eleep

Sometime in the next month or so, I'll be driving about 8 hours to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Tennessee -- I was wondering whether anyone had advice for how to deal with visiting family. They're pretty cool and openminded people who I doubt will have any resistance or issues with my eating needs, but I want to both protect myself and not be too much of a burden as a houseguest and, of course, I doubt they fully realize the extent to which I need to be cautious.

Does anyone have advice or stories about dealing with this sort of thing? Is there an old thread I should check out? Pass it on!

Oh -- I should add that they live in Knoxville -- I should do a search to see about restaurants -- although I doubt we'll be doing a whole lot of eating out!

I also have a twin brother! He's also got symptoms that look a lot like celiac -- worse anxiety than I've ever experienced, however, and also a tendency to be pigheaded (okay -- I do that too sometimes). He's actually been to the hospital a number of times for what they thought were thyroid issues, but no clear diagnosis ever seems to have surfaced from that.

I sent him my Enterolab results and talked with him about what they meant a couple of times, but I don't think I got anywhere -- as my other brother pointed out, we don't know how my twin could ever handle going gluten free since he seems not to know how to cook at all and lives off of hot pocket-type things.

Frustrating, but all I can do is provide the information, discuss the risks of being an untreated, undiagnosed celiac, and strongly recommend that he see a doctor about this. It's nice to hear about people with siblings who are a little more able to accept their influence!

There's a pan-asian place called Chopstix that does sushi and various asian things -- I've had takeout sushi there and used my restaurant card -- they've even got packets of gluten free soy sauce!

There's an excellent Indian place way up in the north end of town called Chutnees -- I haven't eaten there since my diagnosis, but Indian food is generally pretty celiac friendly and the owner/chef is extremely conscientious. This is the next place I'm planning to go out to eat.

Other than that, I haven't really been eating out at all since I'm still healing and haven't really wanted to take any risks. There's also an Outback and a Carrabas on Archer Road near where Hops is.

eleep

I've noticed that my lips are getting redder (increased circulation? more B vitamins?), so that might have an effect on how white my teeth look.

eleep

Ditto -- I'm sorry you had to go through that -- I am recovered nicely from a glutening exactly three weeks ago -- in a week I think I should be back to normal, so a month is probably about right!

e.

I suspect it's the gut inflammation -- it takes a while for things to calm down. My reactions seem to be delayed by a day or two in any case and they don't "calm" very rapidly -- the GI issues kind of clear up a bit with a does of Immodium, but it takes a couple of weeks for me to feel right again -- and the GI stuff will flare up again on and off -- I think this happens when I don't baby myself in the recovery phase and let myself go ahead and have that cup of coffee, glass of wine or something else that's going to irritate my stomach somewhat. Also, if you think in terms of the autoimmune response, the immune system doesn't just shut itself off automatically -- so it takes a while for your body to get back in balance.

I have a friend who uhmm.. decided to "get it on" with his girlfriend while camping in the woods. MASSIVE POISON OAK everywhere. Interestingly enough, after he recovered he developed SEVERE allergies to everything from nuts to peanuts to shellfish to dogs/cats. Interesting!

I was just about to tell a similar story about my college roommate -- she and her boyfriend had horrific poison ivy _everywhere_.

I use the Fructis spray gel and I can highly recommend it -- it does dry crunchy, but then you just have to gently scrunch it (maybe with a little pomade in your fingers or not) and it softens and spreads into really beautiful curls with great hold.

Dingogirl -- I can totally recognize the "what will happen" impulse because I've got the same curious urge to push the red button and see what it does! Goes along with the "what will happen if we play gofish as a drinking game and drain this whole bottle of tequila in the process" urge from college! However, I've been finding it useful to channel that impulse into more healing oriented activities of late -- as in, "what will happen if I let this guy stick that acupuncture needle in the top of my head" -- and I'm finding that the results are really great -- and they help with the low moods considerably!

eleep

You know, realized I'm being the eeyore here -- I sincerely hope you don't end up feeling bad, you know -- I wish you all the doughnut joy that's possible in the world! I'm just being over-analytical about the whole thing!

Actually, this is purely hypothetical, but I felt "happier" a couple of days after my eel sushi glutening as well -- perhaps it was relief at having "escaped" (or so I thought), but I also suspect that it may have been a surge of adrenaline as part of the early sign of the reaction. I've been getting a lot more sensitive to the whole adrenal energy versus other energy thing lately because of the acupuncture and the stuff Carla's been posting on adrenal fatigue and I'm pretty sure that what I mistook for upbeat, happy mood at times was, in fact, more of an adrenaline thing.

Junel is safe too!

Oh god -- I'm going to have to go out and get some kinnickkinnick doughnuts _right_ _now_.

It took me four days to react to my last glutening -- in the meantime, I was a little stressy, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Then I had two days of really bad stomach stuff and fatigue. Then -- a few days later, really horrific depression which made me all insecure and weepy. The depression wasn't constant -- it's came and went, but it's was still way too much for me to want to handle on a regular basis -- I went through phases of deep pessimism, oversensitivity and total self-doubt -- those are, by far, the worst symptoms for me right now since I've got so much that I need to be doing and dealing with.

I was able to identify this stuff as gluten-related partly because acupuncture seems to have sped up my overall healing process to the extent that the depression was a markedly different experience from the normal, day-to-day me off-gluten.

I also briefly fell off the cigarette-smoking bandwagon -- and that was clearly reaction-related because I had cravings for the first time ever on the day I started having the D. -- which seems to indicate that my brain chemistry wasn't as resilient as I needed it to be. It was hard for me to do all the things I've been doing to keep taking care of myself.

Anyway -- this is partly just about me venting, and partly an example of my delayed reaction. I keep hearing from people that my reactions should diminish in intensity once I've healed enough but I'm not particularly eager to test things out on purpose!

My understanding is that Dove will clearly label anything that's gluten-containing in their products.

I haven't been pregnant, but I've been in the "nothing sounds good" boat. That's usually when I turn to my own comfort foods -- which are generally breakfast-oriented. Eggs -- I eat soft-boiled eggs with avocado for protein and healthy fat. I don't react to McCann's oatmeal, so I eat that with fruit on top and a little honey. Or, I'll have the fruit with yogurt -- frozen blueberries are my fallback fruit when I'm really in a bind because I've always got some in the freezer. Potatoes are good for me and I prefer them shredded in some way -- so I'll make homemade hash browns or have some tater tots (Cascadian or another of the no-additive brands -- I react to the Ore Ida).

I'll also do nuts and dried fruit for snacks and I can pretty much always get down an almond or peanut-butter sandwich on KinnickKinnick flax and sunflower seed bread. Avocados, again -- with cashews and a little red-wine vinegar and good olive oil, salt and pepper.

For vegetables, I tend to do a lot of spinach salads (if spinach is around) and I'll force myself to get through carrots because I need the vitamins -- usually it helps to have some hummus -- I'll do red pepper strips with hummus as well.

I don't like to do a lot of processed corn-syrup-type stuff, but I'd totally lost my appetite a few months back and really had a tough time keeping weight on so I was drinking Boost plus chocolate drink -- watch out for the chocolate malt flavor which isn't gluten-free

The eggs, however, are seriously my fallback! I don't know what I'd do without them!

I actually made a millet/chickpea pilaf this weekend, which was my first millet experience. It was quite tasty! I recommend roasting the dry millet in a skillet with a little oil beforehand -- it gets a nice, buttery kind of flavor.

My acupuncturist also recommended millet as a "stomach-soothing" grain -- I'm not sure whether that's the case or not, but he's been spot-on about everything else he's told me!

eleep

You know -- I think my Japanese Triumph dining card might be overcautious.....

eleep

The spicy tuna sauce isn't gluten-free -- not sure why, but after my eel experience I don't need to know.

No imitation crab.

I honestly haven't run into wasabi that contains gluten, but I've heard that it _can_ -- so I'd just ask them to check the label and let you know what's in it.

eleep

Just wondering since I've slacked off on yoga AND running for the past two days and I'm feeling a bit guilty about it since my accidental glutening was a week ago. I haven't been so thoroughly glutened in four months and back then I wasn't working out at all because my weight was so low, so this is the first time this has come up for me.

Do you workout or do any exercise after you've been glutened? If so, what do you do and does it help with symptoms? If not, how long until you get back to your regular routine?

You know, this might have something to do with delayed grieving -- if all the stuff about grieving being a process is correct. That is, once you get through the excitement of having something you can do to make yourself feel better -- and, of course, all of the distraction and stress of making major life changes -- you settle into a routine and begin to be able to process your feelings more -- you start to grieve more thoroughly and maybe realize that you're missing things you didn't originally realize you had an attachment to.

eleep

Okay -- here's my issue right now -- it's been a week since the glutening and I'm mostly now dealing with extreme depression-type issues -- blowing small things out of proportion, feeling hypersensitive, feeling hopeless about problems, etc.....

The rest of the time, I'm fine.

Any temporary solutions for dealing with the depressive aftermath? I've been exercising, taking my supplements and getting rest. I'm trying not to let this topple me, but could use a leg up -- someone mentioned something recently about Relacore -- would that help?

My understanding is that commercial buttermilk is a product fermented from skim milk, using a culture that does not break down much of the lactose contained in the milk.

Hmmm -- perhaps it's that I'm not as lactose-intolerant as I thought I was -- I didn't think I was reacting to buttermilk or butter -- certainly didn't have the same symptoms.

Buttermilk is fermented, so the sugars should be digested. Butter itself is supposed to be extremely low in lactose because the sugar separates out with the whey. However, there are some possible exceptions to this depending on how your butter is produced:

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eleep

Actually, could someone describe "normal" to me? Aside from stuff that doesn't break apart, float or generally indicate some kind of gastro-horror D., I'm not sure what "normal" size means!