From what I know, your liver develops special enzymes to deal with chemicals in gluten, dairy, candy, cigarettes, or any toxin in the environment. With constant exposure, these enzymes do their job to lessen the effect of toxification on your system, which partly manifests in less extreme allergy symptoms. If you give one of these up for a long period of time, the special enzymes are no longer required. Then, when you relapse, the effects will feel stronger because the enzymes aren't present to break down the toxin. This is mainly from the work of Theron Randolph.

It explains a lot, such as why cigarette smokers who quit and then relapse describe the first cigarette of the relapse to taste disgusting. I've heard the same with people who go back to dairy after a long layoff. The extent of the effect probably has to due with your overall gluten or dairy intolerance. I'm going on a full month completely gluten and processed sugar free, so I'll let you know how I feel if I relapse :)

If you notice feeling a lot better in the first week without gluten, chances are higher that you will really notice when you eat it again.

That said, some people do not react at all, and some only react after about 3 days. Some people react the same way every time and others notice that the symptoms change. Reactions are not always digestive. Rashes, mood swings, etc.

Eating gluten along with alcohol at the same meal will probably make it worse.

The trend line seems to be that the longer you are "eating clean", the more sensitive you become, particularly if you are sensitive to start with. So a "cheat" this holiday season may not be a huge problem, but by 2011, it could be a whole new ball game. On the other hand, the bounce back time is shorter too, generally.

Typically when I do gluten I find I feel good at first, but 12 hours later things start getting unpleasant. At that point my stomach typically feels like total crap. It's definitely more noticeable because before paleo I thought that was normal...

I don't know if this counts, but in my experience the sensitivity increased, both for grains and milk. I was eating these in abundance for whole my life, with apparant good health.

Since going paleo, I can definitely say that I feal when eating grains (day after: somewhat swollen face and eyes in morning) or drinking milk (bloating).

Of course, self experimentation is prone to placebo/nocebo responses and wishfull interpretations.

Something I heard from celiac folks a while back that seems to have been borne out by my experience over the last year and a half of eating GF: After 2 weeks off gluten it may take a whole piece of toast to set off a "glutening" reaction, after 2 months a few bites, after a year even a crumb will cause trouble.

I don't know how or whether that principle would apply to non-celiacs, but I have heard similar things about dairy... I have heard knowledgeable people say that avoiding dairy altogether for an extended time can result in something that looks very much like lactose intolerance when dairy is reintroduced.

Hi,

I think the OP may be right.

I've been paleo for 3 months. I went cold turkey and cut out all bread, rice pasta.

Anyway I had 2 beers yesterday and they played havock on my stomach. Without being too graphic, lets just say it all came out again quite quickly.

I was wondering if the fact that I had changed my diet has made me less tolerant. The OP might confirm this.

I suffered from stomach pain/IBS/GERD for years before going Paleo and healing my gut. About 3 months ago, I had a beer after being gluten free for quite some time. I barely slept that evening as my stomach was cramped and uncomfortable all night. To be honest I was shocked as I used to cheat with the occasional beer once every couple of weeks.

While my body appears to have become much more sensitive to gluten, I have also become 100% free of all stomach irregularities and related medications!

I don't have an answer but a question to add to this--how long does it take to feel the benefits of omitting grain and/or dairy if it IS causing some type of harmful reaction in the body? Not necessarily a true allergic reaction, but perhaps contributing to other illnesses (auto-immune in nature).

"Do regular doses of grains have a homeopathic effect?" No, grains have a very real effect! Unlike any imaginary homeopathic effect. I've been grain free for almost a year and I have no intention of eating them again just to see. I guess you'll have to do the experiment yourself tho I'd suggest not.