What Does It Feel Like?

[gfpirate]

Hi, so my non-celiac friend and I were discussing what being poisoned feels like. Granted, if you don't have the disease, it's pretty hard to try to understand what it feels like. So, just for fun, tell how you feel when you get 'glutenated'. What does is FEEL like? A knife? Pins and needles? Dull throbbing? Just for fun

[josh052980]

For all of us it's different. When I get glutened, it's like I have the stomach flu, and I get body aches as well. This goes on for 3 days to a week, depending on how much gluten I got hit with. Also, my symptoms seem to continually evolve as time goes by and I heal. The symptoms will hit me harder, but I get over them faster.

[Katrala]

It's different for everyone.

Reactions range from non-existent (external) to debilitating.

Personally, I fall on the lower end of the range in terms of outward symptoms. I'm foggy and have numbness. Occasional GI issues, but not always.

[Skylark]

For me it's like a GI virus or mild food poisoning. Not much fun.

[rosetapper23]

I have trouble sleeping, my eyes and face get swollen and puffy, I get a bad headache and brain fog, my joints hurt for almost a week, and I get horrible diarrhea that lasts about three days...and then that's followed up with constipation for another few days. I'f I'm really unlucky, I break out in Dermatitis Herpetiformis blisters all over my face, neck, foot, and hand.

Then, after about a month, I find out which nutritional deficiencies I now have to live with for a few months... or for the rest of my life.

[Bubba's Mom]

I get really hyper, followed by bloating, nausea, a gnawing pain that starts in my upper right side, and moves to the lower right, and GERD. This is followed by a cycle of D and C. AND I get real emotional...mostly angry, and have a foggy brain. It also throws my sense of balance off.

[Melissa Palomo]

Bloating, nausea, pain (sometimes pain so bad I feel like I will pass out), and urgent need to use the restroom. If it's a LOT of gluten I've ingested unknowingly, I also get fatigued and foggy brained.

[mushroom]

Bloating an extreme nausea for me, to the retching point.

[UKGail]

My head starts to swim, eyes get blurry, and I can't think straight. Migraine then starts up round the base of my skull, spreading into my neck and shoulders. I ache all over and feel like I have the flu. Limbs feel like lead weights. Zero energy. Heartburn. Then grumbly abdominal pain. Nausea. Unable to eat. 24 hours later D starts, usually bright yellow. Another 24 hours, C starts. Nausea, abdominal pain and migraine subside within a couple of days. Brainfog, heartburn, "normal" digestion, joint aches and low energy take much longer. No fun.

[Metoo]

My gluten events are different now that I am gluten free. Before gluten free I had random stomach pain that would last for hours, and just a general fogginess, and more recently vitamin D problems, which made me extremely fatiqued and foggy feeling.

Now that I am gluten free. By the next morning I break out in 1000s of blisters on my hand, which hurt intesnly. Then over the course of the week they itch/hurt, as I continue to get new ones. Then the next week the skin breaks open...then I spend the next two weeks in various stages of open raw skin. Each time I have been glutened the rash has gotten worse and bigger in pattern. This last time it took me 5 weeks to get my skin to heal!

I also consumed grain vodka once, and within 2 hours I spent the rest of the day in the bathroom with D. =(

So I don't seem to have too good of a regular pattern since being gluten free, I have only had gluten 3 times since going gluten free, 4 times if you include the vodka.