So about 3 years ago I had very bad glandular fever. Before this, I never had any food allergies or sensitivities. After having glandular fever, whenever I ate anything containing any dairy or gluten I would get a horrendous rash on my face around my mouth, and a bruised feeling in my stomach, but no digestive problems. I had the tests for coeliac disease and they came back negative. I also paid for allergy and sensitivity tests which all came back negative too! But no matter what, I could not eat dairy or gluten otherwise I'd be in bed for days in pain. About a year and a half after following a gluten and dairy free diet, I decided to have a gluten free pizza with dairy cheese for my birthday meal (let's face it, cheese is life). After this, I had no symptoms, so reintroduced dairy into my diet and I've been fine since. I really want the same to happen with gluten! Is this something you think I could grow out of? I have been reintroducing it slowly, e.g. having a bite of biscuit every so often, and have had no symptoms. Whilst we are on lockdown and I have nowhere to be, I thought I might as well eat some of my partner's pizza and see what happens. That was a few hours ago and so far I feel fine. The symptoms usually hit me about 24-48 hours after consumption though. I'm so fed up of being gluten free. I'm only a student and it is so expensive! I know it sounds daft but I just want to be able to eat normally rather than cooking seperate meals all the time .. any advice or similar issues?
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Lydgoesrunning
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Hi, The only way you can find out is by challenge testing yourself, which you are doing. It would help if you write down everything you are consuming and make a note of any reactions you have, including time scale. The basis of the FODMAP diet is to eliminate everything then over time reintroduce 'suspect' items one by one and note whether you get a reaction. Good luck with finding some answers.
1. First of all work what is actually more expensive. I suspect that you are buying ready made gluten free meals ; even non-gf ready meals are relatively expensive.
2.Whilst you have the chance try cooking from scratch and persuade your partner that it is delicious and he can eat the same food. The only items that you should then find cost more are gf flours and pasta. You can still eat rice and what about the good old jacket potato? Any sauce or gravy that needs thickening use cornflour or potato starch.
3. The "ready mixed" self raising gf flour can be used as a substitute in any cake recipe but add a little more liquid. There are loads of recipes on line . looopywhisk.com is a good start and a few on mumsnet.com/food/search?key... I have just searched "easy recipes gluten free " and loads have shown up including a side list for main meals etc.
4. Large supermarkets usually sell the main "Doves Farm free from"plain and sr flour (although demand is heavy now) Cornflour is easy to find. Other special flour Rice, Gram, etc usually have to come from some whole food type shop and I have just bought tapioca flour on line from a smaller supplier.
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You've totally missed the mark on what the poster was asking. I'm finding this a lot on this forum - people simply don't read the question, then go off on a tangent with a long post on something completely off the mark. Lydgoesrunning wants to know if she should risk giving up her gluten free diet, but you've jumped to the assumption/bias that she is eating lots of ready made meals, and then have continued to post in that theme. The poster said nothing about ready made meals.
Hi
To unpick your post, it seems the big concern is getting validation on whether or not you can go back to eating gluten.
Yes, gf foods are more expensive, so that is always a pain for gf living.
I've had coeliac symptoms for years, started initially with milk intolerance, then had to give up gluten. Coeliac test was negative but I still can't eat gluten. What you need to be aware of is a one-off blood test may give a false negative, and if you have all the symptoms but a negative blood test your doctor is supposed to do a second blood test that tests for genetic ability to produce the correct antibodies for the test. Also, if you had already cut gluten out of your diet prior to the test (?) that would effect the blood test results.
I'm not sure of the gastric impact of glandular fever, but aware that severe tummy bugs can be the precursor to kicking off coeliac. Also, aware that severe tummy bugs can leave people intolerant to dairy until their gut fixes itself again. So perhaps this was a temporary blip that has now fixed itself.
I'm always wary of giving advice where coeliac/gluten is concerned, so I would definitely talk this through with your doctor first. But, if you feel comfortable and healthy with re-introducing gluten for a 'test period' maybe that is the approach to take. Just be aware that you can have coeliac but none of the symptoms (just to make it even more complicated!). If you reintroduce gluten for a while, whilst keeping a food diary and monitoring any symptoms and still feel healthy after a few weeks/months, who knows, maybe it just was a temporary blip.
I’m sorry you feel so fed up of being gluten free..With regards to, is it something that you will grow out of, the short answer is I don’t know and do you re-introduce it, you need to discuss this with your doctor.
The long answer is :-
You are pretty certain that a bout of bad glandular fever was the causation for your initial food intolerances namely gluten and dairy (?? lactose). To be clear, I am not an immunologist, but unfortunately, glandular fever is a systemic illness (whole body) which can trigger other illnesses especially autoimmune ones including coeliacs and inflammatory bowel disease. (Harley et al, 2018).
It’s good that you have been able to re-introduce dairy back into your diet without adverse effect and this suggests that may be due to your previous restrictive diet, which allowed gut healing.
With regards to receiving negative test results for coeliacs, Mise did state Two very important points :-
1) that false negatives do occur with blood testing.
2) if you are on a gluten free diet then this will affect your results.
Your general practitioner can give advice on the length of time you are to eat gluten for so that a positive blood test might be established if you have a sensitivity or it can indicate coeliac disease. I am aware that a 6 week period is required prior to endoscopy.
If YOU decide to re-introduce gluten, Mise’s other suggestion of a food diary and symptoms is an excellent recommendation and being aware of the signs of malabsorption especially steatorrhea. Although, coeliac disease symptoms are local to the gastrointestinal tract, they can be diverse i.e. some people report migraines, joint pain. We are all different 😉
Yes, it can be a test of patience reading food labels and finding out jelly babies may contain wheat. (Last night’s gem - 😬)
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