Gail Zscheile knew there was something wrong with her, but she didn’t quite know what it was.

Zscheile, 57, of Joseph, was experiencing digestive problems, headaches, stuffiness, fatigue, nausea, insomnia and leg cramps. The symptoms just seemed to be getting worse and worse without any explanation.

“You just don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Zscheile said of her mysterious illness.

Fortunately for her, however, her friend Sam Summers suggested that she had a wheat allergy. After doing a little research over the Internet, she decided to stop eating wheat products and see what happened.

“In 24-hours there was never any question in my mind,” Zscheile said. It took her a little while to work the wheat products out of her system, but once she did, her symptoms disappeared. “The best way to diagnose it is just to get off it,” she said.

And so, Zscheile discovered herself to have a wheat allergy, a frequently overlooked and misdiagnosed malady, due to the many symptoms it can cause. A wheat allergy is an immune reaction to one of the proteins in wheat, such as gluten, that can cause a reaction ranging from mild to life threatening.

Some doctors make a distinction between wheat allergy and wheat intolerance, according to educator Deborah Manners, who publishes www.foodintol.com. A wheat allergy is the body’s immune response to wheat proteins, such as gluten, leeching through the intestine walls. The body then attacks it as if the wheat were a foreign invader. The allergic reaction can bring a sudden onset of asthma, hives, rashes, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea.

Wheat intolerance, on the other hand, tends to be a delayed reaction (two or three days later) of gastro-intestinal problems, stomach bloating and cramping, headache, memory loss, depression, mouth ulcers, eczema, psoriasis, food cravings, tiredness and chronic fatigue.

According to Manners, who specializes in teaching consumers about food intolerance, doctors theorize that the advance of civilization has outpaced evolution. Humans have only been growing wheat for some 10,000 years and the human digestive system has not had a chance to adapt in that amount of time. The gluten protein molecule within wheat, for example, is particularly complex and therefore jagged – it can literally tear holes in the lining of the stomach.

Manners wrote that wheat allergy affects 15 percent of the population, or one in seven people.

Zscheile is president of the National Foundation Quarterhorse Association based in Enterprise and is co-owner of the Jaz Ranch, near Joseph. She believes her symptoms sound more like an intolerance than an allergy, per se, but believes they’re closely related.

Zscheile, while obviously not a medical doctor, explained her theory of what causes wheat allergy. The overuse of antibiotics can lead to elevated levels of Candida (yeast), and this seems to make one more susceptible to wheat allergies, she said. Genetics, of course, also plays a role in wheat allergies, and Northern Europeans are apparently more susceptible, she said.

Had not Summers known someone previously with a wheat allergy and had he not mentioned it to her, she might never have felt better. “I don’t know how much longer it would have taken me to figure it out.”

Zscheile has been on the Elimination diet and has continued to educate herself as to all the different forms of wheat-byproducts that find their way into foods. “You can’t ever assume, unless it’s fresh whole foods, without reading the label.”

Nevertheless, the process of reading food labels and seeking out whole foods has helped her to improve her diet. “It really encourages you to eat healthier,” she said of her gluten-free diet.

While it can be difficult to eat out at restaurants, Zscheile says that, after awhile, a person gets used to not eating breaded food.

Now, she is no longer even tempted when her co-workers bring in a box of donuts and flaunt them in front of her.

Zscheile is thankful to have figured out what was wrong with her and to no longer suffer without knowing what the illness was. “It’s made such a difference in my life to understand it…It has changed my life totally.”