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Hello my gluten free friends,  I am 2 years out from diagnosis and doing well. A year prior to having any symptoms I noticed a swollen lymph node. This has been 3ish years ago now. The lymph node currently is still swollen. I recently went back to the doctor for it. They did an ultrasound and found it to have “no suspicious activity and benign in nature”. My doctor said it could have been one of the first signs my body was giving me that I had an autoimmune disorder. She said it may go away eventually or could always stay slightly swollen because of the disease. Has anyone else experienced something similar? I don’t know if I should ask for a biopsy to confirm it’s not cancerous.    Emma 

Be careful of pre-sliced cheese, too.  I have been ok getting it cut at deli's.  That, too, can be a gamble, but so far there has been no cross-contamination.  I have heard they use such a small amount of cellulose, they do not have to include it in the ingredients.  

Fushiacat, thank you for your response. i didn’t realize they were adding it to cheese products to prevent it from caking. That explains a lot.

Many years ago, I discovered that cellulose makes me very sick.  It is often in pre-shredded cheese or the parmesan cheese in the green shaker bottle.  It is used to keep the cheese from sticking and turning into a large lump. Many medicines use this as a filler, so I have been forced to get my rx's compounded, which is never covered.  Check with the drug manufacture before getting something to see if it contains cellulose.  It is usually listed as an inactive ingredient.  Cellulose can be composed of a variety of things, including wheat, so it is a gamble using it if cellulose is a listed ingredient.  I know of one other person with this same problem.  Supplements also have cellulose as fillers or the capsules themselves can have it. If I mistakenly get this, it makes me sick for days.

This is a very good comment.  I found all sorts of things difficult to stomach for about 2 years after my diagnosis , that I was able to eat again after a while. Eventually there was one thing that I still couldn't eat and that was pure oats (i.e. those certified uncontaminated with gluten, the only oats we coeliacs should be eating).  I think it took until I was fully healed, and my antibodies were normal at last (about 8 years, from memory!) for me to be able to eat pure oats and now I have no issue with them whatsoever.  I remember nutritionists kept saying, "keep trying to reintroduce oats", and I thought "No way, José!", but they were absolutely right.  It is important to note, however, that a small percentage of coeliacs do react to the avenin in the oats, in the same way as coeliacs react to gluten, and that is something that will never change for them.  I thought I was in that group, but it turns out I wasn't in the end.