stumped.

blah. First things first is to train myself never to touch my face unless I'm washing it or putting on (gluten-soy-everything-free) lotion. Second is to always wash my hands IMMEDIATELY prior to meals (I already wash my hands once I walk thru the door of my flat). Third is to wash all my CC'd groceries once I bring them in........... then I need to get off the boxed gluten-free stuff, the grains and nuts.............

I hate food.

[dilettantesteph]

You definitely need to figure out how long after eating gluten you notice a reaction. Most of the time it isn't right after you eat it. For me, I didn't used to notice anything until the next day. Now that I have gotten more aware of subtle symptoms I can suspect within a few hours, but still I can't be sure until the next day. It takes my son two days to know. My daughter can tell sooner, within hours. She actually ate some gluten contaminated processed food intentionally so that she would know.

I don't think that very many notice right away.

[Strawberry-Jam]

I don't want to eat gluten to find out TT_TT

[domesticactivist]

The citric acid wash is derived from corn and is a must for all USDA certified meat. We buy most of our meat farm direct so that it only has to meet our state standards which don't mandate citric acid.

[Strawberry-Jam]

I'm not sure that I'm sensitive to corn. I may not be. Never had this diagnosed and when I first cut it out I noticed no difference from that.

EDIT

I also want to add that I live in Europe, so all this stuff about the USDA is meaningless to me.

[dilettantesteph]

  On 11/8/2011 at 1:50 PM, Strawberry_Jam said:

I don't want to eat gluten to find out TT_TT

Me neither. It took a lot of trial and error to get it figured out for me.

[T.H.]

  On 11/8/2011 at 12:36 PM, dilettantesteph said:

You definitely need to figure out how long after eating gluten you notice a reaction. Most of the time it isn't right after you eat it.

You know, I never thought I'd be grateful to gluten ataxia for anything, but as it's become more severe, man oh man has it helped me know when gluten got me! I've got mere minutes before I know.

When we thought it was an allergy, the doctors had me setting a timer so I could watch at 1 min, 5 min, 15 min after eating, and so on, to make sure I wasn't having a bad reaction to any new foods I tried. We live far from any help, so I had to make sure we got help quickly if I needed it, you know?

All that timing has been really useful since we figured out it's gluten.

Really bad gluten cc hits me in 1-2 minutes, wham. As soon as it hits the mucus membranes it's setting off a reaction, best I can tell. But if I'm not having a gluten reaction after 20 minutes, I'm not going to get one, it seems.

The only difference in this has been medication/vitamins where the potential gluten parts are encapsulated and only contact my body once they've been dissolved a bit by stomach acid, you know?

It's made things a lot more cut and dried now when it comes to figuring out when something is bad for me, at least!