Am I Harming My Other Kids By Going Gluten Free?

[norahsmommy]

My youngest is gluten intolerant and I have made the house a pretty much gluten free zone because I kept contaminating her food. My two other girls have been sick almost constantly since I did this. They do get gluten at grandma's house and when we get occasional take out. My oldest is sick right now with either a weird bug or perhaps she has become gluten intolerant too? Tuesday night she wanted some chicken noodle soup for dinner and I had a can in the pantry. I made it for her and about halfway through she said her stomach hurt and didn't want to eat anymore. She went to bed soon after with a bad stomach cramp. Then in the morning she said she didn't feel good and threw up right after breakfast. My mom stopped by and brought her some saltines and 7 up and every single time she ate a cracker she would throw up. She threw up a couple of times at night but I really think it was because her stomach was so empty. This morning I gave her a handful of dry corn chex to snack on when she felt hungry. She kept those down. Then my MIL came over and gave her crackers and she threw up. I had to go to work with dh, and MIL watched the kids and she kept feeding her ritz crackers and dd kept throwing up. I gave her chex and she didn't throw up. So we will see what happens tomorrow. My oldest has had nothing to eat in 2 days except a couple of handfuls of chex and sips of 7 up or pedialite. My middle daughter just got over a bought of lots of diareah and vomiting 2 weeks ago. URG. I feel like my kids are never healthy! Oh and my baby just got over a horrible stint of constipation. She was miserable. I feel like I am somehow messing up my kids! Have I messed them up in some way by going gluten free for the most part?

[Roda]

Gluten free isn't going to hurt the other kids. It sounds like maybe they may be gluten intolerent too since you mention your daughter threw up every time she had something with gluten. Something to think about. My kids eat all our meals together gluten free and they have not had any issue. However, my youngest son is officially gluten free tommorow. He had a positive tTg (negative 2 years ago) and I just found out about today. I'm not doing the biopsy for him, since it just seems to add up so he goes completely gluten free since I am diagnosed.

[kareng]

Sounds like your kids might have gluten and, perhaps, other intolerances. My boys are teen & I am the only Celiac in the house. They eat a lot of gluten-free meals and are fine. Of course things like Bbq chicken, potatoes cooked with olive oil, green beans and ice cream are gluten-free.

[Skylark]

A lot of us get more sensitive to gluten once we eat less of it. I wonder if your kids are gluten-intolerant and that's what is happening. Try taking all the girls gluten-free, including at Grandma's, and see if the mystery stomach illnesses don't clear up.

And by the way, you have not "messed up" your kids. People with normal gluten tolerance don't get more sensitive the way we do. They can go on and off wheat at will. Remember, diets used to be seasonal. We went months without certain foods, then ate them when they became available again.

[norahsmommy]

thanks guys, I just get a little paranoid at times because it seems like they are always sick. My youngest is totally gluten free (unless someone messes up) and she gets horrible constipation and painful bm's and crankiness issues when she gets a little gluten. When she gets alot ( a whole cracker or half a piece of bread) she throws up. She has been having really painful bm's all week and I hate to say I think my MIL fed her something wrong or contaminated. She spent all day 3 days last week at her house when I was taking my mom to visit my dad in the hospital after surgery. I stressed the importance of not contaminating her food but I doubt she took me all that seriously. However I was there today when she had a 20 minute screaming fit in pain trying to poop. So I think she gets it now.

[mushroom]

I have always found that the quoted figures of inherited celiac disease in families tend to run incredibly low. I think it highly probably that all your children are gluten intolerant and should be tested. And by the way, either you or your husband (or both) are also gluten intolerant because the gene(s) had to come from somewhere. Do not worry about harming your children by not giving them gluten; worry about harming them by giving them gluten.

[Cypressmyst]

It is stories like this that confirm my suspicions that everyone is gluten intolerant. Chances are very good that if Mother and Mother in law go gluten-free they will see improvements in their health too. Same goes for you and your husband.

My condolences on having so many sick kids at once though! Wow! You are not harming them by going gluten-free, you are helping them to not have mega problems later in life.

[ravenwoodglass]

What is going on is by giving your little ones gluten occasionally you are doing gluten challenges. Their reactions are positive. It does sound like they also need to be strictly gluten free. Because they have been gluten light you would need to have them do a full out gluten challenge to have any chance of accurate testing. Even then they have a good chance of a false negative as childrens false negative rates are even higher than adults.