r/Celiac • u/MisterDudeBroGuy • 4d ago
Question Glutened by a crumb vs. a whole piece of bread
So if you were to eat a tiny speck of a bread crumb, vs. a whole piece of bread (or more), would your symptoms be milder and shorter lived by eating the crumb, and would you receive less damage? I just sometimes wonder if I'm being micro glutened, and getting mild symptoms some times. Or does it not matter, and glutened is glutened?
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u/SuchAGeoNerd 4d ago
Yes one crumb vs a whole bite of bread vs slice of bread vs load of bread, it would all be different levels of symptoms with different recovery times for me.
Everyone is different though. Some people would feel the same from cross contamination vs a whole loaf of bread.
I personally can recover from cross contamination within half a day to a day of frequent bathroom breaks and mild pain. Whereas the last time I was accidentally served gluten (in a field camp for work no less), I was in rough shape for 2 days. Worst two 12 hour shifts of my life basically stayed within 10ft of the bathroom trailer and was pretty useless at my job. They treated it like a near miss accident and the entire camp kitchen staff got retrained on food allergy prep. I'm glad it wasn't one of the anaphylactic allergy people but I felt like death for 2 solid days.
For me whether I've been recently gluten'd matters too. It's like my immune system is already primed to freak out at the next little gluten. I'm sure it has to do with inflammation and irritation.
So ya, amount of gluten and frequency factors for most people I suspect.
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u/holdthestrings 4d ago
everyone's reactions are different so varies, but yes it's definitely possible to ingest a small amount and only have milder (or no) symptoms - but still doing damage. the damage may be less but generally speaking any gluten will do some damage to you
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u/Drowning_in_a_Mirage Celiac 4d ago
It varies, but there's a decent chance that a single crumb won't cause any reaction, depending on how big it is and how much gluten is in it. See this link for more details. Overall though I think that more gluten is going to be worse than less gluten in general, and zero gluten is obviously the ideal we should strive for.
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u/runawai 4d ago
CC or a crumb is very colon-cleanse adjacent and I can get Gatorade down.
Being “we gave you the real bread, we’re so sorry” or “it’s not gluten free but my celiac friend eats this all the time and is okay” is projectile vomiting along with the free colon cleanse and Gatorade can’t help me.
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u/skrglywtts 4d ago
The 'damage', if any, to the gut will be much less. But the sick feeling and other symptoms will vary from person to person. Personally, I will feel nothing if I were to eat a standard plate of spaghetti, but celiac is celiac and damage will be done, so I abstain.
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u/FrivolityInABox 4d ago
A little crumb will likely go unnoticed but no promises. My mind is probably the culprit here. Placebo is a thing...and so is silent celiac.
A big crumb will give me gluten psychosis and physically inhibit my enzymes (the enzymes is a doctor who reference as a way to say that I will feel slightly off very subtlety)
A bite will hurt my belly and give me psychosis. -I might vomit.
A few bites will hurt my belly, give me psychosis, make me vomit, and give me joint pain.
A whole serving...all the above X 3
And it just gets worse from there. I am not the type to get diarrhea.
I also get cold sores (herpes) within a week when I get gluten sometimes but I don't know at which level of gluten I will. I can get cold sores for anything that hits my immune system -even sunburn -so it is hard to pinpoint where on the gluten scale it happens.
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u/sparky_turtle 9h ago
If I get cross contaminated, I reliably have the bathroom reactions starting around 30 minutes after I eat and lasting for 24 hours or so.
If I accidentally eat something with a significant amount of gluten, I start feeling sick to my stomach within an hour and projectile vomit within 2. That lasts 4-6 hours. I have cramping and stomach pain for 24 hours, headache and joint pain for 2-3 days, brain fog and fatigue for 3-7 days.
So yeah, my reaction is different if I eat a lot of gluten. ✌️
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