LauraTX

There are so many cooking blogs that I semi regularly follow, some gluten-free and some not.  The place I find the most new blogs at is actually on facebook- someone I already follow will post something from somewhere else, and I go to the source and realize I like it.  A lot of the gluten-free organizations will post stuff from bloggers as well, so if you use facebook go like all the celiac stuff you can find and you can get some great information that way.

When I was first diagnosed, I went to my local library and checked out every book that had to do with being gluten-free and combed through them all.  My city library is connected to a larger area where you can go on the catalog and request a book from somewhere else.  It really helped me when I first started out because some of those books would have been a waste of time and money.  Others were better.  

My favorite food blog actually isnt a gluten-free blog, but it has great basic cooking stuff on there that tends to stay on the healthier but realistic side.  Open Original Shared Link

A lot of the gluten-free blogs seem to have a ton of advertisement and product promotion so I don't really have one that stands out.  I have facebook set up to show all their posts to my newsfeed and I will go read if they post something interesting.

Ah yes, I totally forgot the vote up button was where.  I agree with no vote down button- if someone comes on and is trolling or causing a ruckus the moderators are really good at putting a stop to that.

If you suspect you may have a medical problem with gluten, definitely go see a gastroenterologist about it BEFORE you go gluten free.  The tests they can do for gluten intolerance and celiac disease need you consuming gluten to be accurate.  Same thing with your dad.

As far as your foot pain, the ball of foot pain you describe is classic symptoms of a mortons neuroma.  I get those, so bad that I cannot wear anything that looks good or I seriously can't walk.  I have to get special insoles that have a raised bump under the ball of foot area and wear athletic shoes.  When the problem first started happening I went to a podiatrist and he did cortisone shots to help the acute problem and got me set up with insoles to prevent future problems.  If it gets bad enough it can require surgery.  The ankle pain is another issue that you definitely would benefit seeing a podiatrist over, as it can be related to your gait in response to the foot pain.  Only a doctor can assess that.

For recommendations on a podiatrist you can ask family and friends or ask your primary care doctor who they recommend.  For a GI doctor you can ask for recommendations from your primary care doctor or post on here in the doctors category to see if anyone can recommend a doctor in your area that is well versed in celiac disease and gluten intolerance.  Sometimes even GI specialists may not do full and proper testing before making or excluding a diagnosis, so keep us posted here and we can get you some resources to take with you to your doctors appointment when you have one.

If you want to just continue eating gluten free and not pursue a diagnosis, just understand that if you feel the need to be diagnosed in the future, you will need to start eating gluten again and deal with the symptoms it causes you.  I wish you the best of luck getting all of this figured out!

And if there are people in the home consuming the gluten-free items (sharing a pot of pasta for example), and they are NOT DXED celiacs, then you cannot deduct them

That is the main thing my husband I are looking into.  I am getting all my other medical stuff like mileage to my hour drive doctor appointments all together and then I am going to take one last look at the gluten-free medical deductions before I can it for the year.  I don't eat a whole lot of gluten-free substitutes- the most I buy Id say is pasta and cereal, but I use a fairly small amount still and some of those are consumed by two people when I make our meals which are all gluten-free.  So although I am saving all my receipts and such for now, I am fairly certain I will not do that deduction for 2014.  

Now, I do know of a few people that have a huge family that all are Dx'ed Celiac, and I am sure in cases like those this benefits them well.  I just don't want to get audited, so anything that may be in a gray area I toss that idea.  No fun owing money to the IRS.  One year when we first got married and our two incomes pushed us into the higher tax bracket we owed about 3 grand.  The advice I got from everyone I talked to was to get the money anywhere in any way so I don't owe the IRS, that it is better to owe anyone else instead, haha.  Luckily we didn't have to beg borrow and steal for it, we made it out okay.

I recently did our 2013 taxes and talked to our tax lady about taking this and other medical deductions for 2014, since I have a lot of medical costs.  Things to know:

-To take a medical deduction it needs to exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income.  I asked my tax preparer for a ballpark figure of what amount I would need to hit to see if it is even worth it.  We will be under but close and are going to keep records in case we do hit it..

- If the total of what you want to deduct is less than your standard deduction there is no point in doing itemized deductions.

-There is a lot of grey area and especially with a weird deduction like the gluten-free food stuff, you need to keep as accurate record of all your purchases as possible in case of an audit

The majority of people will not benefit from this deduction as it is unlikely to reach 10% of your AGI.  If you have a lot of other medical expenses or have a large family of gluten-free eaters and kids who get sick and rack up doctor bills, then this may be worth looking at.  One of the most common itemizations is property taxes and interest on a mortgage loan, if you don't own a house your 10%+ medical expenses may not add up with other things to surpass the amount of your standard deduction and it will not be worth itemizing.

 I am not an expert in this field so you should go to an experienced tax preparer (not someone who just took one course and fills out 1040EZ's for people at the place down the street) to do your 2013 taxes and get advice on what to do for 2014.

Possibly include vegan chocolate places in your search.  Then narrow those down to the ones that safely do gluten-free, instead of vice versa.  My heart goes out to you!  Also, if you find a decent chocolate base, making your own truffles can be pretty easy at home.  Of course you may want to do a small batch so you don't eat them all!

Welcome!  I like hormel natural choice, very reasonably priced at my store.  Applegate is good, too, but I only buy it on sale.  My local grocery store labels their lunchmeats as gluten free.  I like boars head but my regular store doesn't sell their products.

Tammy, something that helped me out immensely when I first started a gluten-free diet was a grocery shopping guide.  Its a little book that can fit in your purse, and you look up a category and it lists what is gluten-free.  The one I use is the Cecelias marketplace one :  Open Original Shared Link

The other thing I did that helped a lot was look at what I usually eat, and create a meal plan and shopping list for those things.  Planning meals helps you be able to research what you are doing to buy in advance, make a list, and not spend hours in the grocery store on your smartphone trying to figure out if something is gluten-free or not.  

Welcome!   This is a great place to be, feel free to ask anything.

Pretty interesting to know how they quantify it.  Plants are like college kids, they indiscriminately mate with each other. 

With the capsule endoscopy they also can't take cultures and stuff.  It is so simple to do, no prep needed other than an empty stomach, I would go with a traditional endoscopy.  However, remember your biopsy will be negative for Celiac while you are on a gluten-free diet so don't let them mess with your diagnosis over that, but hopefully they know better.  

I also buy block cheese and shred it myself.  I will do like a pound at a time so I can floof it up in the ziploc bag before freezing so it doesn't stick, but I may try some starch on it next time.  You just grab whatever amount you need and toss it back in the freezer.  It is nice for a two person household, and I have to go light on cheese or my gallbladder will freak out.  I always keep at least some shredded parmesean and romano in the freezer to sprinkle on things. I usually get my husband to shred for me, haha, but I also have a shredding blade for my food processor.

W8in I feel your pain.  Especially at the times where you don't want to be a meanie and bar your family from having tasty no-nos around you, but you stare at it salivating the whole time.... it sucks!  Lately I have been seeing a commercial for a seasonal food item and I want to eat my TV screen each time it comes on, which is a lot. LOL.

I second what addy said.  Shared facilities I can be okay with but the poofy gluten around it is a recipe for disaster.  Also, I looked on the website out of curiosity and HOLY GUACAMOLE $11.99?!!!  You can buy at least two mixes of other brands for that.  But honestly, I probably would have bought it as well.  It says routinely tested to 20 ppm so it lures you in.  Do they have a money back guarantee or anything like that?  The good thing is that brownies seem the easiest to match gluten-free to the gluteny counterparts so most mixes are pretty darn good.

How do you know Brawny contains gluten? This is getting a bit silly, you don't eat paper towels. You don't eat Pledge. At least normal folks don't .

Karen is not saying this to be insulting.  She is trying to prevent the spread of misinformation.  One thing to do when you have a food allergy is you should always question the source of information, it can go both ways in preventing illness and preventing unneeded hubbub.

So, may I also ask, where did you hear that Brawny contains gluten?  If I could verify that a paper towel/napkin contained gluten, I also would not use it.

Also, with what the OP was about, a lot of cleaners and furniture polish are just full of irritants.  Even if they say for sensitive skin or fragrance free they can still cause skin and respiratory reactions in people like me who just seem to be sensitive to everything.  When I use any cleaner I either use gloves or use a big enough paper towel wad that my hand doesn't get soaked in the liquid.  I also breathe out while spraying and walk away for a few seconds (especially with 409 which I use to clean up after preparing chicken).

Welcome!  Let us know how your doctor appointment goes.  Like cyclinglady said, keep eating gluten until testing is done, and don't not consider a gluten-free diet if the results are negative.  If you do have to go gluten-free, there is definitely an adjustment period, but the worse off you are before going gluten-free the more instant reward you get when you start to feel better.  Just have to learn to substitute things when you cook and it eventually becomes second nature

Sometimes you may have something else going on and blame it on the celiac.  I would go see your doctor, or if the pain is really really bad, go to the emergency room where they can do imaging and get quick results.

I have found that Safeway's Eating Right brand has a delicious gluten-free oreo cookie. I'm sure I can find substitutes for GSCs, but it just hit me that this is something I can't buy anymore, it didn't occur to me last October. I just hope the substitutes are not like Gluten Free Beer. Yuck! ;-)

 

By the way, LauraTX, I LOVE your profile pic! Fellow Tortie lover/owner, are ya? :-)

Torties for life!!!  

I call anything other than oreo brand "fauxreos"  LOL!   I am a huge fan of the kinnickkinnick ones with chocolate cookies and filling.  Never buy them cause I devour the whole pack.

-This post was made on February 2, 2014.  If you are reading this a few years down the road, please re-check gluten-free info with the company.-

If you live in the Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, or Missouri, you may know about Braum's. (Burger place that serves ice cream and has a grocery side to it-all the dairy is made at their own farm in OK)  And I grew up with Braums, so good!  I miss their burgers.  Everything is great quality.

Obviously the restaurant side isn't going to offer too much at a burger and fry kind of place, but they have a grocery side where they sell a little bit of everything and have really good quality products, milk and ice cream, and groceries.  We went in there the other day, and I usually go in and get the soft serve frozen yogurt in a cup while I oogle at the sundaes that are scooped with a shared scoop as the gluten containing ice creams, but as I was walking out I saw a HUGE SECTION OF gluten-free PRODUCTS in the grocery area!!!!!

They had a ton of Udis stuff (more than any other store around here), King arthur flour and chebe mixes, some glutino stuff, and a few other things.  At really good prices, to boot.  $2.99 for Chebe mixes impressed me-Usually at least $3.70 around here.  They sell some meat, fruit, milk and cheese-things that are naturally gluten-free, but they also have a few other things like dips and such that I am not sure of, so I wrote them today to ask about gluten-free stuff on the grocery side, labeling practices, and went ahead and threw in the "anything I can eat in the restaurant?" question.  The only thing addressing gluten on their website says gluten containing ingredients will be listed prominently on ice creams (which they have a bunch) and any ice cream that doesn't have gluten containing ingredients in it is safe.

I will definitely be stopping in here often, so I wanted to spread the word since, to me, it was so unexpected and decent prices.  I have only been to the one local one near me which is newer and larger, so I have no idea if this was a chain-wide rollout but with the prices I think it may be.  I will share any additional information I get when they hopefully write me back!

I suspect meringues is on the list because of the wide variety that can be made.  Meringue pie, cookies, cookie sandwiches, on desserts, all kinds of stuff.  One of those things that has no business being around gluten but still sometimes does.  

It is very possible just having the infection mucked you up quite badly.  Do you have a rheumatologist?  Definitely a visit to a doctor about all this is in order.  You can specifically ask to be tested for RA and even your primary care doctor can do a few blood tests that check for other autoimmune problems.  Sometimes just going in and telling them you feel something is really wrong will make them do some investigation so you can catch a problem sooner than later.

Also, levofloxacin is in a class of antibiotics that is very strong and it can be hard on the body.  The second one you were put on is in a different class.  Don't say it is an allergy(if you do that you could risk death in certain circumstances), but any time a doctor wants to put you on an antibiotic let them know about your bodily reaction to levofloxacin (Trade name Levaquin). If you have something really bad going on, these are the newer and more powerful antibiotics so sometimes there is no choice but to use something in that class.

I won't miss them too much, but I sure would devour those shortbread cookies they make.  And I would freeze some, too.  Just give yourself an indulgence of your choice in place of them  But it does suck to say no to the little girls!  Makes you feel like a jerk walking past their booth on the way into the store and such.  I, too, will remember them fondly.

This site usually answers emails as best they can but seem to be over-loaded right now.  They have a lot of good info on the site that you might find answers your questions.

 

Open Original Shared Link

I second all of the above.  Best resource is this website.  They have a lot of questions answered already, and you can submit more.  Be very very careful seeking medical advice from people who post online saying they are doctors or experts.

Yep, it is really smooth going, no preparation other than doing it on an empty stomach.  They give you a sleepy drug, go down you throat and look, takes like 5 minutes and wake up right after.  I could feel a slight discomfort at the biopsy sites, kind of like a bad heartburn feeling, but just in small spots, and just for that day.  It is totally understandable to hear biopsy and think its super invasive, but luckily we have a handy hole to already go through

When I woke up, my doctor told my family member who was with me that our next stop should be my choice of breakfast place.  Ate that and slept the rest of the day since drugs always make me extra loopy.

Home Goods is the store I meant. I also find good gluten-free stuff at TJ Maxx, Tuesday Morning and Marshall's. They all have a "weird food" aisle. 

Ditto to this!  I always pop into these types of stores and look at the food while I am there.  You can get some good bargains on gourmet stuff and gluten-free stuff, just watch the expiration date.  TJMaxx is where I usually go, and they mark them on clearance when the expiration date is 2-3 months out.

I have thought about that, too.  I never planned on it but I was watching one of those jail shows on TV one day and thought... Wow I better never go to jail, I would starve to death!  

The fat response is going into my book to use next time someone mentions gluten-free and weight loss.  LOL you have me cracking up!  And Dianaw, as time passes, it gets a little better.  Family and friends will learn a little more.  If you have stubborn ones you can print out some pages from the University of Chicago Celiac Disease research center website and/or just accept that they are a nitwit.  People think it is such a casual thing, oh yeah gluten-free no problem sure... they do not understand the seriousness of a food allergy.  When people say "Oh a little won't hurt you!" I always reply, "Would you feed peanuts to someone with a peanut allergy?  Would you feed sugar to a type 1 diabetic?"  And that hushes them up.

I would say the least weird one to start with, and my favorite, is Chebe.  It is a box mix, usually 3-4 dollars, and makes two 11 inch pizzas or one 14 inch pizza.  It calls for an egg, a little oil, milk, and a cup of shredded cheese-I use parmesean.  It isn't sticky like some of the other gluten-free pizza crust mixes, and you actually do knead it a little.  It is mostly tapioca starch.  Makes a nice thin crust, and I prebake it before adding toppings.  It doesn't use yeast, so it is faster and easier than some other mixes.  It tastes like regular pizza.  You can also find some gluten-free pizza crusts in the freezer section of the store, there are a couple different ones out there, but I never cared for any of them.

For sauce I use classico pizza sauce, says gluten-free on the back and perfect for two pizzas.  Hormel pepperoni is gluten-free (also says on the package so no guesswork) and you can go crumbled sausage or bacon, too.  And of course, veggies- nom nom!  If you do pineapple on the pizza, squeeze as much liquid out as you can so it doesn't make the pizza soggy.