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

My question was about whether a reaction to seafood I had during
a time when I was also getting some gluten was due to the seafood,
gluten, or both and is that kind of fainting/headrush common.

I got a variety of responses... here are some excerpts (my original
post is included at the end of the message):

********************
My reactions to eating shrimp are the typical "anaphylactic"
reactions that doctors talk about (ie. a rapid onset 1-2 minutes, acute
allergic reaction). My reactions to eating gluten are intolerance reactions
(ie. a little slower to develop 10 minutes or so, and less acute).  My
understanding is that a few coeliacs have anaphylactic reactions to gluten
which are due to the rest of their body being "alergic" to gluten and not
just the gut-related intolerance.
[...]
The symptoms that you described (burning sensation, nausea, dizziness, and
the head-rush prickly kind of vision) are similar to those I get from
ingesting barley products like malt.  If you've eaten seafood since and not
had the same symptoms then maybe t\your reaction was due to gluten.  Another
possibility is that the seaffod was off and you were reacting to food
poisoning.
********************
Before gf, I'd get migrained and even faint
********************
Allergic reactions are additive, so if you were getting inadventant wheat
during that time period it could make you more sensitive to seafood.
********************
Just before I was diagnosed, I noticed that I was suddenly allergic to
seafood. Deep fried prawns especially made me terribly sick. So I gave up
shell fish for a while. Then after I found I had celiac, I knew it was from
the batter or the breading on seafood, not the seafood itself.
********************
I do know that people react differently and that many do react violently.  I
have been having difficulties with a 'throbbing' and head rush/weak black out
lately and am thinking to attribute it to allergies.....I posted a question
to the list a few months ago and this seemed to be what many thought it was,
among various other things (from heart tumors to recommending I get a cat
scan!).  Since I have stopped eating nuts/other moldy things I think it is a
mold allergy, and my mother has the same reaction when she eats mold.  YOur
reaction may have been either gluten/allergy who knows.....a combo is
certainly possible and may have weakend you so that your allergic reaction
was worse than it normally would be.  I know that since I have gone gluten
free my allergic reactions are minimal as my body has more reserve to fight
things off. I am still recovering from a gluten challenge that I wish I'd
never done and my head throbbing is getting better.....it is all about
balance in the system!  Good luck and stay away from those allergins!
********************
We are sensitive to iodine if I remember correctly, and shrimp has plenty
of it.........this may be the connection.  About 10 years ago I ate some
leftover shrimp chinese food.  About 10-12 hours later I lost part of my
vision so that looking at a face the upper right quadrant was missing.  At
first I thought I was having a stroke.....then I remembered migraine auras
and decided to wait it out.  After about an hour the visual effect changed
to a sort of spider web effect across the object I focused on.
********************
To my unmedical ears, it sounds like a severe allergic reaction,
possibly to the shrimp, in view of your family history.  Allergies can
develop at any time in life, as I know personally!

Check with a good allergist, and you might want to see whether you have
an allergy to iodine too, which is plentiful in seafood. Both seafood
and iodine allergies can be very serious, even fatal; a friend of mine
lost his father to an iodine reaction. Celiacs who have DH must avoid
iodine, too, from what I've read on this list.

So my advice is to avoid all seafood and iodine sources until/unless
your dr says it's OK. Some allergies can go away in time, but seafood
allergy generally does not.
********************
My son is 4 1/2.  He has had seafood twice.  Both times he vomited
until he was grey.  It seems to be his only allergy with celiac.
********************


Original posting:

>This line of conversation made me remember an experience a number
>of years ago when I was travelling along the east coast US.
>I was eating a lot of seafood and getting a decent amount of
>inadvertant wheat poisoning.  After a while of this
>there came a meal where I ate some shrimp
>and then felt something like that burning sensation many of
>you described followed by nausea, dizziness, and the head-rush
>prickly kind of vision.  Then I had a spell where I fell over
>and felt horrible for a while and after that it all cleared up.
>There's a history of seafood allergy in one side of my family
>so I attributed it to this but I can now and previously had been
>able to consume seafood without any problem.
>So I wonder if this was the gluten combining effects with a
>mild food allergy?  Is this level of a reaction common to us?

----------------------
Suzanne Rothrock Ford
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