kbtoyssni

I see no reason why they can't make you a gluten-free dinner. It should matter the reason for it (i.e. that you just suspect celiac). I find expensive places are best for gluten-free because they have a chef, and they make everything from free ingredients so it's a lot easier for them to whip up something for you that isn't on the menu. Please don't eat gluten. It is never worth it if you're a celiac.

  Lisa16 said:

I think it will be hard because she cannot even make herself follow the diabetic diet.

Diabetes and celiac are also very strongly linked. Maybe someone here can cite some research about what percent of diabetics have celiac. I don't know the number, but it's high. High enough where I'd recommend every diabetic automatically be tested for celiac.

  irish daveyboy said:

I don't know about your side, but here in Ireland people drink beer shandies! !

.

The glass is filled to within an inch of the top with beer and then the 'soda pop' is added,

if it is the same over there it could be CC.

This is a very uncommon drink in the states. I make them a lot, and the first few times my friends asked "what the heck are you doing????" Bars in general make me nervous. Heck, I've watched them pour a beer then reach into the bucket of lemons/limes, and possibly CC them. It's not a ideal situation, but I'll admit that I still pretty much drink what I want in a bar and don't worry about this stuff. Maybe I should worry more. If I were more sensitive I probably would worry.

  Ursa Major said:

For years I would see in the paper when birthday parties for older people were announced. They'd often say, "Best wishes only, please". Not originally being English speaking, plus not understanding certain phrases and sayings without explanation (due to Asperger Syndrome I guess), for years I was thinking to myself, "Why did they need to say that, wouldn't people who didn't wish them well want to stay away?

Finally, after many years I asked somebody why they said that, and was told that it meant they didn't want gifts, just cards! I felt awfully foolish.

Lol, that's a funny story!! As a native speaker of english, I didn't know what the meant until you told me, either.

I wouldn't bother with trying to eat the sausages. A lot of sausages have gluten, most BBQ sauces have gluten, they're likely to get contaminated from crumbs dropping into them. Bring your own food or eat before you go. Eventually you're going to have to explain this to the family so you might as well do it now. If they're the type of people who aren't going to understand and be compassionate, it won't matter when you tell them. If they are the understanding type, then you'll be fine. Approach it from a medical standpoint, not a "I'm refusing to eat your food". It's an adjustment for family members, too, so understand that even if they are the compassionate type, it may take a while for them to get it.

And I wouldn't bother with the biopsy. You've got a great doc who has diagnosed you based on blood tests. He's a keeper! There's no point in doing a biopsy to re-prove you have celiac. And if the results did come back negative, would you go back to eating gluten? Probably not.

I figured out peanuts make me sick about ten months after going gluten-free.

  Ursa Major said:

My son would get the raw bum from anything red I ate while I breastfed him (I had to stop eating strawberries, cherries, beets, tomatoes etc.). He couldn't eat anything red while he was little.

Anything red? I think this is the strangest intolerance I've ever heard of What the heck do those foods have in common?

I'm guessing floaters, too. Practically everyone has some. But if the number suddenly increases a lot, you should get it checked out. My dad had two torn retinas and his symptoms were flashing/stars and increased floaters.

Welcome! I'm another Minnesotan living in Minneapolis.

You should eliminated the Oatmeal. You must assume oatmeal is contaminated UNLESS it specifically says gluten-free (and you're not going to fine gluten-free oats at Cub Foods!) Non contaminated oatmeal still causes some celiacs to react and some not to because the protein is similar to gluten.

Try getting a mini-thermos. You can keep warm foods in there like soup or chili to take to class. Cub has a pretty decent ethic foods selection. They've got Thai Kitchen imitation ramen noodles, some good Indian and Thai food, 4lb bags of rice flour for $2. I notice there's not a lot of veggies in your diet. What about fruit that's easy to take to class? I love eating a giant bowl of steamed veggies. I also take a salad for lunch everyday.

Ok, I've got to run so that's it for now.

I'm another person who has never gotten hassled or questioned about my diet. Incidentally, I'm an engineer and hang out with a lot of engineers. Maybe us engineers are better about accepting the diet! I always present the diet in a positive way, emphasizing the positive changes it has made in my life and how the diet may seem inconvenient, but it is 100% worth it to have my health back. Many people have a more negative attitude towards the diet and present it as a hardship in having to give up all their yummy food, and I wonder if that attitude rubs off on the people you are talking to. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people start talking about how the bread isn't any good. With a little effort you can make good homemade bread and besides, who needs bread anyways? (I'm not saying you shouldn't have a period of mourning or struggle with the diet at first. I realize there's a huge learning curve to get over before most people can attempt a positive description of the diet.)

Definitely take your time shopping for furniture. My parents spent six months trying to find a loveseat that would fit in their strangely-sized family room. I saw a good suggestion for a headboard on a decorating show - paint a door or large piece of wood and put behind the bed - it will take up much less space than having a fancy wooden bed frame.

I second the mirrors. Light colors help open a space - white/offwhite cabinets, walls, doors. What kind of doors do you have on the closets? The fold-out doors will make the room smaller because of the space they require to open plus the visual of them in the room. I took the doors off my bedroom closet and was shocked at how much bigger the room looked. I'm planning on doing the same with my entry-way and pantry closet, but I'll be hanging curtains on those so I can close them when people come over. Try installing really great shelving units in the closets so you can get rid of dressers. Install ceiling lighting so you don't need floor lamps or table lamps. Glass furniture helps (glass coffee tables and end tables) so the light flows through them and doesn't give the visual of being a large object cluttering the room (not sure how good this is with a 3yo, though).

How do you store toys? A few toys lying around will make the place look very cluttered. Have a bin or basket the kid can put the toys back in when done playing that can be set on a shelf.

Getting stuff out of the house will help. What's the backyard like? Can you store thing in a shed or in the rafters of the garage? Buy small stuff: replace your desktop computer with a laptop, buy a smaller microwave.

Last time I was at the airport there was a sign stating that liquids are ok if you have a medical necessity for them. I got a note from my doctor the other day saying I have to carry food with me due to celiac. I'm going to call the TSA to see what the regulations are on that. But it's probably something for you to look into, too.

I wonder if this would happen less if you emphasized the medical side of this when explaining the disease. Something along the lines of "no, I'm not eating that because I have an autoimmune disease that causes my immune system to attack my intestines and makes me throw up, get migraines, all my joints hurt and I'm exhausted for weeks". Heck, I'd leave someone alone if they said something like that to me!

I love salad without dressing! I have a salad that way every day. The secret is that you can't just do a pile of lettuce - you've got to have a bunch of goodies on there.

Could you get an enterolab diagnosis and then go gluten-free? I hate for you to be making yourself sick for much longer for the possibility of a positive test when you know it's the gluten. I'm sure this is covered under some disability/medical leave act. You might want to talk to HR or a lawyer about your legal rights. You should not be docked for a medical issue.

Spelt is a derivative of wheat. So it's got the same gluten protein in it.

  Nancym said:

The way my Mom dealt with this when we were little was to send us a bagged lunch. I'm sure that option still exists doesn't it?

The option certainly still exists, but it's super hard to monitor what your kid eats at school, especially at the older grades. At my high school (which is very much like most schools) there was an a la carte line where you could buy all sorts of junk - pizza, burgers, ice cream. Then we had the "school store" whose main function from what I could tell was to sell candy to kids at lunch and before school. A number of the teachers sold candy and soda in their rooms to raise money. Ironically it's usually the teachers who coach athletics who are raising money for their teams. As a gymnast, my coach gave gymnasts candy to sell to raise money for our leotards. I sold around 500 candy bars in about two months that way. The point is that junk food is so easily accessible that there's no way a parent can monitor this.

I agree with everything OP said. I coached gymnastics in high school and my kids always hounded me on the last day of class about when they would get their candy because all the teachers gave it out. They'd come to expect it. If I had to do it again, I would hand out stickers or pencils or little sheets of paper showing what new skill they had learned that day that they could color.

Food shouldn't be used as a reward. Food should be eaten for fuel when the body is hungry. Reward food means kids are eating without thinking about whether they are hungry. It associates eating with happy, fun times. So it shouldn't be a big surprise that this will eventually led to comfort eating and becoming overweight.

It's really not fair to give candy to a kid this age and expect them to do the right thing. They need a little bit of help from the authorities figures in their life. I was also shocked that she singled him out as the kid with allergies. I'm sure she meant well, but it had to be really embarrassing for him when it was announced to everyone that he's "different". I'm also becoming more and more appealed at the stories all you parents post about food in the classroom. Food should not be used as a reward.

I'm wondering what the four things that he can eat are and why he won't eat other things. I'm assuming it's because he doesn't like other food or refuses to eat other food. If he is a celiac, gluten will have an addictive reaction in his body. So if all he wants to eat are gluten things, this craving will subside after a few weeks. If all he wants to eat are non-gluten things, it's probably because he's figured out subconsciously that gluten makes him sick, and he doesn't want to eat that stuff. It's very likely that after a few weeks he'll be more willing to eat other foods. And I second the comment that a kid won't starve himself. Offer him safe foods. He might get a bit hungry, but eventually he'll eat the food you give him. If he is celiac, it's also likely that his stomach is upset a lot, and he doesn't get the same hunger pangs or doesn't recognize hunger over stomach pain. This will also subside in time.

I suppose you could test her via enterolab. You'd have to get her to agree to, well, um, poop in a bucket, but then you wouldn't have to go through the doctors. But if she does test positive, I wonder how good she'll be about fully committing to the diet. Will she still want her doctor's stamp of approval?

I don't attempt to eat any of the food at buffet-style events. Even a safe food would likely get contaminated in a situation like this. Bring your own food so you can ensure your safety.

Spelt is also not gluten free. Spelt is a derivative of wheat.

Does anyone know of a way I can get a jacket dry cleaned without all the chemicals? I have this suit jacket that I wore a lot this winter to judge gymnastics meets. Now that the gymnastics season is over I figure I should get it cleaned. Of course it's dry clean only (probably should have checked that before I bought it! but nearly every jacket is dry clean anyway). I don't want to do traditional dry cleaning because of all the chemicals, but I'm not sure if there's some new chemical-free dry cleaning process out there or if there's a way I can wash it at home without ruining the look of it.

You might want to call and ask the doc on the phone how familiar he/she is with celiac so you can avoid making an appointment if the doc doesn't have a clue. Ideally you wouldn't need to bring in newspaper articles describing what celiac is - a doc should know what the disease is and, if he/she is any good, be familiar with the fact that many have non-traditional symptoms.

Sounds like you may be fairly convinced that you have celiac even without doctor "proof". Would you consider trying the diet without the official diagnosis? (Note that an official diagnosis will probably come back negative if you've already gone gluten-free so don't do this if you want to pursue testing).

Oooh, good idea with the art and reading. That carries a very low risk of gluten. Thanks for the idea!