Why Do Reactions Get Stronger And Other Intolerances Pop Up?

[GFreeMO]

I was just wondering why reactions to gluten get stronger and worsen over time. I use to be able to eat a lot of the gluten free cookies and breads or anything marked gluten free but now after 3+ years of being gluten free, I can't eat anything processed anymore and corn makes me as sick as gluten.

Just when I get to feeling pretty well, I will eat something packaged and I get really sick and the whole entire process starts over. The D and the pain the trapped gas, and mucus floating stools. Etc. etc.

[tictax707]

I don't know why either, but know you are not alone. I hate how I feel thatI am just getting more and more sensitive to more and more things. I used to be able to eat things that had flax or gluten free oats, but now they wreak havoc on my system.

I wish there was a way to stop it. It's hard enough eliminating gluten, and for me, dairy.

[Adalaide]

I'm sure that someone will wander along with a more scientific answer than me, but my guess is that it's a combination of things. First, our bodies our healing and our guts are all sorts of messed up. Some of it may not be new in tolerances but things we simply didn't notice we weren't tolerating before because all we were noticing were our gluten reactions. Part of may also be new things popping up due to our immune systems being messed up. I mean, our immune systems obviously aren't the sharpest tools in the shed if they're all like zomg it's gluten lets go kill zome villi! So now our immune system is partly like RAWR! and partly like derp derp derp and who knows what it'll decide we're allergic or intolerant to next.

[Takala]

Check out the super sensitive forum.

I thought I had/was developing multiple intolerances last year, but, as it turned out, I was just getting repeatedly cross contaminated with a few brands of (gluten free) items, plus manufacturers had changed ingredients on me for another thing or two I was consuming. I had a talk with an expert in this sort of thing, and she made a few suggestions, I changed, got rid of or stopped using certain brands, and my "mystery intolerances" nearly vanished.

I'm not a corn reactor, I am a cross- contaminated, processed in another facility with oats corn reactor, and THAT is a huge difference. Goodbye, Bob's Red Mill.

I also had to change brands of buckwheat to a type that is not run thru any other facility, and had to buy a new grinder.

My local nut supplier changed and their label says now, processed in facility with wheat.... some food pantry soon is going to get a windfall, as I had to stop buying that store's almonds, spending a lot more at another store for a smaller package that is not cc'd. I don't know if I can scrub out my faithful almond grinder enough to the point where I can restart using it, I will have to replace a gasket. What a PIA.

I need poultry to be not bathed in antibiotic residue during its growth or processing or packaging phase. I already knew this to be true about most of the dairy I eat.

I started reacting to an artificial sweetener, and switched to stevia. Soda manufacturers and their artificial sweeteners.... don't get me going on this topic.

Can't do lunchmeat with preservatives any more. But going off of that has been extremely rewarding.

I had figured out 2 years ago that baking mixes made in facilities that did a lot of soy flours in other mixes do not work for me. "May contain soy" in flour form is not good. There must be some ferocious cc'd going on in that department, I don't seem to react so badly to soy lecithin or pure soy sauce.

These freaking careless gluten free manufacturers, when they use foreign - sourced ingredients, such as flavorings or spices, are putting us all at risk. I can eat a from scratch gluten free pizza crust I make myself.... I am getting a mild headache, randomly, from a name brand, flavored crust gluten free mix, which has the spices added, and I know that I can eat those spices because I can eat them fresh. Fresh garlic, fine. Powdered, needs to be American. I live in CA, where should garlic be coming from, anyway ? And this is just one ingredient. I can eat that product in the "plain" unflavored form. I can eat a name brand, commercially made gluten free pizza crust made of rice flour (and it's at a careful restaurant, to boot) that does not have this problem.

I noticed that candy bars vary. On one brand, that I ate last year, this year I react randomly, and in certain packages I am tasting other subtle flavorings, which means that they are not cleaning the lines well between batch runs. An internet search revealed new flavors, not all safe. Way to go (sarcasm ). Another brand of candy bar, I figured out that the package with the special offer is to be avoided, but the regular package, same alleged product, is safe, so far. I gave up completely on my usual go-to candy product a few years back when they outsourced manufacturing to Mexico, and at the same time got very coy with refusing to disclose gluten status and what was in their natural flavorings. Not worth the reactions, tah - tah, hasta la vista. It's a shame, but, if they don't care that I get sick, I don't care to buy it. On the other hand, at the movie theatres now, currently as of summer 2012, I can find chocolate covered raisins that have "gluten free" right on the package - and I don't react, knock on wood.

In a perverse way, the stronger reactions can be good, as they motivate us not to ever deliberately cheat. That's my rationalization for the day, we all need one sometimes.

[flowerqueen]

There are lots of different theories as to why this should happen, some already mentioned. You are definitely not alone in this, I find that keeping a food diary helps, so you can see if some foods have accidentally slipped back into your diet, as this can sometimes be the case. I would agree to some extent though, that once you have a problem with one type of food, and rectify the situation, something else will pop up, that may have been there all the time, but you had put everything down to being coeliac or gluten intolerant. As Coeliac disease is an auto immune disease, it's likely that you will have other problems too. (e.g. Thyroid disorder) so it could be with food intolerances.

One other point though, in UK we have something called the Food Standard Agency and if you subscribe, they will alert you to foods which have been 'recalled' for some reason, as do Coeliac UK. I don't know if there's anything like it in USA. Sometimes, a food which was once gluten free, is longer so, Coeliac UK update their lists on a monthly basis, so you can find out what has changed. Sometimes foods get contaminated with gluten and have to be recalled for that reason. Sometimes it's just a process of elimination to find it what is making you sick, and can be a lengthy process discovering what it is.

[dilettantesteph]

I don't know why, but you aren't alone. I seem to be getting more and more sensitive too. I have had to cut out item after item. I've starting growing a lot of stuff myself. It's also happening to other family members.

In a way, it is nice to know that there are others, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[Chad Sines]

I eat whole foods, no grains, no gluten-free packaged stuff, rare eating out, and experience the same issues. I have had times where I appeared intolerant of eggs, soy, dairy, fructose, and even red meat. For me what it appeared to be was that each time I was glutened, I went through the normal GI issues but a massive fat intolerance returned. Even a very light coating of a ban with olive oil to brown a low fat piece of fish would wreck me. After about a week I see this start to clear up, two weeks it is pretty much gone. The soy and dairy still persist.

It really is hard to know if reactions are CC, a food intolerance, an accidental inclusion of gluten, or just one of those wonky things a busted up GI system is doing as it heals.

[GFreeMO]

Thanks everyone for the responses. It seems we are all in the same boat. I am going to have to keep a food diary to track things.

Chad Sines, I could have written your post myself. I have the exact same issues.

[Bubba's Mom]

The Dr. I saw at Mayo Clinic tested me for a small intestine bacterial overgrowth(SIBO) when I said I was reacting to more and more foods. He said that many of us have gut dysbiosis and the "bad" bacteria are where they shouldn't be. They feed on what we eat and emit toxins that we react to.

The "bad" bacteria levels change from week to week. They are a mix of different kinds. That's why we might get a very strong reaction to a food one time, but not as severe another time. The treatment..probiotics, digestive enzymes if needed, and in some cases, antibiotics.

We need to be taking probiotics every day. Not just take them ocassionally. It's the way to get a balanced system that is healed and not reacting to everything we eat.

[Adalaide]

The Dr. I saw at Mayo Clinic tested me for a small intestine bacterial overgrowth(SIBO) when I said I was reacting to more and more foods. He said that many of us have gut dysbiosis and the "bad" bacteria are where they shouldn't be. They feed on what we eat and emit toxins that we react to. The "bad" bacteria levels change from week to week. They are a mix of different kinds. That's why we might get a very strong reaction to a food one time, but not as severe another time. The treatment..probiotics, digestive enzymes if needed, and in some cases, antibiotics.We need to be taking probiotics every day. Not just take them ocassionally. It's the way to get a balanced system that is healed and not reacting to everything we eat.

Other than a minor gas issue with eggs I've had my whole life I don't seem to have problems with any other foods. (What I've given up has been to save my sight and is totally not GI related.) I have also eaten yogurt since my diagnosis as if yogurt eating is it's own religion. I wonder if that could have something to do with lack of reactions to other foods. I'm gonna do a happy dance for yogurt!

[GFinDC]

It's one of those real good questions that we don't have a definite answer to.

I believe at the beginning our guts are just so irritated that we may not notice some reactions. But then later it seem like additional intolerances do arise. One theory about that is the leaky gut issue. Supposedly a celiacs gut is wont to allow some protein fragments through to the blood stream. That could cause an intolerance IMHO. Dr. A, Fassano did a study on that and found gut permeability is mediated by a chemical called zonulin. His company is making a drug to moderate that effect. The gut cellas have to allow sugars and amino acids to pass into the blood stream but they can stay open to long/wide and allow proteins in. The Zonulin acts like a gate keeper for the cells opening / closing. At least that's my layman's understanding. So we could start calling ourselves Zonulin challengened I suppose. Of course it's not too far from there to Zombie -challenged!

I have seen a research paper in the past that talked about black pepper having the same kind of effect, of keeping the "open" time of the gut cells minimalized. So black pepper is one of my favorite spices now.

The other idea about it is that people should avoid eating the same foods constantly to avoid developing allergies or intolerances. That's the idea behind rotation diets.

[deb445]

I agree, when I first started eliminating grain from my diet, I didn't notice a quick or as strong a reaction as I do now...I'm super sensitive. I try to spin a positive outlook: it's not the grain /dairy/ and grain fed meat, that is necessarily causing this reaction...well, it is. But go with me on this. It's really MY body telling me, hey, you've worked hard to detox this stuff out of your system. Heads up! I think it's important to be in tune with the clues our body is giving us, and I think it's a gift that we are aware, and taking responsibility...responding to the need for our bodies to be free of wheat, or whatever it is that we need to eliminate, in order to experience good health.

[dilettantesteph]

It is really hard to know if it is a food intolerance or cc. In many cases I spent a long time figuring it out. First, I'd try different sources of the food and I'd find that they affected me differently. Finally I spent time growing stuff myself. There are so many things that seemed to be an intolerance when I ate them from the store, or even the Farmer's Market. When I grew them myself I could eat them without issues. Who wants to go to all that effort to find that it's an intolerance after all? Good thing that hasn't been the case yet.