Newly gluten-free W/ Some ?s

[kduggan]

hey all, i'm 19 and i've been trying to follow a gluten-free diet for about a month to a month and 1/2 now. I think I was only diagnosed with a gluten intolerance (which my doctor kept calling sprue...i think he's semi-crazy but ya kno) i've been label reading fairly religiously but i've only really been checking for the word wheat in the labels...what else do i need to avoid? also, i've read some things that say oats are fine, and others that say oats are not...which is it?

my sypmptoms also weren't really typical celiac ones either...mostly i've just had really bad "heartburn" for about 6-8 months, i've taken zantac, and prilosec, and finally got switched to nexium, which has helped alot, but after my endoscopy my doctor biopsyed soemthin and said i could be gluten intolerant/have sprue...i had a blood test done but that came back negative. since i continued to have heartburn, he recomended trying a gluten-free diet. So, in my attempt to prove him wrong i followed it strictly...and i unfortunatly i've fortunately been feeling better...but i still have some heartburn occasionally despite my diet...still taking nexium daily as well

sorry to ramble on, but i wanted to see if anyone had any similar symptoms/any thoughts on the matter...also what ingredients to avoid in my label reading would be much appreciated...thanks!!

[AndreaB]

Welcome kduggan!

You will find lots of info on this site. If you go to the home page of celiac.com and scroll down they have a list of safe and forbidden ingredients.Safe and Forbidden food lists

Oats can be cross contaminated and are therefore not tolerated by most people with celiac or gluten intolerance. Both celiac and gluten intolerance mean gluten free for life. Have you asked your doctor about allergy testing? There are many things you could do including an elimination diet which would include eliminating a common allergen for 2-4 weeks and noting how you feel and then bringing back into the diet and noting how you feel. Some of the more common ones on the forum aside from gluten are dairy and soy but you'd also want to check eggs and nuts. Allergy testing would give you a possible heads up, that's what I did. After my allergy testing I also had my family tested through Open Original Shared Link for gluten intolerance as well as the other tests they run. It is expensive and usually not covered by insurance.

Others will jump on and give you more ideas.

[Daxin]

Celiac disease can be called Celiac/Non-Tropical Sprue. Some people consider Gluten intolerance to be the same thing as celiac.

I have been gluten free slightly longer than you have, but can tell you it gets easier every day, and if you are already feeling better, than I don't know how it's unfortunate. If your doctor was right, then you will feel better and better every day. HOw can that be a bad thing?

All I can tell you is to be VERY careful what you are buying. I have dicovered it's not AS restrictive as I thought, and with new labelling laws, it is not to tricky to find wheat and I have found I can pick out the gluten containing ingredients with little trouble now.

Welcome to the boards. I hope you can find all the answers you need.

[rogue]

When I was 18 my very first symptom was heartburn. And then it just got worse from there. I had debiliating flu-like symptoms for years. Consider yourself lucky- my first doctor thought I had an ulcer and sent me off to a Gastroenterologist who performed an endoscopy and only found irritation. I had zero villous atrohpy (unlike yourself) and my blood test for Celiac came back negative. It fact, it came back negative for 8 years until I moved to Croatia and ate a gluten-rich diet for three months straight. I was only just diagnosed a little over a year ago when I was 26. After 8 years of being ill I was finally told to go gluten-free.

So to save yourself the trouble of years of being ill, follow your doctor's advice to a T for several months and see how you feel. I would also consider that you might have Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) in combination with your Celiac. I have the same thing and take Prevacid, which isn't over the counter so you'll have to ask your doctor about it if the heartburn doesn't totally go away on the gluten free diet.

It's not as bad as you think. The diet is a pain in the butt sometimes, but it keeps me slender and healthy. I now look at all the garbage that my friends eat and sometimes think I'm going to live to be so much older than them!