After that, any undigested gluten that remains in your body is excreted along with other waste products.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you will feel 100% better once that happens, though.
Fatigue and bloating because of gluten intolerance, for example, can take days to weeks to resolve.
Verywell / Brianna Gilmartin
It also offers some suggestions on how to spot hidden gluten in your food.
Who Should Avoid Gluten?
Anyone diagnosed with celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or a wheat allergy should avoid gluten.
The protein is found in wheat, rye, barley, and triticale (a wheat/rye hybrid).
Adopting a gluten-free diet reduces gluten antibodies, the markers the blood test for celiac disease looks for.
With that, you may get a false-negative result.
What Are the Symptoms of a Gluten Reaction?
You may experience a number of different symptoms after you eat gluten, depending on your underlying condition.
Gluten Intolerance
Gluten intolerance can cause digestive symptoms as well as whole-body symptoms.
However, these symptoms tend to be much more severe.
They include:
How Long Until Symptoms Improve?
Many people reportdigestive symptom improvementwithin a few days of dropping gluten.
Fatigue andbrain fogoften start getting better in the first week or two.
This is a gradual process, though.
Why Am I So Hungry?
It’s common to feel constantly hungry during your first several weeks without gluten.
You may want to eat all the time.
Your body hasn’t been able to absorb food properly for a while.
So once it can, it’ll take a stab at make up for the deficit.
Your ravenous appetite should eventually calm down.
Other symptoms, such as the itchy rashdermatitis herpetiformis, may take much longer to clear up.
How to Spot Hidden Gluten
It’s easy to make mistakes when first going gluten-free.
Gluten is in many foods, some that you may not expect.
So you have to get good at reading labels.
You’ll need to guard against gluten cross-contamination at all times.
That may be difficult at first.
But it should be second nature before long.
Gluten is in many more foods.
It is necessary to read food labels for all foods until you feel comfortable choosing gluten-free products.
Summary
Your celiac symptoms will likely resolve at different rates when you go gluten-free.
Digestive symptoms usually get better first.
Next are fatigue and thinking problems.
A rash and other symptoms may last much longer.
Symptoms of gluten exposure vary depending on the underlying cause.
You may experience a number of different symptoms from gastrointestinal problems to whole-body symptoms.
These can go by many names.
Frequently Asked Questions
Symptoms may start to improve in days or weeks after starting a gluten-free diet.
Until then, your healthcare provider may prescribe medicine to help with the rash.
Yes, side effects are possible.
Try eating other high-fiber foods, including fruits and vegetables, brown rice, and beans.
Johns Hopkins Medicine.Celiac disease.
Celiac Disease Foundation.Sources of gluten.
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.Treatment for celiac disease.
Harvard Medical School, Harvard Health Publishing.Going gluten-free just because?
Here’s what you should probably know.
Columbia University Medical Center, Celiac Disease Center.Diet.
