Clueless...

[lPa1nl]

Well first off, Hi to everyone on the forum, I am new here. I am posting here mainly out of pure hope that I might be able to gain some knowledge. My girlfriend of 4 years and I are planning on moving in together in my house. She was found to have this disease about 16 months ago. Along with her trying to be gluten-free she also has severe problems with sugar and corn products. So lets just say it makes it interesting when we try and go out to eat and or cook something at home. I have become pretty good at reading ingredient labels and scouring the internet for Girlfriend friendly recipes that I can cook for her.

I must say she does post on this forum (Hi Honey!), and that the last 8-12 months she has buckled down and stuck to these new restrictions and is doing great. I try my best to support her in every way I can but I guess its just hard for me to grasp this disease, mainly because I am only allergic to penicillin and have never had any serious health issues like this.

We have agreed that it would be in our best interests to have a gluten-free house. So given the fact that we are going to move into a house together and going to try and have kids. Is there anything you people might think I can do to make it easier on her to continue the progress she is making?

[KaitiUSA]

That is very supportive of you. The best thing to do is keep the house gluten free to ensure she will not get sick. Are you going to follow the diet as well? If not you should mouthwash or something after eating so when you kiss her you do not contaminate her. The best thing you can do is continue to be supportive and encourage her with the progress she is making and help when you can. Coming here you can learn so much info of good gluten free products if you wanted to cook for her and other things...if you have any questions just ask.

[lPa1nl]

Yea, I also plan to follow the diet with her. It will make it allot easier if I follow along rather than bring in gluten-free products into the home and possibly contaminate her. I am thinking that especially if we have kids and they to need to be gluten-free. I have made stuffing for her at thanksgiving out of millet bread, so its possible will just take a little bit more effort on my part to help her out.

[Guest Leidenschaft]

A supportive spouse makes such a huge difference!! Pat yourself on the back for your efforts so far, and definitely keep checking this site for support and info!

My hubby has been wonderfully supportive through my diagnosis, the grieving, and the change of lifestyle! He even makes sure the wine rack is always topped up (and he makes the wine too!), since I can't share a cold beer with him anymore!

However, he does not live gluten-free, and that's completely fine too! We have our kitchen cupboards organized (and CLEARLY marked!) as Safe, gluten-free Products ONLY (mainly for inventory purposes, I don't have to hunt for my specialized items), and NOT Safe. There is only one little NOT Safe cupboard, and it's buffered by canned goods so there isn't any cross contamination from his Not Safe cupboard. We also have the Gluten Zone where he has his bread and toaster. I take responsibility to ensure that IF I am in his zone, I am extra careful, although he does clean up after himself quite well! The rest of the kitchen is mine to assume gluten-free... however I do keep a vigilant eye on things, especially the shared microwave.

I can honestly say that in 16 months of gluten-free living, I can not blame any gluten incidents on carelessness.

Being supportive and understanding when the celiac disease patient DOES get "glutenated" is also very important. He/She may feel like crap (no pun!) for days, or may just be mildly irritable and not even associate it with gluten.

It's a tough job being the SO of the celiac disease patient, sometimes it can be very frustrating, the extra time everything takes, dealing with the ignorance of others, and the occasional pity parties we are prone to...

Your "honey" can count herself among the lucky, and should give you a great big HUG!

Good luck!

[kabowman]

I am the only one in our house of 5 and while we have a "mostly" gluten-free house, we keep stuff like regular mac & cheese and frozen pizzas for the kids and hubby. All condiments are off limits to me so those are no problem with cross contamination. We also keep "normal" bread on hand (for the cost issue) which you have to watch. Anyway, I can go for weeks without a problem then all of a sudden, something that should be safe, makes me sick. Maybe the kids used one of the wooden utensils for the butter (soy and corn), maybe, the skillet didn't get clean enough, etc.

Clean out all cabinets as you move - throw away everything with corn and gluten. Keep a separate cabinet for your foods that may make her sick (my cabinet arrangement is the opposite since I am definitly the minority!!!) like cereal.

My husband cooks as much or more than I do and we don't make anything for the family that I cannot eat - if we do, like pizza night, mine goes first so the fumes from the yeast and cheese won't contaminate my pizza. All meals are gluten-free except for the rare sides or bisquits and gravy for one of the kids because, you just can't substitute some things!

Good luck and glad you guys seem to be on the right track...

[tarnalberry]

Keep going as you're doing! You sound like you're very supportive and understanding of the challenges she's facing. The more you cook at home, the more you'll get a good grasp on easy, tasty, fun things to cook at home that are safe. Particularly with corn issues, you may need to do a lot of cooking from scratch, but with practice, it'll be easy to cook from scratch at home without taking hours.

You may want to replace some of the items in your kitchen so she doesn't get any contamination. Definitely replace the toaster and collander, but also look into replacing pots that may be difficult to clean (like cast iron) and wooden spoons.