By time I got home, I realized my scalp was slowly starting to itch more than it had earlier in the day. Next thing I knew, my back was covered in pin prickling pain. I started running around the room like Baloo trying to find a jungle tree.
My husband kept asking, "Do you think you got glutened at dinner?" in between trying to scratch my back as I ran around the room crazy. "No! No, I don't think so. I mean, I hope not! They told me they used fresh avocados. I guess it's possible."
I reached up to scratch my head and realized I had little itchy bumps that were starting to bleed on my scalp...and then a horrible realization of how I could have gotten glutened came to me.
After frantically digging through the trash and reading a miniscule ingredient list, there it was. "Wheat Amino Acids".
Are you ready to hear what glutened me?
MY REVLON HAIR COLOR!
I had colored my hair that afternoon with the same $4 box of color I have always used... but this time my skin went into a Celiac spiral.
Many doctors will tell you that you can't get 'glutened' through your skin. I beg to differ.
When I was first diagnosed, I had been living with a perpetual rash on my chest and backne (you know, acne on your back) that showering made worse. Most of my health issues started improving immediately when I began eating gluten free. But the small red bumps on my chest and back persisted.
I asked my doc about gluten and skin products. He told me my best resource for getting an answer would be a support group.
Reading through several CD posts, I kept seeing people going gfree with their soap, makeup, and basically everything their body came in contact with.
It was a silly, 'doh' moment when I stood in the shower straining to read the tiny, shiny ingredient list on my shampoo to get to the 'wheat' ingredient only to turn it over and see this:
Guess what? As soon as I switched to gluten free shampoo and soap, my rash and backne cleared up. Poof! Like that.
So, at least for me, gluten on the skin definitely causes a reaction.
Why the new reaction to hair color?
This is the hair product I have always used. I have never had a problem with it before. I have noticed that the 'cleaner' I get, the more sever my reaction to getting accidently glutened. I say accidently because I can't ever see myself purposefully ingesting gluten...again. (I still can't write the post about that fish filet sandwich.) Also, I spent so many years struggling with a general and all over malaise that I couldn't pin point my discomfort. I just ached. I just itched. I just felt tired. Pretty much all the things I felt again after using the hair color.
Why didn't I read the box before I used it? No excuse here: I'm obviously still in denial about the insidious permeation of gluten into almost every aspect of main stream commercial America.
I'm going to have to question and examine everything that goes into or onto my body. But really, shouldn't we all?
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