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Thank you everyone! My birthday was on a Sunday so I had a laid-back party and had my friends over for dinner and a movie. I made lasagna, garlic bread, chocolate fondue for an appetizer and brownies for dessert. All gluten-free, and all delicious!

This is the recipe I use, too. I love it, and it works great for cheese fondue, too!

Thanks for posting the restaurant suggestions. I'm going to be in Madison on a business trip next week and was having a mini-freakout because I didn't think any of my old favorites would have gluten-free meals. I never would have expected Nitty Gritty to have a gluten-free menu!

Thanks, I'll pass the info on to my mum.

No, you can't ever eat gluten again. Some people do start eating it after healing and go through a period where they don't have symptoms, but they are still doing damage. These people tend to get very, very sick again at some point in the future. If you want to be healthy, you cannot eat gluten again.

Many foods are very easy to make or buy gluten-free once you get the brands down. I don't think anyone would have a problem if you switched all flour tortillas with corn and bought only brands of condiments that are gluten-free. I would absolutely go gluten-free with those types of foods.

Where it gets harder is the breads and crackers - things that do taste different if they're gluten-free and tend to be more expensive. When I lived at home, we figured out ways to not eat these things as much. The gluten eaters could eat as much of this stuff outside the house. Occassionally my dad would eat gluten crackers, but he was very, very careful of CC. I don't think your kids would be as aware.

I would try not to phrase this question as depriving the rest of the family. If you happened to make tacos one night that are naturally gluten-free, no one would feel deprived. Eating gluten-free is healthy, and it's not like anyone is going to starve on the diet. There are plenty of gluten-free treats, too. And a family isn't about everyone being 100% equal and getting to do their own thing. Families are groups of people who have committed to living together and supporting each other through good and bad. If making the house gluten-free is what's best for your health, the family should be fully supportive and willing to compromise for your health. You would do the same for them.

Have you eliminated it from toiletries and non food sources? My pet foods and art supplies got me off and on for a couple of years till I learned.

We never thought to check the toiletries! The dog food may also be something to look into. Does simply washing your hands after handling it n

I feel ok just washing my hands after feeding the fish, but dogs tend to slobber on people and food spills on the floor and they walk all over the house and sometimes on the furniture. I'd go gluten-free with the dog - search this site, I know people have asked about gluten-free dog food before.

Gosh, I hate to hear about a kid suffering like that, too. It's practically child abuse to do that to the kid.

Do you have a 504 plan for him? That might make some of these situations easier to deal with.

I totally understand the moving frustrations. I moved in August and I still have days of wondering where things went. And I've only got a small one-bedroom apartment!

I get all my books from the library. A majority of books I only read once so I see no reason to spend money on those. My old library had tons of gluten-free related books, and it was a medium-sized library. You can usually order books from other libraries in the vicinity easily and if they don't have it, they can order from other state libraries. You usually have to ask the reference desk to do that for you.

Thanks for the reply! I'm wondering if there's some mild malnutrition going on. I'm 99.9% sure she's completely gluten-free, but she still feels sick so there might be some other gut irritation that's causing slight malnutrition. I know casein can cause villi blunting, too (she just sent away for enterolab casein testing). Would something like candida cause malnutrition?

My mum's not a smoker and smoke makes her very sick so she doesn't even go places where there is smoke (so it wouldn't be a second hand smoke thing). A random thought - would something like sarcoidosis cause this? It's another autoimmune disease and her brother was recently diagnosed with it. She doesn't have any symptoms - maybe this is the beginning stage of it?

I knew to start looking for another food intolerance when I started feeling sick again after ten months of feeling great being gluten-free. It was easy for me to track down - everytime I ate peanut butter I felt sick. Other food intolerances can be more of a challenge to figure out.

I guess it's up to you to know the health of your kids and if you think it's normal. If they don't have any reoccurring health issues, there's probably nothing to worry about.

Don't have much time, but you could try toaster bags: Open Original Shared Link

You could then use your old gluten toaster. Or you could toast your bread using your oven broiler.

Yeah, it is cold. I went snowboarding in Lutsen last weekend, and it was the first time I can remember actually being really whiny and miserable about the cold and wind. Normally the cold doesn't bother me at all.

I would absolutely go gluten-free. And be thankful that the scope came back negative - it means she hasn't had enough time to completely destroy her villi!

If you have a health savings account through your health insurance, you can also use that to cover some of the costs of gluten-free food. The first point lovegrov made about only being able to claim the difference in price will apply. You may also have to "prove" she has celiac. This may be difficult based on what you said about your doctor.

I do not buy many gluten-free substitutes. I do 99% of my shopping at a normal grocery store, buying normal things that everyone else does. Once you figure out your brands and get creative and think about what you eat differently than you do now, you may find that your grocery bills decrease. I don't bother with this because I don't spend enough on gluten-free foods to make it worth my time.

The previous gravitation towards eating gluten foods may be part of gluten's addictive properties on a celiac.

The picky eating may be because subconsciously he knows that certain foods make him sick. I'm sure with time he'll get over that and begin to eat a larger variety of foods.

Nope. Not for something like celiac that has an easy, non-drug treatment. I don't find the diet to be *that* hard. It's just what I do. I don't know what's in this drug, but the possibility of side effects and other toxin-related issues is enough to make me not want to take it.

I don't cheat. My life was so miserable pre-diagnosis that there is no way I would purposely eat gluten. Even if you don't get an outward reaction, you're still doing damage and setting yourself up for a major health issues down the road.

In the latter years of grade school, my family doctor tld my mother I had likely grown out of it. I am now 32 and have been having some severe problems the last few years.

-This was a very common misconception that doctors used to have.

1. Is it possible that a person can out grow their celiac disease?

-No.

2. Can a person have celiac disease and be overweight?

-Yes. Some studies have shown 40% of celiacs are overweight.

3. In some instances, can celiac disease cause severe abdominal pain, in the lower left area ... painful enough to require narcotic painkillers? I was prescribed endocet, ibuprofin, and morphine and none seem to really get rid of the pain.

-Yes, I think so. I never experienced this, but I'm sure it can happen.

4. Has anyone else experienced severe pain in any of the following areas:

-knees

-lower left abdomen

-pilodinal cist

-Yes. I had chronic joint and muscle pain (including knee joints) and chronic fatigue.

5. Has anyone had frequent cases of kidney stones associated with celiac disease.

-I haven't, but I'm sure someone here has

6. Is there any way to connect/test the numbness in my lower left leg to show that it is celiac disease related?

-Hmmm, not sure if there's a way to test for it. If you go gluten-free and it goes away, is that enough proof for you? Try searching for numbness on this site - I know I've seen threads about this before.

7. I have read in some parts, that inhaling gluten can cause a reaction. Is there any documented proof of this? I work around grain railway cars. Could inhaling this affect me?

-Not sure if there's documented proof, but if you inhale it, it gets in your nose and drains down into your stomach, then you can get glutened. Many people who worked around flour in bakeries or pizza places didn't get better until they quit. Wearing a face mask may help.

It's not uncommon for your intestines to fully heal and for you to be able to eat gluten for a while without any known symptoms. BUT - you are still doing damage!!! Eventually eating gluten again will catch up to you in the form of cancer, osteoporosis, mental illness, etc. Please go back to the gluten-free diet. You do not want to set yourself up for major health problems in the future.

I'm not quite sure why the results said allergy/intolerance. I thought an allergy is an immediate reaction while intolerance is more long-term (and autoimmune in the case of celiac).

I've always felt that gluten intolerance is the first step on your way to celiac. Celiac is diagnosed only after you have a lot of damage to th intestines; with gluten intolerance you are only just starting to get damage. Either way you should be on a gluten-free diet.

If you go gluten-free now and test in 1-2 years via traditional medical testing (blood test or scope) you will probably get a negative result. For these tests to work you have to be eating gluten - 4 servings a day for 3-6 months (probably 6 months in your case if you've had 1-2 years to heal). If you feel better it's probably not worth eating gluten again just to have a doctor say you have it. If you feel better, dietary response is a legitimate diagnosis.

If you want a more formal diagnosis, some here have gone through enterolab. I think it's around $200-300. BUT, I'm wondering what kind of testing you had done in June? Why not go with those results? Give it time to see results. It can take months to heal 100%.

One red flag is the shampoo. If you touch your hair, then touch a counter or a doorknob, you may be spreading gluten around the house. Even washing your hands before you eat isn't going to help that. I personally would keep looking for another shampoo.

Living in a house of gluten eaters is tricky. Do you share sponges to wash dishes? Did you replace your toaster? All wooden spoons and collenders? Do you know for sure no one is double dipping in your condiments? Do you have pets that eat gluten food? What about at work - any possibility for CC there?

My next thought is maybe it's not gluten giving you these symptoms. You may be intolerance to other foods that give you the same symptoms. Peanuts do it for me. Soy and casein or nightshades do it for others.

Sounds like you have too many "oops" moments, too, like using the wrong soy sauce. Is there a better way you can label your stuff so this doesn't happen? Like having only one soy sauce in the house - the gluten-free one? Or putting colorful stickers on yours? Or having a separate shelf of your stuff?

And maybe it's that you get glutened often enough that you're not healing so anything will aggravate your stomach. I'm not sure how you were originally diagnosed, but if it was by blood test you might want to have the test repeated to see if your levels have gone down.

Just some ideas, hopefully something here will help. Good luck!

I think if he really cared about your and your daughter's health and mental well-being he should be respectful of your decision to go gluten-free. Whether he agrees with you is not the issue. Would he be willing to go to counseling? This sounds like a chronic respect problem that needs to be worked out. It's not about the food.

My mum had a comprehensive metabolic panel done the other day and asked me if I could help her with the test results before she talks to her doctor. I've never had a CMP done, and I'm not sure what everything means. Her carbon dioxide level was high and her anion gap was low (I don't know the exact numbers). The rest of the test came back normal. Anyone know what these two things test for and what a high or low level means?

A little background - my mum was self-diagnosed with celiac right after I was so 2.5 years ago. She's feeling much better, but not 100%. She sent away for the Enterolab casein testing the other day to see if that might be the issue.

I'm leaving town in a few hours until Monday night so if I might be a bit slow on the replies. Thanks in advance for anything you can share!

Glad you got it figured out!