Anyone Who Knows About Gluten Allergies!!!! Please Help!!?

My 6 year old son has been hospitalized twice since birth because of the severe reaction he has to milk products. Both times we couldnt understand how he got so sick, because everyone knows not to give him milk products. (Thinking back over the past 6 yrs i dont recall an allergy test being done.)
I have recently noticed that he seems to get extreme bloating, diarrhea, and (last nite, vomiting) after eating wheat products, and i am thinking that maybe it is a gluten allergy not a milk allergy(or maybe both). I wonder if the two allergies are similar and if they are often mistaken for one another. If anyone knows anything about this topic, i’d love some insight. My baby is miserable, its killing me!

He could be INTOLERANT of gluten. This means he is unable to DIGEST the gluten—similar to what someone with LACTOSE INTOLERANCE has—they are not ALLERGIC to milk, they just can’t DIGEST IT.
He COULD be allergic to WHEAT ALSO, or INSTEAD of INTOLERANT of gluten.
I myself, have food allergies (beef, oats, and some preservatives to name a few). I ALSO have GLUTEN INTOLERANCE…I get BLOATED—EXTREMELY, cramping, lose stools, but, haven’t vomited from that. Not to say one couldn’t….but, haven’t heard of that.

Food allergies are funny—I had the skin testing done a while ago, and they caught SOME of my allergies, but, the control didn’t even register properly. (but, then again, I WAS on allergy medicine, and they told me to only NOT TAKE IT THAT DAY, and alot of them take more than 12 hours to completely clear out of the system). Since then, I have developed the beef and oat food allergy. I also have asthma, so even though the test did or didn’t say I was allergic to something, I judged by how my asthma did on how I was going to deal with certain situations….if I KNEW that cut grass bothers me, I make sure to try to avoid it when I can, OR take my medicine BEFORE HAND.
Unfortunately, gluten intolerance/allergies aren’t so easy. Neither is MILK allergies. Milk is HIDDEN in SO MANY products….and, sometimes, not clearly labeled. Sometimes, for the milk, you HAVE to look for LACTOSE as well as milk (someone told me once that perhaps WHEY as well…although, not sure on that–I think that would be more if they were allergic to ALL dairy, like cheese).

There isn’t any magic pill for Gluten intolerance or allergy—avoidance is the only thing that usually works (although some health food stores may sell herbal or other pills for this….don’t know how they are). I stick to rice, potatoes, and corn….and mix it up a bit….tortilla chips or rice cakes, the McCain SMILES are gluten free last I checked (but, ALWAYS read the package EVERY TIME as they DO CHANGE ingrediants and processing methods).

Good luck to you….see if your doc can refer you to a nutritionist or someone you can talk to to better learn about this and how to work around this for preparing meals safely and easily.

No related posts.

Tagged as: allergic to wheat, allergies, allergy medicine, allergy test, food allergies, Food allergy, gluten, gluten allergies, Gluten Allergy, milk allergies, Milk allergy, wheat products