eleep

I'll put in a recommendation for Qi Gong exercises as well -- my acupuncturist assigned me one very simple movement called Hun Yuan Gong (which translates as something like "primordial working") -- this has made a huge difference for me in much the same way that walking mediation might -- I was actually having problems with restlessness in my sitting meditations and had been slacking off.

Qi Gong was specifically developed as a self-healing medicinal practice and I think it got to the heart of what I was struggling with in my body and mind.

eleep

Cornstarch works really well for bechamel-type sauces like that -- I've also had some luck with rice flour and bean-based flours (garbanzo and garbanzo/fava combinations).

Wow -- I must have read too many freshman composition papers -- I'm used to bad paragraphing!

eleep

It sounds like they need to do a better job educating their employees at the individual franchises -- if they don't take this seriously, they're really just catering to the gluten-free-as-fad myth.

You may also be reacting to the cheese -- which could be either a casein (milk protein) or a lactose (milk sugar) intolerance. You can figure this out by doing an experiment with lactose-free milk and seeing if you react to that in comparison with other kinds of lactose-containing dairy.

Or you could get tested for casein intolerance through Enterolab.

Lactose intolerance can be a temporary thing for celiacs. The tips of your villii secrete the enzyme (lactase) that breaks down lactose. When your body is more fully healed, you may gradually be able to reintroduce dairy into your diet because the villii have grown back. Casein intolerance is a permanent issue -- my understanding is that this has something to do with the fact that the molecular structure of casein is similar to the molecular structure of gluten.

I had to cut dairy out of my diet for about six months and I still sometimes react a little if I go overboard with soft cheese and stuff like that.

I think the self-pity is sometimes a necessary emotional phase -- you've lost something, there's been a change, life isn't the way it was before. That doesn't mean you'll continue to feel that way once you've worked through those feelings and adjusted to the diet. I don't have anywhere near the frustration I used to have when I find myself at a restaurant with friends where I'm not comfortable enough to order food -- I'd rather play it safe anyway and I've generally got something to eat in my tote to help me through. Also, I've found that there are a bunch of places where I am comfortable with the food and the attention to service is scrupulous enough to make me feel more confident about not getting sick from CC, etc..... It's all just taken some time.

eleep

I've been known to wake up at my usual time, eat something and then turn around and get right back into bed for a few hours if I still need to get some sleep. This seems to work much better for me than disrupting my usual schedule and it also tends to make it easier for me to re-adjust to my regular schedule.

eleep

Hey "formerly gluten-free-in-Ohio" -- are you saving that beer for the Gators/Bucs game? I'm formerly from Ohio, but I live in Gainesville.....

One more thing I'd like to add -- the emotional downs from celiac were definitely a huge problem for me (and they contributed to the demise of a long relationship -- although, frankly, I realize now that the stress and instability of that relationship had a lot more to do with why things felt out of control to me -- whoops, guess I had to get that off my chest).

However, I can definitely pinpoint gluten as the cause for a lot of the seemingly-unrelenting feelings of depression -- all of which is gone now despite the fact that I've been going through a rough time. The last time I got glutened, things looked pretty low, but it helped me a whole lot to know that was the cause and it did lift after a couple of weeks. Depending on how long you've been gluten-free, you may eventually find that your reasons for wanting to seek out a psychiatrist will diminish -- which doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to seek out treatment of some sort in the meantime.

eleep

Most of the last few generations of psychiatrists have been trained largely to deal with things from a neurchemical/pharmaceutical treatment standpoint, so they may not have a lot of training in psychodynamic kinds of therapy, although I've found several exceptions to that rule. So, you do risk seeing someone whose main approach will be to prescribe medication. However, I've run into a few psychiatrists who also recommend exercise, nutrition and meditation as well -- it depends on the psychiatrist.

For counseling, you'll want someone who does some form of psychodynamic therapy -- cognitive behavioral, family-of-origin, and other kinds of therapy. These can be useful for getting at the beliefs, patterns of behavior and underlying causes for the emotional dips -- it can help a lot to have someone to talk things out with -- and, in my case, it helped a lot to have someone take a cognitive approach where they basically just kicked my ass into shape about a few things I really needed to change (my phrase -- the actual therapy was much gentler than that). This will be someone with a degree in psychology or possibly one in social work. They might refer you out to someone for medication if that's the route you eventually decide to go (and it can be a helpful one depending on the situation).

What has helped me -- mind you, after years of therapy and an attempt once or twice at trying various medications (all of which were more troublesome for me than they were worth) -- has been to really focus on developing and maintaining habits that encourage emotional control and balance -- mindfulness meditation, acupuncture, exercise, etc.... Different things work for different people and there are definitely circumstances where medication can be helpful to lift the emotional burden long enough to get some healthier and more emotionally stabilizing habits in place -- so I'd never tell someone not to try medication. Rather, I suggest you look at medication as one possibility in an arsenal of tools you can use to get this stuff under control. There are a lot of different options, however, so it helps to do some research on your own into this stuff as a way of making the best decisionl.

eleep

Just a followup -- I managed to bring everything through with no problems.

I have some (possibly) stupid questions about what I can bring on a plane in the way of food these days -- I've looked over the TSA list which seems to indicate that I can only bring about 3 oz. each of cheese and yogurt -- so those options seem to be out.

However, I've got a couple of other things about which I'm uncertain -- they're my meals during the flight, and consist of multiple ingredients some of which could technically qualify as liquid or gel:

Tuna, egg salad and almond butter sandwiches

Cold cuts

Chickpea-feta salad in a little vinaigrette

Grape leaves with rice and hummus.

Does anyone know how to finesse the airport security thing with food items these days? Am I covered? Should I take this stuff anyway and be prepared to have to toss it?

Can I really only bring 3 oz. of cheese? Does cheese in a sandwich count?

Perhaps I'm a little obsessey here, but a good friend has been packing meals for me and I don't want to put her work to waste!

I love Stollen too! I know there's a recipe for a ricotta-based stollen in Bette Hagman's Revised Edition of the Gluten Free Gourmet -- I would type it up for you, but the book is at home and I'm out of town through the holidays.

eleep

I do think it's important to understand some of the medical classifications -- because they're different for some of these labels we sometimes group together as related illnesses. Fibromyalgia and CFS, for instance, are both classified as syndromes -- which means they're a cluster of symptoms that are generally seen in association -- not the same thing as a disease.

Syndromes are often labeled as such when the thing that makes these symptoms occur together isn't always known -- the underlying cause -- which could be a disease -- is still up in the air according to medical researchers. However, what happens sometimes is that the underlying cause is known, but the disease is still often referred to in common usage by its syndrome -- hence we have AIDS for HIV.

Anyway -- my feeling is that this has to do with why we see so many celiacs who were formerly diagnosed with syndromes and whose symptoms clear up when they go on a gluten-free diet -- not all people with CFS are celiacs, but many of the symptoms associated with CFS could be celiac as well. Were CFS a more definitively known entity, perhaps that wouldn't happen so much.

Don't know if I'm making much sense -- I just got out of a hot bathtub and I'm drinking a glass of wine before dinner. I have my first genuine date in a really long time and I'm trying to chill out.....

eleep

Kathy-Ann,

How long have you been gluten-free? Are you sure you're reacting to gluten and not to other foods? I ask because I continued to have reaction-symptoms on and off for a couple of months after I'd clearly eliminated gluten -- for a while, I thought I might have other intolerances (which is a distinct possibility, as many other people on the board can attest), but after playing around with a rotation diet, I couldn't pin it down to one food (except dairy -- which was a lactose-reaction -- and that's disappeared since I've healed a lot more).

What I eventually discovered was that my body was just really strung out and having a hard time adjusting for a while -- I had to dig in and focus on wellness, exercise, vitamins and lots of rest for a while and eventually started to feel a whole lot better.

eleep

Double-congratulations to your boyfriend on the defense! I'm also sorry you had to go through that and couldn't just celebrate in peace.

Erica

Wow -- this is great, everyone. I'm definitely going to Impromptu and the hiking ideas sound great -- although my brother seems to have his own mysterious plans about what kinds of outdoor activities we'll be doing (all I know is that he asked me to be sure I've packed my rainpants as well as my regular shell)! He's also been talking up some kind of Seattle underground tour...

Edit: Uh -- now that I'm looking at the weather, I realize that those rainpants may just be an everyday precaution! Wow -- looks like the Pacific NW is getting hit hard!

eleep

My late mother was diagnosed bipolar (I suspect mis-diagnosed since she was able to take Prozac towards the end of her life without swinging into mania), so I've always monitored myself for the symptoms. While I did have clear mood swings at times -- and decided swings into extreme fatigue or irritability, I really didn't think I could be bipolar because my "up" phases didn't really look like mania -- they were more like a sudden, inexplicable lapse into relieved normalcy. I had a couples counselor who thought I might be bipolar and in denial about it because I would get extremely frustrated with him when he'd ask me screening questions about mania. This was all shortly before or during my celiac diagnosis and, until I had the hard Enterolab proof and the ensuing proof of my increasing health on a gluten-free diet, I had to do a lot of patient waiting around while he kept that possibility open -- which meant that we were waiting to make a decision about putting me on medication for bipolar disorder.

Now, it's absolutely clear that my symptoms were all celiac-related. Given your daughter's age, it might be difficult to know exactly what's going on with her -- she may not be able to report to you about what she's feeling like internally with enough self-awareness and detail to know what might or might not be bipolar disorder.

eleep

My solution to this very same problem is that I'm going to work on seeing if I can start a local support group so that I'm at least getting some celiac-related face to face interaction with people (although I love the people I've met on the board!). I also have a friend who does auto-immune-related research -- actually, he does the fundraising stuff and his partner does the lab stuff -- I've decided I'm going to ask if he needs anyone to volunteer with grant-writing and fundraising.

eleep

On the high-end, all of Nars cosmetics are gluten free and they've got great lipsticks.

eleep

I'm okay with millet -- my acupuncturist actually recommended it for stomach issues since it's supposed to be very healing according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. However, until I found it in a package, the only source I could find was in the bulk bin at my local grocers -- which made me suspicious of cross-contamination since it was right next to the wheat flours. I generally haven't had a problem with bulk rice, since I can easily wash it, but the millet made me nervous because the grains were too small to be held in any of my kitchen sieves and I wasn't sure how to effectively wash it.

eleep

I'm going to be visiting my brother in Seattle from the 18th to the 27th -- I just confirmed my airline reservations.

I'm going to do a search on this board for restaurant recommendations and such, but I was also wondering whether anyone knew of stuff I should just plain do in Seattle while I'm there for the holidays -- I know it's going to be cold, but I'd be particularly interested in anything that might involve _hiking_ and _mountains_. My brother's a big hiker/kayaker and will definitely have some ideas, but I'd love to hear what anyone else has to say.

eleep

I'm cooking with a couple of friends tonight and one of the recipes we're using calls for coppa ham -- I just realized that it was on my shopping list. I'm going to have to run by the local Publix to shop after work anyway, but now I wonder whether it will be possible for me to find any that's completely CC free.

I haven't done the deli-slicer thing since I went gluten-free and I'd kind of assumed I would need to buy anything deli sliced first thing in the morning when the slicers are clean. Does anyone think there might be pre-packaged coppa ham that I could pick up instead? Hmmmmm -- a dilemma.....

Sorry for the double post -- slow board, quick fingers!

Hi Jerry--

For what it's worth, last Thanksgiving I was not yet gluten free. After a breakfast of rolls, lunch of crackers, and dinner of bread and stuffing, and a midnight snack of a giant bagel from grand central station, I woke up running to the bathroom to puke. I thought it was food poisoning at the time. My friend had eaten all the same stuff, however, and she was *just fine*. Go figure. When I put two and two together, months later, i realized that ALL my many instances of "food poisoning" were on just such abnormally high-wheat days...

But I'm now 5 weeks gluten-free and feeling fantastic already

This just makes me giggle -- I have friends who used to affectionately call me "the puker" -- although there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to what would set me off....

I am learning that people seem to go insane when marriages and long-term relationships split up. It's not pretty and very hard to stay above the fray when it happens. Vent away!

eleep