my first "glutening"--questions :(

[canadave]

Hi all,

Well, I just had what I guess is my first glutening. First let me provide all the facts, then let me run a few questions by you folks.

I started my GF diet about a month ago, and transition hasn't been as bad as I thought it'd be. I've eaten exclusively at home. My wife is the only other person who lives with me, and although she is not GF, she has tried to be very careful about things. We don't have a dishwasher--yet--but she's been trying to get things very clean and scrubbed. I have my own cooking implements and so on...the only thing we share is forks, knives, plates, and drinking glasses.

Last night for dinner I grabbed a couple of Glutino GF pizza crusts, used a spoon to spread some Unico pizza sauce on them, opened a new pack of Kraft cheese and used my fingers to spread the cheese evenly over the pizza, and made myself a couple of pizzas in my dedicated toaster oven on my side of the kitchen. Put it on a fresh plate from the cupboard, grabbed some water to drink, and wolfed it down.

About 15-20 minutes later I still felt a bit hungry, so I grabbed a half-eaten bag of Old Dutch regular potato chips and finished those off.

About an hour later, I suddenly felt like I had to use the bathroom. While on the toilet...ooooh. Bad diarrhea, which quickly progressed to agonizing pain in my bowels. Within a couple of minutes I was in so much pain that I was this-close to fainting...luckily my wife was nearby and came running. She helped me slip off the toilet to the floor as I started shivering uncontrollably with cold and gasping with bowel pain. She covered me with blankets and was ready to take me to the hospital...but after a few minutes I started feeling better. It was pretty rough though. I still don't feel "quite right" down there, and there's still some stomach gurgling, although I now feel well enough to sit up and type this, about 10 hours later.

So...on to the questions. I welcome any and all responses

1. Just to make sure--this is classic glutening...right? Just want to make sure I didn't just eat some bad cheese or something

Assuming I was glutened, then my next quest is to figure out what I got glutened by...since, as far as I was aware, everything I ate was GF. Thus, my next question:

2. How long does it take for someone who's been glutened to feel symptoms? Can I safely assume it was something from this meal (either the food itself or some sort of contamination) and not maybe a previous meal I'd eaten at lunch several hours beforehand? Does an hour sound about right in terms of how long it'd take to feel glutening symptoms?

3. I'm trying to be a detective and figure out what happened. Here's my guesses so far:
(a) Something I ate that I thought was GF, isn't actually GF. If so, my guess is the Old Dutch potato chips...the label doesn't have any gluten ingredients in it, and I looked it up on the Internet and thought I'd read that Old Dutch was fine, but maybe I was wrong. Then again, I'd eaten them beforehand and never had such bad symptoms....although to be fair I hadn't exactly felt great afterwards either. Everything else--the Glutino pizza crusts, Unico sauce, and Kraft cheese--is all supposed to be GF, and I've eaten them until now with no problems at all.
(b) I got contaminated by either the drinking glass, the plate, the clean knife I used to coax my pizzas out of my toaster oven and onto the plate, or something else completely. These things had all been washed by hand in the sink, and it turned out my wife HAD had a meal before me that had some soy sauce with gluten in it, so it's possible that something transferred, although she swears she cleaned everything thoroughly and properly.
(c) I bite my nails--bad habit--and it's possible I might've touched something with a finger and then bit my nails and ingested it somehow.

So now I'm confused what to do. Do I throw out the used-once $6 bag of cheese? I did after all have my fingers in it...if my fingers had already been contaminated, then maybe I transferred something to the cheese in the bag. Do I throw out the container of pizza sauce I used? If the spoon I used to get the sauce out of the container and spread onto the pizza crust was contaminated, then I just contaminated the whole container, right?

Do I not eat Old Dutch potato chips anymore? I could call Old Dutch I guess....but even if they say "yes our chips are GF", it still seems like I don't react all that well even in the best case.

4. Is it better to use separate plates, knives, forks, spoons, and drinking glasses from my non-GF wife, to minimize the chances of this happening again, if it was possibly contamination from a utensil that wasn't fully and properly washed?

5. Now that I've "glutened" myself, did I just ruin all the healing I've done for the past month on my GF diet?

Thanks for your advice and support, folks...I've been pretty happy being GF until this happened. It wasn't fun I can't imagine what I would've done if I'd been back home in NYC, for instance, and got glutened in a restaurant, and then started walking around on the streets with no chance of a public restroom...what the heck do people do at that point when the gluten attack hits??? I was absolutely laid out on the floor shivering my head off....if my wife hadn't been right there with blankets to warm me I would've been in even rougher shape.

--Dave

[ostrich]

Hi there Dave! I'm a little low on time, but I'll try to help...

1. It sounds like it. Then again, it could've just been a bad reaction to the cheese, or even something like a small stomach bug.
2. People have all different reactions when it comes to gluten. Some people feel it right away. Others feel it a day or two later. So yes, you also could've reacted to breakfast or lunch, or even a meal the previous day.
3. I would seriously consider contacting Old Dutch. Their FAQ about allergens leaves much to be desired. Do they clean their lines in-between runs? Do chips with allergens come in contact with allergen-free chips?
4. Personally, I would try a few other things to minimize CC before buying new dishes and silverware. Do you guys have a dishwasher? If so I would make sure all dishes/silverware go in there. Otherwise you could also try keeping two sponges. One will be for you and your GF food. The other can be for NGF food.
5. Don't worry, you didn't bang yourself up too bad. You didn't undo all your hard work. This sort of thing happens to everyone, even old pros. Just dust yourself off the best you can and try to hunt down what went wrong. Good luck!
_________________
Ostrich :>--O==={

Time falls away, but these small hours
These little wonders still remain

[nancw]

I vote for the chips being a problem, that and too much fat in one meal.
_________________
Nance

gluten, dairy, soy, rice, yeast and 99% grain-free

[jeant]

If it wasn't a stomach bug (some forms of foodborne illnesses can take a day to show up), I'd guess it was the chips. My husband is very careful but I still have caught him reaching into a bag of chips after touching something with gluten in it. So even if the chips were GF, there could have been some accidental contamination.

I hope you are feeling better today.

[Kathie]

When I was first diagnosed and healing I had trouble with potato chips because of the oil. I just couldn't handle all that grease, still can't actually.

If you don't have a dishwasher this is how I wash dishes when we have mixed meals at our camp. First I rinse all the dishes, then I clean the sink with either soap or clorox spray. We have two separate, different color sponges for GF and NGF. I wash all the GF items first, then the gluten.
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CD by Biopsy 3/25/88

[sbj]

Hi Dave:

The half-eaten bag of chips could easily have been contaminated by your SO I am thinking.

I'm new to this forum and to the GF diet - only been on it maybe two weeks now? Anywho, from your previous messages I can see that in the past you have been more or less like me - almost completely free of symptoms. Like me you were somewhat mystified as to why a crumb could cause some so much trouble because you had been ingesting gluten for some time with few or no problems.

Perhaps now you've found some answers. You could assume that you've now become super-sensitive because you've been on the diet for a month. You could assume that this was a glutening of microscopic proportions that caused these horrible problems, throw all of the maybe-contaminated food out, stop eating those chips, change the way you do dishes, etc.

On the other hand, you could also assume that this was a bug or food poisoning from a previous meal. Given that you have never really suffered much in the way of symptoms previously this seems likely to me but maybe not to others. Also, did you realize that even GF products such as pizzas contain some level of gluten? That's right - even on a completely GF diet you are still consuming microscopic amounts of gluten every day - it's unavoidable.

My most important suggestion? SEE A DOCTOR OR GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM - especially while (and if) you are still suffering with symptoms. Even if this was a glutening, symptoms such as agonizing pain in your bowels and uncontrollable shivering sound very serious to me. If it has taken ten hours to recover to the point where you could write? My God, man, get yourself in to see someone!
_________________
Diagnosed with celiac disease October 1, 2008 based on duodenum biopsy and blood test

[mrsppmrxky]

I understand your pain! I myself was accidentally glutened the other day. I thought that I was also going to faint from the painful cramping. The next day, I felt completely bruised on the inside.

I know that many here do well in keeping a mixed household. For us, it was just too difficult. We were careful but someone would get a crumb someplace and the races for the bathroom began. To me it was just too stressful to have a mixed household.

(now if I eat corn, I have to be very careful to wash my hands and throw the towels in the dirty clothes hamper so that MrP doesn't get poisoned. It is just very difficult to keep the gluten away from all of us.)

My reaction came from holding my ML's ice cream cone..........the cone got on my hands and I barely made it home. (I only held it long enough to let her buckle her seatbelt.)

I hope that you have recovered. If it was not from cross contamination, be on the lookout to see if you are showing symptoms to sensitivity to another allergen. I hope it was gluten from cc and not a new symptom!
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[canadave]

Thanks everyone for your replies and concern....I really appreciate the feedback.

I'm better, but still feeling pretty uncomfortable cramps that come and go in my abdomen. Slept a bit fitfully last night.

I sure hope these cramps go away soon It feels like they might be with me for another couple of days. What do people do to alleviate the pain from post-glutening cramps? Any particular medication?

Oh, and we're getting a dishwasher. Arrives in a week....thank goodness, long overdue!

[ostrich]

Congrats on the dishwasher Dave! Even with the dishwasher, if you're still leery about gluten hiding on sponges you can always get another sponge.

The meds you take really depend on your symptoms. Have you tried Tums?
_________________
Ostrich :>--O==={

Time falls away, but these small hours
These little wonders still remain

[neesee]

[sbj]

Hope you are feeling better now, Dave. You got me a bit scared.

Your symptoms of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and chills are all good indicators of food poisoning (as well as gluten intolerance). This could have been a viral food poisoning from seafood, bacterial food poisoning from meat or poultry that wasn't held at hot temperature, or even salmonella from meat, poultry, egg or dairy.

Please look back at everything you ate for the two days or so previous - the offendor could still be present in your cupboard, fridge, or freezer. I would hate to see you suffer again by assuming this was cross-contamination when it might just as easily be some seafood in your freezer or some eggs in the fridge. Be careful.
_________________
Diagnosed with celiac disease October 1, 2008 based on duodenum biopsy and blood test

[canadave]

Hmmm....yes, I'm beginning to think it wasn't the chips. I wrote to Old Dutch Foods Canada, and here was their reply:

"
Thank you for the e-mail.

The Old Dutch potato products do not contain wheat, including spelt and kamut, or oats, barley, rye or triticale or any part thereof and therefore are considered Gluten-Free. There is no chance of cross contamination for our potato products. Our corn products are produced on the same line as products containing wheat. These products are produced in a different facility from the potato products. Complete cleaning and sanitizing are performed prior to running a non- gluten product run to prevent any chance of cross contamination. The oil we use in our Potato Chips is a blended Canola/Sunflower oil. The rest of the ingredients are potatoes and salt only. I am not sure why you would have a reaction to this product unless you may be sensitive to one of the oils. If you have any other questions, please feel free to write.
"

Interesting...so maybe it was something else. I'm going to poke around, keep an eye on things, and see what happens. I've been fine since then except for the cramps, which are still there and still painful when they occur but definitely occurring much less often now and with less severity.

--Dave

[aklap]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for sharing the info from Old Dutch Canada!

When we first start out we are so charged up about gluten that any ill feeling we experience we tend to blame on gluten. Maybe it was a stomach bug, maybe it was ___________.

Will you ever know for sure what it was - perhaps not.

If it continues to happen, maybe there's some medical issues going on that needs to be checked up.

Keep being vigilant...
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[canadave]

Quite right, Al. I see your point.

I'm beginning to think it might have been the pizza sauce I used. I'd had it in a tupperware container in the fridge for a while....now that I think about it, I'm not sure how long it was in there. It wasn't months or anything crazy like that, and it didn't look or smell bad when I looked at it upon opening the container, but I suppose it's a possibility that maybe it was in there just a little too long.

You're welcome for the Old Dutch tip. Actually I included it partly to illuminate my post, but also to add to the "safe/not safe" brand info floating around out there. If you want to copy it out of this thread and put it somewhere else on the forum where it might be visible to more folks than in this thread, feel free.....

EDIT: lol...let me stop being lazy and actually go do it myself! Posting it in the "Manufacturers and Brands" subforum.


Cheers,
Dave

[v.mccarthy]

Hi Dave,
I have been gluten free for over 10 years. That same experience has happened to me many times. It even happened in Tinneman Square in China. Talk about a nightmare. The only available bathroom was "Eastern Style" which is similar to a whole in the ground. I was stuck in there over an hour praying I would live through the pain and would not faint onto the "wet" floor. Every time it happened my last meal had cheese and 9 out of 10 times it was pizza. I think it has something to do with too much dairy and/or fat and for me it usually follows an accidental wheat poisoning of some sort. I think the damage is done from something else and maybe there are not enough enzymes in the colon to digest the fat and dairy. This is just guessing but I've been thinking about it for over 10 years. I am very careful on the diet and am also very sensitive to any tiny amount of gluten. Two of my daughters also have Celiac and one is dairy free too. I only cook wheat free in my house but 4 of the 7 of us are not gluten free so they bring wheat into the house. I do not separate my dishes. I just wash them all very carefully and I have not had any trouble with contamination on the dishes. Also, the first year on the diet is really difficult with a lot of poisonings. Are you also checking your toothpaste, soap, skin cream, etc. I even react to wheat in the shampoo. Good Luck
Veronica
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Veronica McCarthy
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