Not as Gluten sensitive as I once thought.

[Elizida]

I'd been GF for about 5 years and had managed well when I started to get really sick after eating what I thought were GF meals/foods. Since 1996 I have had approx 3 or 4 times a year when I thought I was going to die with vomiting, sickness, pains, I was hospitalised twice for a short time. I went on my annual check up at the hospital this year and again mentioned the vomiting and expressed my views to the consultant that I must be super sensitive. For the first time since 1996 I was told that gluten would not make me vomit like this, would not cause the pain I was having and it was therefore down to something else. He didnt suggest trying to find out the cause. I started to think and try to work out what was happening. A couple of months later I went to a gf cookery demonstration held by a major manufacturer of gf foods, The food was lovely and I had watched it all being made in gf environment. Two hours later I was in the bathroom throwing up, feeling terrible, unable to stand. My usual symptons when I thought I had unintentionally eaten gluten. This time I was 100% sure I hadnt so when I felt better the following day I did some serious thinking. Then the penny dropped, it wasnt gluten that was making me ill but seeds, esp pumpkin seeds. I had eaten a quarter of a cheese and pumpkin scone the previous night. I could remember other occasions I was sick. Once after eating a Free From Tesco seeded roll, sick after eating yoghurt with gf seeds and mix on top. The first time it happened I had eaten pumpkin seeds. So, after all this time I finally had my answer. I looked up pumpkin seed allergy on the net and was surprised to see it existed. I only wish now that my consultants over the years had explained this to me before. I had always mentioned it. But, it took years to diagnose me with Coeliac disease in 1988 so there hasnt been much progress made with allergies. Before my diagnosis my doctors encourgaged me to eat brown bread, museli, breakfast cereals, I was stuffing myself with gluten on their advice. I remember leaving the hospital in March this year feeling very down, thinking of the consultants words telling me it must be something else and worried that it could be something very serious and annoyed that he wasnt going to carry out an investigation into what was the matter. I am 60 years old, diagnosed coeliac at 36, spent all my younger years sick and poorly, now have thinning bones but I was never taken seriously.

[Mia1057]

I think we all have tendency to blame most things on our CD so it's really great that you have found out the cause. I hope you are feeling better now. I think most consultants are good at the everyday stuff but it takes a lot longer with the rarer stuff and certainly with anything that is autoimmune related

[Hidden]

you would of thought the words food diary would of been mentioned wouldn't you.

When I went to the doctor to ask to be tested for CD I never thought that I may have an allergy but once that I was told that CD doesn't cause tingling lips after eating things with gluten(something till now I had never experienced)suddenly lots of things I had been experiencing over the last 17 years but more so the last 5 made sense and now I rarely get tingling I get burning and swelling at even trace amounts of gluten more so from things I had been eating not realising I was making myself more ill over the years to the point now that if it doesn't say gluten free then to expect it to make me ill or itching like crazy and it does so .

Though what you found wasn't gluten causing you to be so ill I made the same mistake too.

from what I can see it seems they find it hard to find out what we are allergic to unless it is a contact allergy and with food allergies a food diary seems to be the main way they work it out but we work it out before them due to the fact we are the ones getting ill.

what you was going through sounds terrible and for all that time,must have been the biggest relief ever to find out what it was causing it.

[Elizida]

that's good that you dont have the tingling as much as you had. I had the same symptons, tingling in the face and jaw and thighs. They gave me a blood test and put me on B12 injections. After a few months I was fine, then they took me off the injections, said I didnt need them anymore and then some time later the tingling and numbness returned. I am back on B12 injections one every 12 weeks for life now. Coming off the injections caused me permanent numbness in my left thigh. It would be worth getting your bloods checked, you could be low on B12 and or folic acid.