<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

I'm somewhat reassured -- I think i may have reacted to milligram amounts
of protein, not micrograms.  I thought the fructose was "very highly
refined" and so it would be very pure.  But i found one manufacturer of
fructose saying it was 99.5% pure, which means i ate about 0.1 gm of
non-fructose.  What would the non-fructose be?  i found a description of
a manufacturing process for it on the net, starting with maltodextrin they
put it in a soup of bacterial and fungal enzymes, and so on.  There are
many steps.  The part about barley enzymes came from something that's in
the celiac archives about barley enzymes *maybe* being used to make the
maltodextrin.  But there was never anything definite there about barley
enzymes being used.  So maltodextrin and fructose are probably gluten
free.

But it sure seems like refined products have all *sorts* of small amounts
of different things in them!  Different manufacturers could use different
processes, too.

So what i reacted to could have been corn protein, or maybe the bacterial
and fungal enzymes.  I'm still pretty sick and woozy, home sick.  My eyes
are a little red and for me that's been associated with IgE reactions so i
think i might have an IgE allergy to the protein.

Somebody sort of flamed me (!) for getting so upset about it -- that's
kind of amazing, because it *is* seriously scary to be allergic to
trace amounts, like micrograms of protein.  What happens if you get a
milligram, then?

People suggested that I get IgG4 testing -- i suppose that's a kind of
IgG allergy testing.  I've been rotating my food -- except for the things
like fructose and the Smart Balance margarine that i've been assuming are
pure enough not to need to rotate -- and maybe are not!  This tends to
expose reactions -- but maybe it's still possible to miss them.  I do have
IgE food allergies, and an allergist suggested i get IgE RAST testing.
Her panel was really limited -- maybe that makes sense for IgE reactions,
maybe not.

Why try corn starch to see if that might be the problem?  Partly, a lot
of medications have corn starch!  I'm taking one that was prescribed for
me.  If i have to avoid corn starch completely and there isn't a corn-
free alternative to the medication I have a difficult choice!  Avoiding
corn is much harder than avoiding gluten.

Some comments i got:
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I would never in a million years of rotation
dieting (which I tried diligently) have been able to figure out my food
allergy picture.  I have had the IGg4 Food Allergy Assay, which tests over
l00 substances with one blood draw.  You get a computer print-out of all of
your reactions to many, many foods.  It is extremely accurate, but does not
test for gluten, so beware of that.

I was almost dead from undetected (by me) food reactions.  It has been a
long, challenging road but I have it under control now.  It is down to
gluten, eggs and dairy that I cannot tolerate.  I can eat sheep's milk
cheese and other products, also goat's milk but not cow dairy.  I was highly
reactive to corn for a very long time and am still mildly reactive.

Coconut butter is a healthy cooking butter substitute.

If I were you, I would NOT test yourself with cornstarch.  I can eat popcorn
now, but still react to cornstarch in very minor amounts; there is a close
association between corn gluten and wheat gluten..........when I was healing
from the food allergies for so many years, I would just plain avoid a
substance completely for 3 months and then introduce a tiny amount back into
my system every 4 days.  I still do that if I eat too much of something and
need to stay away from it for a while........

Do not despair.  This can be gotten under control.  I certainly understand
the panic, but it sounds to me like you are all out of balance intestinally
and this can be corrected:  probiotics of a high quality, l-glutamine,
testing by an alternative MD to see if you have bad bacterial infections
intestinally, Candex for yeast control, low-carb diet ...........this is not
medical advice, just sharing what worked for me.  And oh yes, the correct
(hard to find) testing for low thyroid autoimmune disorder..........

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Hidden corn which I've reacted to:
 - citric acid
 - "food starch"

A couple of months before that I had to drop:
 - canola oil
which apparently has a compound which reacts w/ the gut in a very similar
way to gluten in CD.

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this is not as unusual as you seem to think. (to react to protein residues
in sugar)


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