talkhealth forums

Hey, so I’ve recently discovered that I’m allergic to oats after a few recents months I started developing symptoms... Oats were always a huge staple & a favourite for me. I had no idea allergies could be developed later in life - Maybe 3 months ago after I’d consume oats my skin would go all blotchy, itchy and I’d get a runny nose after eating oats. I never thought anything of it until my skin would get progressively blotchier, more itchy etc after eating (though theyd fade maybe after an hour or so).... so i started experimenting and eliminating foods to see exactly what was causing it, because I use to eat things like chia and flaxseed with my morning porridge, sometimes peanutbutter etc. Then the symptoms grew worse, I suspected I had developed a mild oat allergy but continued to eat them because porridge was just my favourite morning staple... then started getting mild stomach pains until one day after a big bowl of porridge, I literally felt like I was experiencing a mild heart attack & had shooting pains in my stomach. So been clean off the oats since then and had absolutely zero problems.
Since researching oat allergies, found out I’m probably sensitive to a protein called “avenin” which is apparently quite similar to proteins found in gluten (or something) - but I dont experience any troubling symptoms when I eat bread or pasta (granted I dont eat them often) - but I was wondeeing if its best to avoid gluten if I have an oat allergy in case a similar thing happens where I start developing symptoms after a longer period of time? I guess you generally cant tell if something’s attacking your immune system until your body starts warning you....

Hi justkel_

Thank you for your post we are sure it will be helpful to our members. It is good that you saw the warning signs for what they were and listened to your body.

Kind regards
talkhealth

Whether you should avoid gluten depends on whether you have an oat allergy or a gluten sensitivity