A simple gluten elimination diet?

[SweetSilver]

My 4.5yo daughter has very dry skin (no eczema), geographic tongue since about 2mo and occasional complaints about tummy trouble.  Because her sister and I have tons of food allergies I took her to the allergist for repeated tummy aches (and vomiting shortly after bedtime) when she was about 3yo.  Nothing but a confirmation of her dog allergy plus dust mites.  No food allergies to the big 16.  Tummy troubles have eased over the months.  Pain associated with geographic tongue have eased, but nothing is really going away.

Recently I researched geographic tongue in the forums and several folks mentioned gluten allergies.  This could be a piece in our puzzle.  Since her tummy aches aren't as common, and since our meals are so restricted already I don't want to invest a lot of effort into a preliminary elimination diet.  I would *like* to sneakily remove wheat from her diet without making sure her corn chips etc. are certified gluten free.  Her big sister eats a lot of oats due to a wheat allergy, but they are not certified gluten free as this is not an issue with her (contamination at the bulk bins is an issue).  Wheat is really the only gluten culprit in our house, besides the trouble of contamination.

Can I get away with this?  Will it be enough so that when I reintroduce wheat we will see a difference?  Or does this first challenge need to be *absolute*?

[kjbrown92]

If you switch to gluten free oats, there's no difference in taste... it's only the packaging. You don't have any barley? spelt? It seems like it's do-able. But if it is gluten, some people are sensitive to oats anyway (gluten free or not). My DS and DD2 just got gluten-free oats after not having them for 3 years. I still can't have them. There is Creamy Buckwheat Cereal and Cream of Rice for alternative hot cereals.

[SweetSilver]

Thanks.  She's been without wheat for 3 days now and she figured it out when she asked for cinnamon toast.  Honestly, I'm not sure what to expect in the next 2 or 3 weeks!  I received some encouraging advice from a gal with a gluten allergy and she told me that she saw improvement in a couple of weeks just by eliminating wheat.  Now she is gluten-free.  We talked about how hard it is to talk to a 4.5yo about these things, so she suggested if I see a big improvement I could just stick with "no wheat" until she can verbalize what's happening inside.  I saw this in my oldest, 6.5, who has many allergies, several severe.

     But I don't think going gluten-free would be too hard, except finding a source of *organic* gluten-free oats.  DD1 and I can't eat corn or rice but this doesn't mean dd2 can't.  Still, we'll see what improvements this first elimination brings.  I looked at her tongue--still those concentric circles which had been her version of geographic tongue for the last year.  (Honestly, I wonder if this version is still geographic tongue and not something else.)  No tummy complaints, so we'll see. Her mood seems improved, but that could be anything.

     And how does one tell the difference between a gluten allergy and a sensitivity?

[kjbrown92]

The difference would be testing by an allergist. If it's positive, it's an allergy. If it's negative, it's an intolerance. At least that's how I've ruled out allergies.

I thought Bob's Red Mill gluten-free oats were organic. We're out or I'd go look at the packaging. But remember that a lot of people who are sensitive to gluten are also sensitive to oats just because of the similarity of the proteins.

[SweetSilver]

Originally Posted by kjbrown92 

The difference would be testing by an allergist. If it's positive, it's an allergy. If it's negative, it's an intolerance. At least that's how I've ruled out allergies.

At what point would you test?  We have not had a celiac blood test, and given false negatives I hesitate to make her go through that unless I'm pretty certain this is the issue.  And she definitely doesn't have symptoms clear enough to warrant a biopsy.  

     This could also be another sensitivity because all her food skin tests were perfectly negative.  This could all be a wild goose chase, I think sometimes.  Her symptoms are vague.  I'm going on a theory.  Our family has a history of food sensitivities and allergies.  She has definite environmental allergies.  Her dad has digestive rumblings, though I hesitate to make him test himself because he won't so I don't even mention it.

*Sigh!*  We'll see, I guess.  We'll see.  Does anyone roll their own oats?  We grind rolled oats in our blender for flour.  I would be seriously bummed if she couldn't do oats.  I can do wheat, nothing else.  My oldest can do oats, nothing else.  What am I going to do if dd2 can't do either and needs rice flour or whatever?  Our food situation would go from crazy to beyond absurd!  Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  

     Sorry for rambling.  Sometimes I don't feel like I can take anymore of this food craziness.  my husband once requested I make him a gardenburger (no one else can eat these) in addition to dd1's dinner, my dinner, dd2's picky 4yo dinner.  I yelled at him "Make your own damn gardenburger!"  we laughed about it after but it was really so frustrating

[scsigrl]

Actually, the Celiac test doesn't have a high false + rate. My DS had no real S&S of it but was +.  The "gold standard" is biopsy but the blood work is pretty spot on.

[SweetSilver]

Originally Posted by scsigrl 

Actually, the Celiac test doesn't have a high false + rate. My DS had no real S&S of it but was +.  The "gold standard" is biopsy but the blood work is pretty spot on.

I meant false negative.  I was told that a negative blood test was not necessarily definitive, though a positive one would be.  Is this your experience?

[scsigrl]

Well...the thing is that it is believed that Celiac is "turned on" by an event.  So when you may test - today, you can get a stomach virus/stress event or other "thing" that activates it and test + in a week.  The genetic test can rule OUT Celiac but it doesn't mean there couldn't be an intolerance.

Clear as mud!  lol