For those of you that have been gluten free for some time:

How long does it usually take for you to feel the effects of gluten exposure?
For me it's generally 3-5 days

I have ataxia and neuro issues and for me those hit really fast, the ataxia within an hour of injestion and the depression hits for 24 hours the next day. The GI effects usually don't hit until, like you, three to four days afterwards, although my tummy will start to growl within hours and gas will start to build up but the horrendous D takes time.

Anyways, it seems, after 7 1/2 yrs, when I get glutened, I have neurological symptoms now, my tummy gets kind of jumpy, but no real diarrhea anymore, which I am very thankful for. This last time though, I think my blood pressure shot very high and that isn't good either, I thought my head was going to explode, and that's never good. I get very shaky, and the floodgates open--like one minute I am fine and the next I am a total disaster--I never see it coming. The reaction was like 36 hours--the glutening happened around 7pm on Monday night and the reaction was 7am Wednesday morning. I was like a zombie the entire day on Wednesday, in a complete fog for probably 12 hours, the worst of the onset of the reaction lasting about 2 hours, in which time I took a Xanax to calm the shaking, crying, etc, reactions. After 7 yrs, this reaction is completely different from my reactions in the beginning! I prefer no reactions!!!!

Saturday I went to a party for lunch. I had called to ask if there would be food I could eat and told no (I only had time for a quick salad tho), but when I got there, the cook had kept a portion of the turkey chowder for me before adding the milk. It was delicious and I ate it. I also had a glass of white wine.

I was feeling detached and spacey by the time we left, I had a splitting headache by the end of dinner, and had to go to bed 2 hours early because I was so exhuasted. I havent felt like that since I quit gluten and dairy 2 mo ago. My husband suspected it was the wine, but i think its more likely the soup had cheap broth with wheat and creamed corn with wheat. Does that sound like glutening to you?

I cant tell about the bloating because thats not quite gone yet - looks like I need to quit rice first ;-(

Sorry to hear about the dining dilemma. I guess I will be experiencing a few of those myself this coming year. I am just trying to go gluten-free and finding that I am also somewhat sensitive to dairy.

I am curious as to some something in your sign-off: what is the Lame Advertisement test you list? And do you know why there so many folks in this forum complain of dairy intolerance in addition to gluten intolerance? I understand the parts of the intestine that digests both are closely related, but is there more to it than that?

I am learning but the learning curve on this condition is long. I guess I am gluten intolerant but not a full blown celiac yet. My blood test and biopsies were negative but the food challenge is right on.

CCM

Ok, so funny . . . its a test that, apparently, offended folks on this site long ago with advertising, so if you spell out their name, it gets translated in to 'lame advertising'. I thought i'd put it clearly enuf w the dots, i'll have to fix that . . .

its A L . . and then CAT . . . but all put together. THey have a website, you can mail order a test to be taken at labcorp, and they mail back a report - it took just over a week i think. Its a IgG reaction test, I think, and i had like 175 foods tested. And over 50 were positive reactions and I dont know what to eat!!

The worst part is, when i look at my own posts, its not turned in to lame advertising, so i dindt know it was happening, so i'm glad you told me.

Ok, the fact that my email text is being translated into something unintended when published is just not right. Thanks for the replies on the dairy/gluten connection.

CCM

Ok, I'm so glad you folks put this post here, cuz just now, 3 days after being glutened at a party, I finally had the 'on the way out' symptoms lol! I thought the headache was all I'd gotten, so I'm glad to realize (thanks to this post) that this 3-day later intestinal response is still from that same glutening.

Also, about the A l CAT test being altered - yeah, i think it sucks and i wonder if we can ask them to undo that, I think its a good resource which could really help people here