What happens when you accidentally take gluten?

[TrudieC]

I have not been diagnosed with celiac but am eliminating it to see if it makes a difference.  Unfortunately I have not done as good a job at determining which things have gluten and have inadvertently been eating some.  My husband gets very angry at me and says that if I eat even a minuscule amount that I am essentially back at square one and must start the test again.  Is this true?

[CalGal]

Unfortunately you are back at square one if you take even the smallest amount of gluten into your system, since gluten provokes an antibody response and antibodies are tenacious little suckers.

But please tell your husband to 'cool it.' It doesn't do either of you any good if he gets angry - and it will probably raise his blood pressure unnecessarily. You'll get an answer, it just may take a bit longer.

Trudie, it's unfortunate but gluten seems to be 'stuffed' into everything in ways that surprise even my husband, and he's been running the gluten gauntlet for a number of years now and he STILL can get hit depsite how careful he is. It ***** and he pays for it each time, unfortunately.

Just do your best. That's all you can do. You'll either start to feel better - even a small bit better - or not.

Have you considered having your genes checked? Or did you do that already? Despite the fact we probably only know about 40 percent of the actual genes that are involved in celiac, the gene tests aren't too bad and can give you a decent idea of what's going on. You can also do a fecal antibody test that can give you a good overview of if you're expelling IgA-gliadin antibodies from the digestive tract.