Two Years Later

Hi All,

First, I am so humbled that this blog has helped others find relief from their chronic hives. Since the blog was first posted, it has been viewed nearly 10,000 times by about 6,000 unique viewers. So if you find your way here, you shouldn’t feel alone.

When I first broke out in chronic hives, I was 23 and living in Tampa, Florida. A lot has changed since then. I’m entering my third year of law school and I’ve moved to Columbus, Ohio to remain near my boyfriend of about 4 years now while he goes to medical school. As you might imagine, my life is a little hectic, and it’s been difficult for me to keep up with this blog.

But today I had a disappointing visit with an Allergist, and I wanted to come here and share my experience with you all. I hope this story gives comfort to others.

For some background, I’ve more or less completely avoided doctors since I got my symptoms under control on my own in 2013. You can read all about that in the About section of this blog. But to offer a brief summary, I suffered from increasingly painful gastrointestinal issues for my whole life. The symptoms become intolerable around my 22nd birthday in 2011. From 2011 to February of 2013, I bounced around from doctor to doctor. I eventually found probiotic supplements which alleviated the intensity of my symptoms, but I had to keep increasing the dosage to keep my stomach upset under control. Without the probiotics (which I discovered in mid-2012), I had extremely painful bloating, diarrhea, a lack of mental clarity, and lots of other delightful sensations. Most doctors were well meaning and kind, some were impatient, none had answers.

In February of 2013, with my gastrointestinal issues still undiagnosed and self-medicated, I broke out in chronic hives. Again, you can find a more detailed story with pictures in the About section of this blog. These hives were intense, and for six weeks I again bounced around from doctor to doctor. Again, I eventually found my own solution by researching national institute of health articles (for the most part). The solution I found was a radical diet change, and I’ve stuck with it to this day (two years later). Serendipitously, the diet change also proved to be a very effective treatment for my gastrointestinal distress. I went from being entirely dependent increasingly large doses of probiotics to make it through the day, to not having to take them at all! I felt incredibly relieved and grateful. To this day, when I deviate from that diet the hives return, and when I stick to it I do very well.

Because I had solved the problem on my own, I stopped going to doctors. Somewhere along the way, I developed a vague dislike for them. This was probably unfair, since it flowed mostly from a particularly bad experience with a certain allergist. Most (but not all) doctors that I met were kind, patient, and willing to listen to my story without judgment. Nevertheless, I came to resent their confined approach to medicine. If I saw an allergist, he or she would ignore my entire life long history of gastrointestinal distress and look only for a handful of symptoms. It was as if the doctor would just check symptoms off a list of a pre-approved list. This was true across specialties: my gastroenterologist did not entertain my bizarre hives when considering possible diagnoses. It seemed (and still does seem) obvious to me that whatever is wrong with me requires “outside of the box” thinking, but to this day I’ve never encountered a doctor that was willing to think about my body as a whole. They focus only on particular organs or systems, but never consider how those systems might be interacting to produce irregular and inexplicable symptoms. It is very frustrating. I am certainly not qualified to offer an alternative, but I can’t say the current approach makes any sense to me.

I recently went back to the doctor to “establish” as a new patient after moving to Ohio. This was my first time back to a doctor’s office in about two years. My experiences were similar, and today culminated in one of the more inappropriate visits I had to date. I met with an Allergist today. I explained this whole long saga, telling her that I at one point stopped seeing a different allergist. At some point, she seemed to have judged me for a difficult patient who would never think her doctor was good enough. She ordered skin-scrape allergy tests “to give me peace of mind,” a comment I find frustrating, judgmental, and unnecessary. I said the allergy test would be fine if she thought it would be helpful. They administered the test, it came back negative, so I do not have allergies to the foods that indisputably cause me to develop hives. (At some point she said physical reactions range from ‘allergy’ to something else, and an allergy test only tests for a specific type of physiological reaction. Just because I don’t have an “allergy,” that does not mean I do not have reactions). When she came back to discuss the test, she said “the allergy test results were negative, but you [meaning me] probably would have preferred a positive result huh?” I can only guess at what she meant by this. Of course I am happy that I do not have the kind of allergies that lead to anaphylaxis. If I were to give her the benefit of the doubt (which I am disinclined to do), I would guess that all she meant was that I would have preferred to have an answer for all my troubles. Based on her tone through the whole visit and a number of other off hand remarks, I am inclined to assume much worse. Regardless, it was a hurtful comment. I felt pre-judged. I felt as if she believed me to be a liar.

I also remembered the acute sense of desperation I used to feel when my symptoms were out of control and doctors would treat me like I was either a freak or a bother, and when time and again I would go home from their offices with no hope and only a co-pay to show for my time. I also acutely remembered my self-doubt; was I crazy? Was I making this all up?

Thankfully, I have a patient and caring partner (my boyfriend) who, every time I feel like that, reminds me that he has seen my hives and other symptoms, and I am not crazy and I am not making things up. But I can’t imagine going through this all alone. I wanted to write this post so that anyone who has the feelings knows that he or she is not alone. I would imagine many people with undiagnosed or idiopathic chronic disease have these feelings. You are not alone. Doctors are not perfect and make many mistakes that can hurt their patients emotionally and physically. Most of them do not intend to, but that is of little consolation to a suffering patient who goes home that day with both hurt feelings and a chronic condition that remains as mysterious and unknowable as ever.

Good Luck to Everyone,

Kim.

Sweet Potato Breakfast Hash

We usually make eggs and bacon for breakfast if we have time (if not, it’s Glutenfreeda Instant Oatmeal for me). But I’m on winter break from law school at the moment, and I wanted to try making something different. This is the product!

Makes 2 Servings

Ingredients:
1 Ruby Sweet Potato
3 strips turkey bacon (we buy Applegate), cooked until fairly crispy
2 cups broccoli spears
1/4 sweet yellow onion, cut into approximate 1 inch pieces.
3 eggs to scramble
Garlic, salt, and pepper for seasoning

Instructions:
Place a skillet on medium-high (6/10) heat. With a sharp, large chef’s knife (preferably one with grooves to prevent a vacuum from forming) cube the sweet potato. If you can find your skinning tool, you can remove the skin from the potato. I couldn’t, so I didn’t! I’d recommend chunks somewhat smaller than the ones pictured here. 1/2 inch cubes would probably work. Place chunks in hot pan, cover with olive oil, and cover pan to allow chunks to cook evenly. These take the longest to cook, so you’ll want to start them first. While those chunks are cooking, Place strips of bacon into a separate skillet to cook. While both pans are cooking, cut the 1/4 onion pieces. Add them to the sweet potato pan, add enough oil so that there is some (but not much) visible at the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with garlic, salt, and pepper (it’d probably be tastier if you used fresh garlic. I used powdered garlic, but now that I’m thinking of it I should have used fresh).

When the bacon is done, tear it into pieces with your fingers and add to the sweet potato skillet. In the now empty skillet where you were cooking the bacon, add broccoli. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to cookie the broccoli. Once the broccoli is roasted (you can see parts of the spear beginning to brown), transfer to the sweet potato skillet.

By now the sweet potato skillet should be finished. After removing the sweet potato mix from heat and placing in serving bowls, I decided to cook scrambled eggs (not pictured here). I placed the eggs on top of the sweet potato mix, and served in a bowl. It was quite good!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

It seems to take about a dozen attempts to correctly convert a conventional recipe to a gluten free recipe. It’s a tough job to eat batch after batch of gluten free cookies, but someone has to do it!

I have finally perfected a GF oatmeal cookie recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cups light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (for pete’s sake don’t buy mckormick…switching made a huge difference).
1 cup certified gluten free oats
2 cups oat flour
A little less than 1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp arrowroot starch (tapioca starch works, but not as well)
Between 1/2 and 1 tsp salt
1 cup raisins (and whatever else you’d like to add)

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 cookie pans (makes about 12 cookies).

1) Use a hand held electric mixer to mix the shortening, the light brown sugar, and the granulated sugar. Add in the vanilla and the eggs, and continue to mix until evenly mixed.
2) In a separate bowl, combine oat flour, baking soda, arrowroot starch, and salt.
3) Combine the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. Beat with the mixer until well mixed.
4) Pour in the raisins and the oats, mix by hand.
5) Take table spoon sized heaps of dough, place them on the cookie sheets, and flatten them slightly (gluten free cookies don’t spread out as well as normal cookies).
6) Bake for 14-16 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to sit for at least 5 minutes. Then move to a plate to cool, but you should be able to sneak one while it’s still warm!

Long Time No Post!

Hello! Well, I’ve been very busy. I went to law school (well I’m still in law school). It is difficult, but not impossible. It does take up a lot of my time. But, when I have a minute to myself (like now), I tend to cook or work on recipes for treats! So I am restarting my blog. Here goes!

To bring everyone up to date on my health, I am now allergic to/intolerant of:
gluten
corn
potato, tomato, eggplant, nutmeg, bell peppers, hot peppers
dairy
strawberries, cherries, apricots, maybe apples?
almonds

Point is, things were bad, then they were good. My hives went away completely, and now they are rarely a problem. A more common issue is digestive trouble. I am beginning to suspect my main problem flows from FODMAPS. These are short-chain sugars found in many foods. Some people have difficulty digesting these sugars, and researchers are beginning to theorize that FODMAP intolerance is a factor in many mysterious digestive disorders. Oddly, I seem to do fine with some high FODMAP foods (like avocados) and poorly with others (like apples). Since things became busy, I have been bad about keeping to an elimination diet when I develop symptoms. Hopefully this blog will help me stay on track.

Here is an article about FODMAPS. It should be fairly digestible (a pun!), even for readers who (like me) did not pay much attention in biology class: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/when-gluten-sensitivity-isnt-celiac-disease/?_r=0 (forgive the headline, it irked me too).

I can no longer eat many of the recipes on this site. I will likely archive them and simply start the blog anew. I apologize to anyone who relies on those messages. I will try to come up with some solution.

I have learned many things about xanthan gum and other additives, making your own gluten free flours, and other tips and tricks. I will be happy to share them with you. Thanks for sticking around, and please share my story with anyone you think it might help. I am always happy to send and receive any messages!

Anyway sorry for the lack of upbeat news. Just follow along for recipes!

Recipe: Paleo Bacon Burgers

One of my favorite questions that people ask when they learn about my diet restrictions goes something like “My goodness…what CAN you eat?” Well, as regular readers probably know, you can eat just about anything (you just need to work a bit harder for it). The picture above should be evidence of that!

This weekend I was traveling, and despite my best efforts I did go hungry a couple of times. So I wanted to make tonight’s dinner a feast of fantastic proportions to counteract my lean weekend. I rediscovered some Applegate Turkey Burgers in the freezer and decided that tonight would be burger night. After a pitstop to whole foods to pick up some nitrate-free organic Applegate bacon, I set to work. Making turkey burgers is no easy feat when you need to make pretty much everything from scratch (the only thing that I had pre-prepared was the frozen patties). I had to make the ‘buns’ (which are just pancakes) and the onion rings from scratch. I’ve provided the recipe for the onion rings below (the pancakes can be found here. Incidentally, I replaced the eggs in the pancake recipe with egg whites. The pancakes were lumpier, but much lower in cholesterol and still tasty). As for the fillings, get creative! Add whatever you’d like!

Gluten-Free, Paleo Onion Rings (you know, except for the fact that cavemen probably weren’t frying things):

1/4 cup Almond Flour
2 tbsp cocolunt flour, sifted
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1/8 tsp turmeric
2 eggs (substituting egg whites doesn’t work very well)
1/2 cup coconut milk (I used water because I didn’t have coconut milk. You may need a little more)
Frying oil
2 onions, sliced into thin rings

Instructions:

Place the flours, arrowroot, and spices in a medium bowl, whisk to combine. Add the eggs and coconut milk (or water). Whisk until smooth. If the batter is too thick, add additional coconut milk for desired consistency.

In a large non-stick skillet, heat enough oil to come half way up the sides of the onion slices to 330 degrees. Coat onion slices into batter, shake of excess batter, and place into hot oil. Cook each side for 2 minutes, then remove with tongs an set on a paper towel to remove excess oil. Enjoy!

Recipe: Paleo Burritos

So, the world keeps knocking me down as far as baked goods go. By retreating back to the Paleo diet and avoiding all grains completely, I am now limited to almond flour and coconut flour in terms of baking tools. While I’ve seen some pretty creative recipes for solving the tortilla dilemma (one of which involved food processing cauliflower, adding egg, and baking that in a tortilla shape), all of them posed an intrusive flavor. And then, my boyfriend mentioned to me that Jimmy John’s (the sandwich company) offers a bread-free sandwich called an ‘Unwich.’ Basically, they wrap your sandwich ingredients in lettuce! While Jimmy Johns would likely continue to be unsafe for a celiac, the idea is genius! So I tried to apply it to an old standby: tacos and burritos. And I must say, it works beautifully! Depending on which type of lettuce leaf you use, you can lump all of your taco ingredients into a good sized leave, fold it just like you would a tortilla, bite into a crunchy outer ‘shell,’ and enjoy!

Here’s my basic burrito recipe (free of nightshades, which still cause headaches and hives in my case). It is grain-free and legume-free (as are all Paleo Dishes), but I couldn’t resist adding cheese in. I seem to tolerate it pretty well, so what the heck?

Ingredients (to make 3 burritos):
For Meat:
1lb chicken breast (cubed) or 1lb ground beef
Cilantro
1/2 tsp Salt and Pepper
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Onion Powder

For Guacamole:
1 avocado
1/2 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 yellow onion, diced
1 lime
Salt and Pepper
1/4 tsp Cumin

1 slice American Cheddar Cheese, cut into strips (this is what I had on hand!)
Lettuce (Kale and Romaine both work nicely, but you could probably use anything you have lying around 🙂 ).

Instructions:

Make the Guacamole first. Gut the avocado until you’re left with only the green meat, and place in bowl. Add the juice from 1/2 a lime, the chopped garlic, and the diced onion, and mash together (works best with 2 spoons). Once mashed, add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate until ready to add to burrito. (Note: traditional guacamole recipes call for jalapeno peppers and tomatoes. Feel free to add these if you don’t have a nightshade intolerance).

For chicken, you’ll need to slice the chicken into small chunks and season the small chunks while they rest on a plate. For ground beef, you’ll need to place the 1 lb chunk of ground beef in a mixing bowl, season, and then mix the meat with your hands. Add all seasonings to meat, and then transfer meat to a hot, greased skillet (over medium heat). Cook until done, and set aside.

Cut your slice of cheddar cheese (Aged white is my preference!), into strips. Serve everything on a large plate, and allow the person eating to assemble their burritos.

To assemble, use a spoon to place two dabs of guacamole onto the center of a lettuce leaf. Use the back of the spoon to spread the guacamole evenly. Add your meat directly on top of the guac, and cover with cheese strips. Wrap, and enjoy! I know they’re simply, but they’re positively delicious.

A final thought, if you use Kale, you might be looking at a $5-foot-long burrito 🙂 (pictured below)

Recipe: Paleo Pancakes!

I’m not sure if you, readers, have noticed this or not, but I’m just a tiny bit stubborn. When forced with having to give up all of my favorite, glutenated foods, I more or less just say “Nope, I’ll find a way around it.” As you might imagine, these workarounds don’t always turn out wonderfully (especially when they’re of my own making!). I’m happy to say that these pancakes do not fall in that category. They are absolutely delicious when topped with maple syrup (or any other topping, I would imagine).

This recipe comes from a FANTASTIC book called Paleo Indulgences. Oddly enough, they’re actually part of a recipe for a Bacon Burger! The pancakes serve as the bun for the burger in that recipe. I have a couple left over, and I’m planning to use them as bread for a Paleo frozen breakfast sandwich trial (stay tuned!). Anyway, I’ve made a few things from this book now, and these pancakes are my favorite thusfar. They taste delicious, and, like most baked Paleo goods, have a pleasant flavor of coconut to them (trust me, I never liked coconut until I was forced to, and these were good). They’re fairly easy to make, and much more filling than normal pancakes. Good luck, and enjoy!

Maple Pancakes (or, Maple Pancake Buns!)

Ingredients:

Dry
1/3 cup (30g) almond flour
3 tbsp coconut flour, sifted (you really must sift coconut flour, or it will be too clumpy)
Salt (a pinch)
1/2 tsp baking powder

Wet
4 eggs
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

Instructions:

Heat a griddle or skillet to 350 degrees (low-medium). Place the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Combine all wet ingredients except coconut oil in a separate bowl, whisk to combine. Add the wet ingredients (not the coconut oil) to the dry ingredients, and combine lightly. Once the contents of the two bowls are mixed, add the coconut oil and mix well (you’ll need to aggressively whisk to get the clumps out of the almond/coconut flour). Grease the skillet with either more coconut oil or olive oil spray, and spoon batter onto the skillet/griddle in 3-4″ circles. Allow to cook until the top of the circles bubble and the edges begin to curl upward, then flip. Cook for 2 more minutes (until both sides are browned), serve and enjoy! This recipe made 5 small pancakes, and can easily be doubled.

Recipe: 4th of July Chicken Fingers

Hello Readers! So, on National Holidays, we as a nation gather to commemorate this or that major event over hot dogs, burgers, and some form of fried chicken. So today, on the Fourth of July, I really just wanted some chicken nuggets. You might think that a highly restricted, Paleo Diet might get in the way of that timeless cook-out dish, but it hasn’t! May I present to you my Paleo Chicken Nuggets, which are baked and lightly “breaded” with almond flour. Not only are the allergen- and Paleo-friendly, but they’re a healthier alternative to anyone who enjoys this time-honored treat.

Ingredients:
1lb Chicken Breast, cut into slices (for fingers) or cubes (for nuggets)
1 cup almond flour
2 eggs, lightly whisked
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/4 tsp Garlic
1/4 tsp Onion Powder
1/4 tsp Cumin
Any other spices you’d like to add! (you could add cayenne or paprika if you’re not nightshade-phobic, like me!).

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine Flour and all spices in a bowl, mix well. Once you’ve cut the chicken into your desired shapes (you could even pound the breast and use cookie cutters to make fun Dino Nuggets!), dip each strip into the bowl of whisked egg. Once coated in egg, toss the chicken in a bowl filled with the almond flour and spices. Spray a cooking sheet lightly with olive oil, and place strips on the sheet. Place the sheet in the oven for 15 minutes. Once the 15 minutes are up, turn the broiler on your oven to Low, and broil the nuggets for 5 minutes. Turn over, and broil the other side for another 3-5 minutes. Let cool for 2 minutes, serve with your favorite sauce, and Enjoy! Happy Birthday America!

Update #4: The Epilogue

Well, readers, it’s been almost two months since my last full-length update on my condition. As I mentioned previously, I did have quite a bit of luck after switching to the Paleo Diet. However, as many short sighted patients do once they start feeling better, I abandoned my “medicinal” diet too quickly. Here’s what happened:

Once I went on the Paleo Diet, I kept a food journal for about a month. This helped me pinpoint nightshades, gluten, vinegar, corn, and canola oil as foods that would provoke hives. I highly recommend keeping a food journal to anyone who’s having symptoms similar to mine. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the nearly 15 different problem foods now that they’ve been identified! Without the food journal, I never would have been able to pinpoint what exactly was making me sick. I know this, because I am once again sick, and I have stopped keeping my food journal.

Fortunately, I don’t have hives. The foods I listed above seem to be the only foods that bring on those devilish itchy bumps. However, those old, familiar symptoms of gastrointestinal distress have creeped back into my daily routine. I haven’t kept my food journal for about 2 weeks now, so I have no way of pinpointing what the issue might be. Because if this, I’ve found myself eliminating foods randomly and without precision. Needless to say, I haven’t gotten any better. I eliminated dairy, which mildly improved my symptoms for a few short days. However, the gastrointestinal distress continued to worsen, until this past weekend when things were nearly as bad as they used to be. I made the decision to go back to the Paleo Diet simply because I was lucky enough to have experienced how much the diet could improve my well-being. So, I went back to what worked.

It’s been a couple of days since the switch back to the Paleo Diet, and I am slowly improving. I believe that I was experiencing something called Gluten Cross-Reactivity. I even wrote a post about it before deciding that it could possibly apply to me. You see, when I went off the Paleo Diet I did so because I wanted to add things like muffins and cookies back into my diet. There are plenty of gluten-free recipes that rely heavily on rice-flour, an easy to find and fairly affordable ingredient. So while I was able to make and eat plenty of muffins and cookies without getting hives, I did have celiac-like reactions to my beloved baked goods. For a couple of weeks, I made 6 rice-based muffins on Sunday so that I would have breakfast for each day of the week. Each day I had a muffin for breakfast, I would get worse and worse. By Thursday, I really couldn’t sit at my desk for very long. After receiving the newest issue of Simply Gluten Free Magazine, which contained an article about Gluten Cross-Reactivity, I had to acknowledge something I had been unwilling to admit: I was reacting to the rice.

There were a few reasons why I didn’t admit this to myself. First, Gluten-Cross Reactivity seems to be a Celiac’s Disease-related syndrome. I have not yet been diagnosed with Celiac’s (because my gastroenterologist can’t see me for 3 months, she’s so busy!), and I suppose I felt it was unlikely that I would actually be diagnosed with a full-blown auto-immune disorder. Second, I just didn’t really want to admit it to myself. I was tired of running my whole life around what I couldn’t eat. My mentality was something like “at the least, I deserve to keep rice. I mean come on, it’s rice. I’m not asking for much, body. Just let me keep rice.” But, my unsympathetic body was unwilling to heed my requests. So, gone is the rice, along with all other grains, dairy, and probably simple sugars. That, and it’s looking more and more like I have full blown Celiac’s Disease. Which is ok, especially since I was able to figure out without years and years and years of suffering. Just 2 years. In relative terms, that’s really not too bad.

Good Luck to Everyone who also struggles with food allergies and temperamental immune symptoms. I hope this blog is a great resource for you or your friends. You’re welcome to message with any questions or comments 🙂

Article: Gluten Cross Reactivity

Hello Earthlings,

Today, while reading through an issue of Gluten Free Living, I came upon a brief article on something called Gluten-Cross reactivity. Intrigued, I did a little digging and found a more in-depth explanation of what “cross-reactivity” means. Here’s the article I found:

http://www.thepaleomom.com/2013/03/gluten-cross-reactivity-update-how-your-body-can-still-think-youre-eating-gluten-even-after-giving-it-up.html

Written by a Ph.D.-turned-gluten-free advocate, the article gives an in-depth look at the science behind gluten cross-reactivity. To be honest, at 1 A.M., the thoroughness of the article overwhelmed me, so I thought I’d try to simplify it for my readers. In short, if you have an auto-immune variety of gluten-intolerance (i.e. Celiac’s Disease), your body develops identify-and-attack cells called antibodies that are always on patrol for gluten. Once an antibody stumbles upon a gluten-protein, it sounds the alarm for all antibodies to converge on the spot and eliminate the invader. In people with Celiac’s, the attack-of-the-antibody brigade becomes over-zealous, and damage to the intestines results.

Why does this matter? Well, if you’re sick enough, your antibodies’ structure could become generalized enough to attack not just gluten-proteins, but any proteins similar to gluten as well. This is called Cross Reactivity, or the immune response that occurs when anti-bodies developed to attack gluten-proteins become generalized enough that they begin attacking proteins found in other foods as well. So, it’s possible that you could entirely eliminate the gluten-protein from your diet and still continue to have glutenated symptoms when you eat foods with similarly structured proteins.

My reaction to this was “Oh my goodness, seriously? I mean really? Come on world, cut me some slack.” As you might have guessed, if you suspect you’re experiencing cross-reactive symptoms, you’ll need to cut all of those foods out of your diet as well. Here’s a list of cross reactive foods (this list is taken from the link above):

Oats (2 different cultivars)
Buckwheat
Sorghum
Millet
Amaranth
Quinoa
Corn
Rice
Potato
Hemp
Teff
Soy
Milk (Alpha-Casein, Beta-Casein, Casomorphin, Butyrophilin, Whey Protein and whole milk)
Chocolate
Yeast
Coffee (instant, latte, espresso, imported)
Sesame
Tapioca (a.k.a. cassava or yucca)
Eggs

There is some good news! Most of these only need to be eliminated temporarily. However, the bad news is that corn, potato, milk, yeast, and rice are the ones that need to be eliminated permanently. Over time, your antibodies become less aggressive, and you can likely re-introduce all but the five aforementioned ingredients. Some more good news? Only 20% of Celiac’s suffer from cross-reactivity according to a small number of studies, so this likely doesn’t affect the vast majority of Celiacs.

I can’t say I exactly understand the specifics behind how this applies to Non-Celiacs-Gluten-Intolerant sufferers. I haven’t been diagnosed either way yet (have to wait 3 months to see my gastroenterologist..). I do know that I react to corn, potato, and milk. Milk provokes gluten-like symptoms, while corn and potato bring on hives along with some gastro-intestinal upset. Gluten-Intolerants are classified separately because it is believed that they do not experience an auto-immune reaction (as Celiacs do). However, their condition is also not considered a mere allergy. It’s sort of a confusing distinction for me (perhaps I’ll do some research to better define how these labels are distinguished from one another).

I hope this article is helpful for those who still experience symptoms despite going gluten-free. Good Luck!