Greetings from a newly DXed

[AK Mike]

Hello,  I looked for an introduction thread. Anyway,  here I am. Celiac has been suspect for a while but it's official now. I'm blessed to have a wonderful coworker that has helped understand a few things and have spent many hours reading. So much so that that my doctor has called me a student of celiac. .. I've really enjoyed reading on this site as well as the multitudes of info on other sites. Thank you for all of your dedication. 

Cheers! Mike

[cyclinglady]

Welcome, Mike!  ?

[anyana]

Welcome! It's a great community.

If there are any near you, I suggest also looking for a local support group!

[AK Mike]

Thank you for the welcomes. What a learning process. I find this whole celiac thing quite intriguing. My family is great and we'll be getting our son tested in a couple weeks.

I say this with a straight face and kind of tongue in cheek. We're in Alaska, we don't do support groups; you either make it or you die!

But yes, having people to learn from and to share with is priceless. I have a co-worker and a couple local families that know celiac too well unfortunately.

Cheers and God Bless. m

[GFinDC]

Welcome Mike!     I hope you make it and don't become bear chow!

Hopefully you will find the Newbie 101 thread sticky.  It has some helpful tips for getting started.

It's a good idea to eat really simple foods when starting out gluten-free.  The less processed food we eat, the less chance there is of getting cross-contamination and hidden gluten in our diet.  So meats, fruits, veggies, nuts are a good choice.  Or anything you make by combing them.  Spices are usually ok, but not always.  Mckormick spices are good about labeling their ingredients for gluten.  That doesn't mean they are gluten-free, but if you read the ingredient list you can find the gluten listed.   Wheat, rye, and barley are bad for us.  Oats bother some of us also, and are often cross-contaminated with gluten.

It can take while to heal our insides after going gluten-free.  And even a tiny amount of gluten getting in our innards can start the immune reaction up again.  So it is good to think about not using things like shared toasters, peanut butter, etc where gluten eaters are spreading their nasty crumbs.

Basically anything that you eat or drink needs to be checked for gluten.  After a while you get used to these things but it can be challenging at first.

I suggest you invest in some peppermint tea and a big bottle of aspirin.  Peppermint tea helps relax the stomach muscles and makes it easier to burp gas out.  Some Pepto Bismol is good for gut pain.   Helps a little and may reduce damage a bit.  Maybe.

If you like to take your lunch to work that's good.  If not, it would be a good reason to start liking to take your lunch to work.  It's not real safe to trust other people's cooking usually if they aren't trained in safe food prep for celiacs.

 

[AK Mike]

5 hours ago, GFinDC said:

Welcome Mike!     I hope you make it and don't become bear chow!

Hopefully you will find the Newbie 101 thread sticky.  It has some helpful tips for getting started.

It's a good idea to eat really simple foods when starting out gluten-free.  The less processed food we eat, the less chance there is of getting cross-contamination and hidden gluten in our diet.  So meats, fruits, veggies, nuts are a good choice.  Or anything you make by combing them.  Spices are usually ok, but not always.  Mckormick spices are good about labeling their ingredients for gluten.  That doesn't mean they are gluten-free, but if you read the ingredient list you can find the gluten listed.   Wheat, rye, and barley are bad for us.  Oats bother some of us also, and are often cross-contaminated with gluten.

It can take while to heal our insides after going gluten-free.  And even a tiny amount of gluten getting in our innards can start the immune reaction up again.  So it is good to think about not using things like shared toasters, peanut butter, etc where gluten eaters are spreading their nasty crumbs.

Basically anything that you eat or drink needs to be checked for gluten.  After a while you get used to these things but it can be challenging at first.

I suggest you invest in some peppermint tea and a big bottle of aspirin.  Peppermint tea helps relax the stomach muscles and makes it easier to burp gas out.  Some Pepto Bismol is good for gut pain.   Helps a little and may reduce damage a bit.  Maybe.

If you like to take your lunch to work that's good.  If not, it would be a good reason to start liking to take your lunch to work.  It's not real safe to trust other people's cooking usually if they aren't trained in safe food prep for celiacs.

 

Thanks GFinDC. What's the aspirin for? Yes on the mint tea, that's something I've drank a lot of for years. hmmm, maybe I was on to something before I knew it. Its been pretty easy to dump the house of foods and pass it along to others that could use it. We've made it a family affair and its going pretty good.

Here's my biggest question - anybody can chime in... Is there a particular food that helps to solidify the bowls during a healing process? TMI maybe, I'm not to the point that I need to be careful when I sneeze, but I would like to be less regular if you know what I mean.

Also, traveling and food choices is plain hard. I'm freaking hungry all the time anyway and it just gets worse. On top of that I like to run and exercise and am a hard gainer/high metabolism person.

Anyway back to work. Thanks all. m

[GFinDC]

Hi Mike,

The aspirin is for pain, although maybe you don't have that much.  It can come in handy sometimes after being glutened.  I suggest you don't drink the peppermint tea all the time, but kind of save it for when you need it.  Drink some other teas when you aren't sick, then the peppermint will have  a stronger effect when you need it.  Because your body isn't "used" to it.  Also since it  tends to relax smooth muscles, it isn't the best thing for diahrea.

I remember being hungry after first going gluten-free.  It seemed like my body wanted lots of food all of a sudden.  For the recovery of your digestive system, it's not so much what you eat as what you don't eat.   You might want to cut out dairy for a while if you haven't already.  Dairy can be hard to digest when your gut is damaged.  Something else that might help is taking some pro-biotics and cutting down on sugar.  Our guts contain millions of bacteria and if they get out of whack they can create lots of problems.  Gut damage leads to bacteria imbalances and that can cause symptoms.  Bacteria love sugar and carbs and that can cause them to multiply more than is good.

Meats, nuts, veggies and fruit are good,  For traveling it's good to bring your own food.   Or stay somewhere you can cook your own food.  If that doesn't work you can ask the cook to use a clean frying pan and utensils and hope for the best.  But it's a crap shoot then because most people don't have a clue what gluten is and how to avoid contamination of your food.

Some restaraunts have a gluten-free menu now and you can ask about that, or check the restaraunts before you travel.  Some people take a cooler of food with them.  Or fruit and nuts.