Jump to content
This site uses cookies. Continued use is acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. More Info... ×
  • Welcome to Celiac.com!

    You have found your celiac tribe! Join us and ask questions in our forum, share your story, and connect with others.




  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A1):



    Celiac.com Sponsor (A1-M):


  • Get Celiac.com Updates:
    Support Celiac.com!
    eNewsletter
    Donate

I Glutened Him!


lovesaceliac

Recommended Posts

lovesaceliac Newbie

I'm about to loose it. We keep a gluten free home to protect my very sensitive celiac husband. We've had a house guest for the last week (who by cooincidence just found out he was celiac and is now learning the ropes - so far he is asymptomatic, so he hasn't dealt w/cc and some of the other issues we do on a regular basis.) The guest was one of several guests and instructors we were hosting this weekend for a cultural arts festival sponsored by our small business. Needless to say it was a crazy weekend that required some eating out, very little sleeping, and ended last night with our house guest winding up in the hospital for an emergency appendix removal and my driving other guests three hours round trip to the airport for return flights in the wee hours of the morning. My husband confessed to me on Friday night that he had been "glutened" and was doing a great job of putting on a good face all day Saturday. I'm crazy exhausted myself, but trying to keep my two small children quiet so my husband can sleep. As soon as I got back from the airport this morning the first thing I did was make my starving husband a sandwhich and chips (we were too busy all evening and night for him to ever eat!) He's gone to bed and I recently looked at the chip bag again to find that they were Frito Lay Mesquite BBQ chips - which I know are NOT gluten free! I don't know who bought the chips and brought them in to my house and when I put them on his plate I didn't even look at the bag in my dazed exhaustion. We buy gluten-free bbq chips all the time and I just assumed they were ours. So now in addition to getting glutened (probably cc at a restaurant) I totally glutened him myself! I could cry. Now I know he's in for hell the next two days and misery for two more. I hate this. Is there any hope that the FDA will eventually require all packages to be clearly labeled? I know what to look for, but so many of our friends and family don't. I also so despirately wish there was something to do to alleviate the symptoms or make them more bearable when this does happen.

Just needed to vent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):



Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):



lilu Rookie

I am so sorry this happened, and please don't blame yourself. Part of the benefit of a gluten free home is "knowing" you can eat anything at home safely. This was just an unfortunate set of too many weird situations happening all at once.

As far as anything to help, the only thing we've found that provides a little relief is very light eating, lots of peppermint tea and water, and rest.

I hope his symptoms pass quickly. Try and get some rest yourself. Sometimes the best thing we can do for others is to take a little care of ourselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Yup Apprentice

First of all I just want to thank-you on behalf of your hubby. I'm the celiac in my family and I am grateful for having a great partner who is totally supportive. Mistakes happen...forgive yourself. You make awesome decisions everyday on behalf of your husband.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
chasbari Apprentice

First of all I just want to thank-you on behalf of your hubby. I'm the celiac in my family and I am grateful for having a great partner who is totally supportive. Mistakes happen...forgive yourself. You make awesome decisions everyday on behalf of your husband.

Ooh, I agree with this wholeheartedly. Thank you for being such a concerned support to your husband. The craziest little things can sneak up on us and catch us unawares. Example. I just got had this past weekend. Totally innocent. My boys and I have been working on a toy prototype. We got distracted by one component and ended up making a blow gun/dart gun with which we were having riotous combat around the house. After several days of this I got hammered Saturday evening but what I thought was a CC episode. Only thing is, I fix my own food in my own prep area and my family is quite good about being careful, bless them! It was then I realized that we were sharing a blow gun that the kids had been putting up to their mouth, probably a cookie or sandwich between some episodes of our warfare.... BINGO. That explained all the neuro symptoms and shutdown I was experiencing. Now I know.. Now you know. I am amazed that you managed to keep it together with all the business you had to attend to. Give yourself a healthy dose of forgiveness and everything will be better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Juliebove Rising Star

Sorry about that! I have done similar things to my daughter. Have gone so far as to triple check the ingredients list and still miss the wheat on there. Hope he gets better soon!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
eatmeat4good Enthusiast

I gave my son gummy vitamins that clearly list wheat as an ingredient. What an idiot. He told me he didn't like them...I still insisted he take them, since Celiacs are vitamin deficient. This went on for days. It wasn't until I ate them myself and had a serious reaction that I turned that damn bottle over and read the ingredients. I thought I had purged the house completely of gluten. Took me a long time to get over that one. Now I read everything, at the store, as I put it away, and when I take it out to use it. Seriously. I am in a habit now. And whenever I don't wanna read that label...I just remember that whole week I made my kid sick...and it suddenly seems reading that label 3 times is worth it and not so much trouble after all.. At least you figured it out quickly...but yeah, the guilt sucks when you make someone you love sick. Sorry that happened, it sounds like you have had a crazy few days. But don't blame yourself....we all have done it. Either to ourselves or to a loved one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lovesaceliac Newbie

Thank you so much everyone for your kind words. I have really enjoyed joining the community here. We've been at this for over two years now and it was only about a month ago that I spent several hours overnight reading these forums (feeling discouraged about a recent CC episode.) It was like I was reading our own life story. It was so validating to discover that there were people all over experiencing the same things we were. You know, eating gluten free isn't hard (anymore) - it's trying to stay clean in a gluten free world that seems almost impossible! I learned once again that going into a weekend like the one recently past, that I MUST plan out all meals in advance. "Figuring something out" on the fly just won't work. Thank goodness he is doing much better than I would have expected.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):



Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):



Juliebove Rising Star

I used to buy Mentos for my daughter and had told the dance studio that they were safe for her to eat. They would normally give them out at Halloween. But then the labeling laws changed and they had to disclose the top 8 allergens. And there it was! Glucose syrup derived from wheat! Yes, I know in some cases (not sure about this one) they claim such glucose syrup is gluten-free. But in my daughter's case it is an allergy to wheat. So not good for her at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jenniferxgfx Contributor

You are so incredibly sweet for being so conscientious of your husband's celiac! It just made me all warm and fuzzy to read your concern.

Glutenings happen! And accidents happen too. This is absolutely not your fault and you're so supportive and wonderful to be so concerned.

I wish you and your husband much love and a quick comeback for you both!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A19):



  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      121,088
    • Most Online (within 30 mins)
      7,748

    Aventine
    Newest Member
    Aventine
    Joined

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A20):


  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      120.3k
    • Total Posts
      1m

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A22):





  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A21):



  • Upcoming Events

  • Posts

    • trents
      Welcome to the community forum, @Anmol! There are a number of blood antibody tests that can be administered when diagnosing celiac disease and it is normal that not all of them will be positive. Three out of four that were run for you were positive. It looks pretty conclusive that you have celiac disease. Many physicians will only run the tTG-IGA test so I applaud your doctor for being so thorough. Note, the Immunoglobulin A is not a test for celiac disease per se but a measure of total IGA antibody levels in your blood. If this number is low it can cause false negatives in the individual IGA-based celiac antibody tests. There are many celiacs who are asymptomatic when consuming gluten, at least until damage to the villous lining of the small bowel progresses to a certain critical point. I was one of them. We call them "silent" celiacs".  Unfortunately, being asymptomatic does not equate to no damage being done to the villous lining of the small bowel. No, the fact that your wife is asymptomatic should not be viewed as a license to not practice strict gluten free eating. She is damaging her health by doing so and the continuing high antibody test scores are proof of that. The antibodies are produced by inflammation in the small bowel lining and over time this inflammation destroys the villous lining. Continuing to disregard this will catch up to her. While it may be true that a little gluten does less harm to the villous lining than a lot, why would you even want to tolerate any harm at all to it? Being a "silent" celiac is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in the sense of being able to endure some cross contamination in social settings without embarrassing repercussions. It's a curse in that it slows down the learning curve of avoiding foods where gluten is not an obvious ingredient, yet still may be doing damage to the villous lining of the small bowel. GliadinX is helpful to many celiacs in avoiding illness from cross contamination when eating out but it is not effective when consuming larger amounts of gluten. It was never intended for that purpose. Eating out is the number one sabotager of gluten free eating. You have no control of how food is prepared and handled in restaurant kitchens.  
    • knitty kitty
      Forgot one... https://www.hormonesmatter.com/eosinophilic-esophagitis-sugar-thiamine-sensitive/
    • trents
      Welcome to the forum community, @ekelsay! Yes, your tTG-IGA score is strongly positive for celiac disease. There are other antibody tests that can be run when diagnosing celiac disease but the tTG-IGA is the most popular with physicians because it combines good sensitivity with good specificity, and it is a relatively inexpensive test to perform. The onset of celiac disease can happen at any stage of life and the size of the score is not necessarily an indicator of the progress of the disease. It is likely that you you experienced onset well before you became aware of symptoms. It often takes 10 years or more to get a diagnosis of celiac disease after the first appearance of symptoms. In my case, the first indicator was mildly elevated liver enzymes that resulted in a rejection of my blood donation by the Red Cross at age 37. There was no GI discomfort at that point, at least none that I noticed. Over time, other lab values began to get out of norm, including decreased iron levels. My PCP was at a complete loss to explain any of this. I finally scheduled an appointment with a GI doc because the liver enzymes concerned me and he tested me right away for celiac disease. I was positive and within three months of gluten free eating my liver enzymes were back to normal. That took 13 years since the rejection of my blood donation by the Red Cross. And my story is typical. Toward the end of that period I had developed some occasional diarrhea and oily stool but no major GI distress. Many celiacs do not have classic GI symptoms and are "silent" celiacs. There are around 200 symptoms that have been associated with celiac disease and many or most of them do not involve conscious GI distress. Via an autoimmune process, gluten ingestion triggers inflammation in the villous lining of the small bowel which damages it over time and inhibits the ability of this organ to absorb the vitamins and minerals in the food we ingest. So, that explains why those with celiac disease often suffer iron deficiency anemia, osteoporosis and a host of other vitamin and mineral deficiency related medical issues. The villous lining of the small bowel is where essentially all of our nutrition is absorbed. So, yes, anemia is one of the classic symptoms of celiac disease. One very important thing you need to be aware of is that your PCP may refer you to a GI doc for an endoscopy/biopsy of the small bowel lining to confirm the results of the blood antibody testing. So, you must not begin gluten free eating until that is done or at least you know they are going to diagnose you with celiac disease without it. If you start gluten free eating now there will be healing in the villous lining that will begin to take place which may compromise the results of the biopsy.
    • Anmol
      Hello all- my wife was recently diagnosed with Celiac below are her blood results. We are still absorbing this.  I wanted to seek clarity on few things:  1. Her symptoms aren't extreme. She was asked to go on gluten free diet a couple years ago but she did not completely cut off gluten. Partly because she wasn't seeing extreme symptoms. Only bloating and mild diarrhea after a meal full of gluten.  Does this mean that she is asymptomatic but enormous harm is done with every gram of gluten.? in other words is amount gluten directly correlated with harm on the intestines? or few mg of gluten can be really harmful to the villi  2. Why is she asymptomatic?  3. Is Gliadin X safe to take and effective for Cross -contamination or while going out to eat?  4. Since she is asymptomatic, can we sometimes indulge in a gluten diet? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deamidated Gliadin, IgG - 64 (0-19) units tTG IgA -  >100 (0-3) U/ml tTG IgG - 4   (0-5) Why is this in normal range? Endomysial Antibody - Positive  Immunoglobulin A - 352 (87-352) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks for help in advance, really appreciate! 
    • Tanner L
      Constantly! I don't want everything to cost as much as a KIND bar, as great as they are.  Happy most of the info is available to us to make smart decisions for our health, just need to do a little more research. 
×
×
  • Create New...