lovesaceliac

I'm about to loose it.  We keep a gluten free home to protect my very sensitive celiac husband.  We've had a house guest for the last week (who by cooincidence just found out he was celiac and is now learning the ropes - so far he is asymptomatic, so he hasn't dealt w/cc and some of the other issues we do on a regular basis.)  The guest was one of several guests and instructors we were hosting this weekend for a cultural arts festival sponsored by our small business.  Needless to say it was a crazy weekend that required some eating out, very little sleeping, and ended last night with our house guest winding up in the hospital for an emergency appendix removal and my driving other guests three hours round trip to the airport for return flights in the wee hours of the morning.  My husband confessed to me on Friday night that he had been "glutened" and was doing a great job of putting on a good face all day Saturday.  I'm crazy exhausted myself, but trying to keep my two small children quiet so my husband can sleep.  As soon as I got back from the airport this morning the first thing I did was make my starving husband a sandwhich and chips (we were too busy all evening and night for him to ever eat!)  He's gone to bed and I recently looked at the chip bag again to find that they were Frito Lay Mesquite BBQ chips - which I know are NOT gluten free!  I don't know who bought the chips and brought them in to my house and when I put them on his plate I didn't even look at the bag in my dazed exhaustion.  We buy gluten-free bbq chips all the time and I just assumed they were ours.  So now in addition to getting glutened (probably cc at a restaurant) I totally glutened him myself!  I could cry.  Now I know he's in for hell the next two days and misery for two more.  I hate this.  Is there any hope that the FDA will eventually require all packages to be clearly labeled?  I know what to look for, but so many of our friends and family don't.  I also so despirately wish there was something to do to alleviate the symptoms or make them more bearable when this does happen.

Just needed to vent.

Ok, so we're doing great gluten free at home - totally clean. But every time we travel my gluten-free husband ends up with a reaction due to cc at some restaurant (in spite of my best efforts to research in advance and talk to wait staff.) Now that our small business is doing well enough that we can realistically take a month off each summer to travel, we had been planning on doing trips as a family to a variety of locations. I just don't know if we can do it. We wanted to go to Brazil next summer - but how in the world are we going to manage his diet while abroad? What are the labeling rules in other countries? How can I learn? What are your tips/techniques for managing gluten-free on the road?

We're just over two years into this and unfortunately, still deal with gluten reactions on occasion.  This is always due to CC.  Our house is gluten-free and my celiac husband never intentionally eats anything with gluten...but CC at a restaurant or family member's house will knock him flat for three days.  There seems to be a regular progression through symptoms beginning with day 1: feeling dizzy while eating the offending food followed by digestive upset day 2: extreme fatigue and joint pain to the point he can't get out of bed to day 3: depression, anxiety, and intense irritability.  Usually on day four he can begin being functional again.

So I have a couple of questions:

Usually we can tell when he's been "glutened" and then we both get that sick to our stomach feeling because we know we're "in for it" the next three days.  Is there anything to do immediately when this happens to make the reactions less severe?  Similar to a person with an allergy taking benedryl.

And, all the discussion of "healing" on these forums...is the fact that he has been having this kind of reaction on average once per month preventing him from healing?  After the most recent episode, I announced that we will no longer eat at restaurants ever and we haven't had a problem again yet.  If we can keep his diet truely clean - will he feel generally better?  (The change in his health when he cut gluten was amazing and wonderful, but he still has some unresolved issues.)

Please share your experience.