A Major Slip-Up!

[cityflower21]

Hello everyone,

I was very recently diagnosed with Celiac disease (mid January) and have thus far found the transition to gluten-free eating to me pretty manageable. I'm still in university and my dining halls have a pretty decent selection of gluten free foods and my friends are very supportive.

Anyways, down to the nitty gritty: today I was alone cleaning up an event hosted at my school which involved desserts. I decided to eat some icing of the top of a leftover cup cake, and literally, the next thing I knew I had polished off a ton of these sweets (all containing gluten!). I'm sort of surprised and weirded out by the whole incident... I've never particularly binge-eaten before, and before my diagnosis I was never enough of a sweet tooth to demolish all those goodies in one sitting.

Has anyone ever struggled with something similar? I'd very much appreciate understanding what brought this on, and maybe some advice for avoiding it in the future. My best guess is that I'm a college athlete, and maybe I have not been adequately replacing the carbs I used to get from wheat products, and this was based in some sort of weird instinct/craving.

Also: does anyone know what my short-term reaction to this will be? I know I've done major digestive damage, I'm just sort of worried about what to expect in the next 24 hours or so.

Thank you all for your help! I'm sorry my first post on here has been such a demanding one .

[lynnelise]

Everyone seems to react a bit differently. For me I'd have D, bloating, joint aches, rashes, and worsening fatigue for the next few days. Others get constipated, anxious, depressed, heartburn, ect. Some people have no reaction other than internal damage.

Maybe add more fruits and non-gluten carbs to your diet in the coming weeks so this sort of thing doesn't happen again! I hope the aftermath isn't too bad and passes quick.

[cityflower21]

Everyone seems to react a bit differently. For me I'd have D, bloating, joint aches, rashes, and worsening fatigue for the next few days. Others get constipated, anxious, depressed, heartburn, ect. Some people have no reaction other than internal damage.

Maybe add more fruits and non-gluten carbs to your diet in the coming weeks so this sort of thing doesn't happen again! I hope the aftermath isn't too bad and passes quick.

Thank you so much for answering! I seem to be experiencing a bit of all of the above, but I think I've definitely learned my lesson. Cheers .

[GFinDC]

Welcome to the site Cityflower. Nice name! There is a gluten withdrawal that some people experience. That could be the catalyst for your binge. Gluten withdrawal symptoms fade with time so all you have to do is stick it out and they will go away.

How your body reacts to gluten may change as you are away from it longer. It is not a set in stone thing ta the beginning of the diet. I hope you don't have to much of a problem from it. It is almost inevitable to slip-up and make mistakes sometimes IMHO. Especially at when learning the gluten-free diet. But it gets easier as time goes by and we learn new things to eat.

[anabananakins]

Has anyone ever struggled with something similar? I'd very much appreciate understanding what brought this on, and maybe some advice for avoiding it in the future. My best guess is that I'm a college athlete, and maybe I have not been adequately replacing the carbs I used to get from wheat products, and this was based in some sort of weird instinct/craving.

I haven't with gluten specifically but I have struggled with bingeing generally for years (always on carb-y stuff) because when I try to lose weight the mental restriction of giving something up triggers an urge to binge. It doesn't matter that I can eat anything else from other categories, the concept of having to give something up would trigger an overwhelming desire to binge, even if I never even got to hunger. You might have felt something like that having only recently given up gluten. Maybe next time try and steer the cravings to something gluten free while you work through it?

I actually need to cut carbs really low to avoid cravings, but that's something else.