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

Dear friends,
I have been having some reactions lately and just cannot figure out what
the problem was.  I am celiac, lactose intolerant  and also allergic to
corn and soy.

A week ago my girlfriend made a lovely delicious pie using a GF pie crust.
GF flour mix was rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, also a little
wine vinegar, margarine. Five minutes after eating one piece I was feeling
sick.  Headache, burning sensation on ears, neck, forehead, swelling and
reddening of fingers/hands/knuckles, pain in stomach followed later by bad
gas.  These are the same symptoms I get from gluten/corn flour/corn starch
ingestion.  I thought that maybe the problem was the rice flour as it
didn't say GF and I know the manufacturer also sells corn and other flours,
so maybe there was some contamination.

A few days ago I made some GF cookies using only certified GF brown rice
flour and the same thing happened.  At that point I thought that maybe the
problem was caused by the margarine since it was the same margarine used in
the pie crust.  Only ingredients listed are: refined vegetable oil.  Pretty
vague, huh? Chances of corn oil being in the margarine are small since corn
oil and corn in general is not a common crop in Poland. Maybe it has soy in
it.

Yesterday I made some GF bread using a mix with the following ingredients:

potato starch
rice flour
glucose
guar gum
dried yeast
salt

These are safe ingredients for me, except that salt can give me some
swelling if I overdo it.  Rice has never been a problem (thank God) and
neither has potato starch.  Nonetheless, a few minutes after eating one
slice of the bread I was sick with the above symptoms.

The company makes GF products which have been checked by a national
organization that has given it a seal of approval. I believe they make only
GF products so it's very unlikely that any contamination could have
occured.

Maybe the problem is the potato starch, or potatos in general.  I noticed a
similar, less severe problem from eating potato chips (ingred:salt, potato,
oil) and assumed that the salt was causing the  problem.

I have to say that at this  point I don't know what the heck is going on
and  doubt that I'll ever be able to eat anything even approximating bread
again.  The swelling in the hands/knuckles I get from these and reactions
to other foods really worries me since my hands never really return to
normal.  This problem has been getting worse for months and one doctor
thinks I may have arthritis.

It seems to me that when I get a bad reaction to something my stomach is
messed up for days afterward and that EVERYTHING I eat irritates my
stomach/gastro tract.

I have to confess that in each of the above cases I kept eating the food
even though it was obviously making me sick.  Why?  Because I was so angry
and disappointed that after spending time to make some great-tasting treat
that I was now feeling sick, so I just thought "The hell with it, it tastes
good and I don't care." I realize that this is not a healthy attitude.
Normally I work very hard to keep to a GF diet that is also free of the
other things I seem to be allergic to.

At this point I am beginning to seriously question whether celiac is the
whole problem or even the real problem at all, considering my allergic
reactions to so many things, even ones which were okay the week before.  In
general my health is no better or at best a marginal improvement over what
it was 6 months ago.  I am fed up and disgusted with the whole situation
and very tired of spending countless hours of my time being sick, visiting
doctors ( and paying for them), holding long conversations with waiters
because I really enjoy restaurants even if all I do is order a salad
without dressing, buying special foods, and preparing special recipes for
goodies that only end up making me ill anyway.

Of course I'm going back to see another gastrologist and probably an
allergist as well, but for the time being I've gone back to a bland mostly
spice-free diet of rice, fresh veggies and fruits, maybe some fish/chicken.

Any comments or words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

Not having a very happy week,
Dan Winters
Warsaw, Poland