When you have wheat allergy, your immune system sees it as a dangerous foreign substance and takes action, fighting back with antibodies known as Immunoglobulin E, or IgE. This results in histamine and other chemicals being released into your bloodstream, an action that begins the allergic reaction, with symptoms that range from mild to life-threatening, from runny noses to drops in blood pressure and breathing difficulties.

There have been no recent studies on the prevalence of wheat allergy in North America because it is not as common as those to peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, shellfish and fish. But that does not mean it is less dangerous.

If you are diagnosed with a wheat allergy, you must eliminate wheat from your diet, period. And while wheat allergies occur most often in children, the good news is that many of them will outgrow it by the time they reach adulthood.

What are the symptoms?

Wheat allergy’s symptoms are many and varied. You could have a bloated stomach and diarrhea, or you could suffer from joint pain, nausea, skin rashes and that darned runny nose. You could have psoriasis, sneezing, watery and itchy eyes, mood swings, or your throat could feel swollen.

You may be tired or have a cough, heart palpitations, eczema and chest palpitations. You may suffer from just one of these symptoms, a few or all of the above. What you must do is to consult a doctor because some of these same symptoms could indicate other medical conditions, including celiac disease, an autoimmune condition in which the body cannot tolerate gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. But where you may outgrow your wheat allergy, celiac disease is permanent. Once you have it, it’s there for life and right now, the only cure is to eliminate all gluten from your diet. With a wheat allergy, your immune system reacts specifically to the wheat protein and you may eat products that contain the two other grains with no ill effect.

Next: Eliminating Wheat from Your Diet

How did you find out about your condition?
I was diagnosed with high blood pressure four years ago, and I was put on the DASH diet. There is a lot of bread in that diet, and it was just making me crazy because I was getting incredibly itchy. I was seeing a nutritionist, and when she realized I was really itchy from this diet, we stopped dairy for three weeks, and nothing happened. Then we stopped wheat for three weeks.

How did you feel?
I felt so good. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t have the itchy inner ears or the redness in my face that I had almost all the time. I always looked like I was about to explode. [Laughs] I also think it has changed my mood. I feel I’m on much more of an even keel. There are times when I see a baguette and I just want to take a big, big chewy bite – because none of the substitutes have ever had the same consistency or satisfaction. But life is just as good without it, really.

So is yours an allergy or a sensitivity?
The nutritionist and my doctor told me that it wasn’t full blown celiac disease, but I’ve never had the tests.

What’s the worst wheat-related experience you’ve ever had?
I was at one of the Peter Gzowski golf tournaments for literacy, and they had these little asparagus roll-ups. You could pop 12 of them and not think you were eating anything at all, which is essentially what I did. About three hours later, my whole face was bright, bright red, and I looked at my stomach and there were welts on it. At the time, I was undergoing some stress at work, so I just assumed that it had finally caught up with me. I also thought I might have walked into some poison ivy on the golf course.

You have to travel all the time for work. How do you do that?
I’ve started carrying little packets of oatmeal with me, because breakfast is a really hard one. My shift almost always starts early, and places aren’t open where you might get a boiled egg or half a grapefruit. Rice cakes are another thing that I take with me, too, or I’ll try to take some cheese and a tomato and pretend it’s a pizza. [Laughs] But it is such a wheaty world.

You’re often heading to more remote areas. Does that ever pose a problem?

For the rest of this interview, see the Fall 2006 issue of Allergic Living magazine.
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