Wheat Intolerance?

[Lizzie8]

About 10 days ago I Went out for Pizza, probably ate too much and spent the night feeling sick, had stomach cramp and had a really restless sleep. I thought it was just from overeating, but someone suggested it could have been caused by wheat. I thought back to a few days at the end of the previous week when I'd been ill, and had eaten pasta, quite a bit of bread and dumplings. Not wanting to get ill again I stopped eating bread, pasta and other wheat products. However a couple of days ago I ate Yorkshire pudding for dinner, then had a bad nights sleep, feeling sick, and Last night I ate vegetable soup and bread for dinner, and within a couple of hours felt sick, had stomach cramp and slept really badly again. This morning I ate a wheat based breakfast cereal (I usually eat Porridge) to see if it made me feel ill. For the first few hours of this morning I felt fine, but by 10 I felt really tired and sick and have spent the rest of the day in bed with stomach cramps feeling exhausted. From what I've read it seems I have a lot of the symptoms of wheat intolerance, but I'm concerned it might be psychological, i.e. I feel ill after eating wheat because I think it might be making me ill. Also, my symptoms usually start within a few hours of eating and most info I've read says wheat intolerance symptoms occur 2-3 days after eating wheat. Do symptoms sometimes occur sooner than this? I managed to eat some lunch today (with no wheat in it) which made my symptoms worse again. Could this perhaps be because my digestive system is already irritated from eating wheat last night and this morning? Any advice or info is appreciated, Thanks

[eddiejohnson]

I have been through a similar experience ...but now OK.
At the time it was diagnosed as non-coeliac gluten intolerance (wheat,rye,barley,oats are the culprits).
I also had lactose intolerance (and still have).
I eventually lost the gluten intolerance.

From your report here I am wondering if perhaps your intolerance is to lactose rather than gluten.
If it IS one or both of these, there are solutions here on this website.

I suggest that you spend a couple of weeks avoiding lactose and see if there is an improvement in your stomach problems.
Report back to us at the end of the trial.

To help you eliminate all the lactose-containing foods (there are a lot!)
read the article and full list in
http://www.foodreactions.org/articles/hidden_milk.html

As for your mention of timing of symptoms, in my experience the reaction from lactose is within an hour, and the reaction to gluten used to be a couple of hours or more.
If, as you say, you still had a reaction after lunch today in spite of avoiding wheat...what DID you eat?...was there milk or cheese or any other lactose-containing food in it? This could be a clue!
BTW: another clue may be that pizzas are BURSTING with lactose...it's the cheese!
regards

[susanwhite25]

Lizzie8,

I would highly recommend checking out the book "Healthier Without Wheat" by Dr. Stephen Wangen. There is a lot of really great information in this book that I think could help you out a great deal. There is also a great deal of information at http://centerforfoodallergies.com/. You can find some helpful info. here regarding food allergy testing strategies. I hope that you are able to get this figured out!