How Long Does It Take For Dh To Go Away After Glutening?

[LOWNskater52]

Question guys.

So I have this rash on my right Achilles heel and right wrist. I noticed their formation around April 2011, a couple of months after my health/digestion problems began. The ankle is by far the worst with the rash coming from the right side of my ankle to the back and onward to the left side. The rash on the right wrist is not that big and only the size of a quarter or so.

Back when I went gluten free in late October, it took about 2 weeks of being gluten free to start to see an improvement and after about a month it was significantly better. I'd say it went from 100% bad to about 25% ok. It never got fully better but it quit itching and became bearable and almost forgetable (and when I say this thing itched, it F_ing itched).

This brings us to early February. I decided to try gluten free pasta(rice with rice bran) with gluten free organic sauce. I found the stuff to be absolutely delicious and was eating a phat bowl of it daily. I also sprained my jaw which kept me eating soft foods like this pasta. It got to the point where I was craving this pasta everyday after work. This went on for a couple of weeks until I noticed something was amiss. I didn't notice any real digestive issues besides the normal ones I still have (loose stools, gas, bloating and indigestion) but the rash on my foot and hand just absolutely exploded. This is when I knew that I couldn't handle the pasta I had introduced. So now it has been about two and a half weeks since my last bowl of pasta and the rash on my foot and right handle are much better but not gone. The rash on my right wrist isn't even a real rash anymore. The skin is just rough and discolored; probibly because I scratched the hell out of it. My right Achilles heel/ankle area is just red, chewed up flesh from the scratching but it is much better than before.

The troubling thing is though now I am starting to see the beginnings of a new rash forming around my stomach area a little lower than my belly buttonn. Its not bad by any means but it is starting out just like the other two did.

My question is how can my other rashes be improving rapidly and a new one be springing up? How long do you have to be gluten free for these b%$@#es to go away? 3 months?

Let me also say that I went to my naturopathic doctor back in December and got a saliva sample test of a bunch of stuff. My Gliadin Ab, SIgA (saliva) showed up as a 5 Negative while Borderline is 13-15 and Positive is >15. This was a full 1.5 months after going gluten free and I still showed some reaction (a 5) to wheat.

Let me describe the rashes too.

When they were at their worst, they were just field of tiny bright red bumps that were super close together. It wasn't like rashes or eczema I had seen before where you have a patch of red skin that itches. It was just a bunch of tiny red bumps, clustered together and itching like a b%$@#.

[lovegrov]

I'd say there's a chance this isn't even DH at all. If it is, some folks have said it can take as long as 18 months to fully disappear. Mine, OTOH, went away immediately and never returned. And mine was DEFINITELY DH.

richard

[itchy]

Several of us have experienced new rashes appearing even as old ones were disappearing.

My DH has lasted three years, and is only now at the point of (hopefully) disappearing.

The disappearing rash is in an area that wasn't affected for the first two years, and the severe rash of the initial 'attack' is now reduced to two tiny lesions, one on each elbow.

Whether it took that long to disappear because of internal factors, or whether there were occasional glutenings isn't certain.

[Di2011]

I agree with itchy new patches keep arriving and old ones disappear and may resurface. If it is DH then you will need to be patient and very strict with your diet, personal care products etc.

I can't tolerate most Gluten free products. I also suspect corn has an effect on my lesions intensity (and loads of gluten-free product has corn/maize or byproducts of glutens that are considered under our respective labeling laws as gluten free).

[eatmeat4good]

I kept thinking I would heal in a couple of weeks, then a couple of months, but it actually took a year and a half to totally heal. I don't know if it was because I didn't limit iodine in the beginning, or because my episodes of glutening caused several more weeks of reactions, or both. Whatever the reason, this is my first month free of the DH and I had it for 8 years constantly. It often seemed to be heading toward healing but then I would flare up again. Peter Greene says you can take up to two years to heal even if you are strictly gluten free and limiting iodine. I had hoped it wouldn't take two years, but even though it took one and a half, I certainly didn't have the kind of itching and weeping of the sores that I had while ingesting gluten.

Any trace gluten or cross contamination can cause a reaction for weeks. I have experienced this and I have read it in many posts here as well as in Peter Greene's book, Celiac, A Hidden Epidemic.

Some people report their rashes healing in a matter of weeks and not ever coming back so it just varies widely. The antibodies can remain in the skin up to 10 years...so I guess that means they can be activated at any time.