Introduction

[katecopsey]

Having found you, I thought I would introduce myself, before I pepper the board with comments!

I was diagnosed, the traditional way, as celiac in the 60's when not much was available in England. We moved to the states in the early 80's to find even less over here! I was very active in the Celiac Sprue Association in the early days, and mentored local people who were new to the diagnosis. Kids came along and as none of them had gluten problems I became otherwise occupied (having kids does that!).

The last child has Aspergers (there is another hard to diagnose problem - talk of horror stories), so that has taken alot of my energy the last few years too. Ironically he may also be gluten sensitive but until I do a blood test we will not know for sure. He has had so much blood work done for the learning/aspergers problems that I really didn't even think to add that onto it, and now I am reluctant to put him thru it all again just for a formal diagnosis. The only symptom he has is a bloated look sometimes, which I think may be associated with when he eats large amounts of hi gluten things. He is virtually gluten free anyway at home, so we are cutting out all gluten for a while to see what happens. It is interesting though that gluten and cassein free seem to be associated with aspergers/autism too. School starts next week so that will be the problem time - lack of control about what he eats.

After several years of growing herbs, I turned to writing about gardens, then apergers/learning problems and it occurred to me to add celiac problems to that mix. Hence I have been re-educating myself with new developments and statistics. I find it hard to believe that 1:200 have gluten problems as I have only met one other person who was celiac! Are we all closet celiacs?????

If anyone has horror stories about having a young child diagnosed or was daignosed during pregnance and what the symptoms there are, and would like to share them, I would be happy to consider them in articles.

As with aspergers, I have found the doctors extrememly supportive of getting the word out about these subtle but badly diagnosed problems.

I look forward to contributing where I can and reading everyone's posts.

Kate

www.katecopsey.com

[Ursa Major]

Hi Kate, and welcome to our board.

[oceangirl]

Hi Kate, and welcome to our board.

Hello, Kate,

Welcome to the board!

lisa

[Guest nini]

Hi Kate, welcome to the board, I too am writing about Celiac... I've been writing articles for my local health food co op for several years now, and am finally in the process of working on a book

[TinkerbellSwt]

Hello there Kate!

Welcome!

[ebrbetty]

welocome to the board

[schuyler]

Welcome Kate!