gfp

  psawyer said:

I don't drink vodka often, but when I do my preference is Smirnoff. It is made from corn--no gluten-source grains to worry about, even if you don't believe in distillation.

Caution never hurts....

To me its a bit like making a habit of wearing a seat belt.

The chance of any single bottle of grain vodka containing gluten is probably really really small (frankly its impossible to calculate from theory alone but its very very small)

However if you drink outside the house you are sampling quite a few bottles. Presuming your not a problem drinker with a bottle a day then a bottle of Vodka will last quite a while whereas in a bar they can empty that bottle and go onto the next... plus you might have one in one bar and a second somewhere else.

If your the sort of person who likes say 1-2 drinks after ork (and I mean just 1-2) this adds up pretty quickly to potentialy lots and lots of bottles sampled ... say 200 times a year with 2 drinks a day from seperate bottles.. means your potentially drinking from 400 a year..

I never had a car wreck, well one someone ran into me whilst stationary but in the same way its sensible to wear seat belt, not because that one 5 minute trip to the convenience store is likely to be 'the one' but simply because its something we do very often.

I view grain alcohols the same way... I probably drink about what I quoted above .. 1-2 per day, probably 4-5 might a week..

  silk said:

I'm just curious. I have been gluten free for the past two weeks and after years of barely ever remembering dreaming at all, I have had really weird and vivid dreams and nightmares for the past week or so.

It seems like I read somewhere here that someone else was having a similar experience but I can't find the post now.

Are there others who have experienced this and is it related to being gluten free and if so, can anyone explain why?

Yep, its heroine withdrawal... or VERY similar.

Gluten is classed as an exorphin, it binds to the opiate/endorphin receptors and you are basically undergoing a type of withdrawal.

Unfortunately gluten doesn't bind very well to the receptors, it actually damages them. You may also be experiencing a bit of depression and mood swings.

It will go away.... you might dream a little more vividly than before (think of it as being drugged with something that makes your brain all fuzzy) but the nightmares will dissapear. The second part is you are probably adsorbing MORE in the day. Dreams are a time when this is organised but removing gluten has probably mean't you are seeing/hearing more... most normal people filter this automatically and irrelevant detail is taken out. Some of us have to actually do this almost manually and by force of effort .. I happen to be one of the latter (unfortunately) I find crowds overwhelming and easily suffer information overload unless I actually exert an effort to filter.

Perhaps those others can share techniques for this ... (but be warned it might sound very strange and you might not be in this class)

I personally imagine rooms full of cabinets with cabinets full of files and files full of folders. The rooms themselves are in areas of similar subject including a whole area marked TRASH.

During the day I imagine 'filing' everything loosley.. I put thoughts about TV shows or celeb gossip into TRASH. I put thoughts about work into one area, fantasy in another (nope I won't go further on this one, Im guy just guess!)

I'm presently learning Italian for instance and this gets put rather untidly in the Latin Languages rooms unless I make a bigger effort and put it in Italian.

This means i get terribly mixed up with French and Spanish until I actually organise these loose files.

Celiac info has its own room for instance ...

This is sorta what most people do automatically I just have to exert a will over it and I adsorb more random information than most people in the coarse of the day.

To make life simpler I deliberatly stay away from sources of dense information unless they are relevant. If not I have to manually throw these out.

Examples are film credits .. I will switch off the TV, walk out of the film or just close my eyes to avoid seeing film credits, if I don't I remember every damned irrelevant line. Random stock info on tickers is a killer and programs with news in the ticker on the bottom...

Since I'm a bit weird (my brain seems to be missing some mechanisms) I actually have to deal with this manually but 'normal' people do to, they just do it unconsciously. The more of this irrelevant info you can miss out on in the day the less your mind has to organise in your sleep.

Perhaps you could try some or all of these techniques and by simplyfing the brains organisation the dreams become less vivid and 'disorganised'. (If the dreams jump around wildly for instance) .. Are the dreams lucid? Can you actually control the dreams? Are they logical or illogical? Are they jumbled following a theme or jumping erratically?

I haven't had nightmares since I was a child, I find I can turn the most irrational nightmare into a lucid dream by force of will. Like being trapped in a burning tower block I will turn around and force myself to find a way out.. it might be 'hard work' in the dream but I somehow do it.

What buffetbride and AnneM are describing are called DAMT (dreams of absent minded transgression).

These are actually positive, studies show that people having these after quiting smoking for instance have a better chance of success than controls subjects.

  Pyro said:

I can't get full like I used to. Either I'm hungry, not that hungry, or unable to eat anymore and near dead. Maybe I'm hallucinating, but I thought there was an inbetween where it felt like the stomach was pleasantly packed but not too full. I haven't experienced that in forever.

Pyro, sorry but the answer might depend on your weight and body fat ratio...

Simple explanation:

The body only has one way of saying its missing something... actually its two but they are both overlapping.

The body has a hard time differentiating needing protein, carbs, salt and even nicotine...

Think about it we just feel 'hungry' like something is missing and we get stomach gripes... (these are the two overlapping mechanisms but both are broadly hunger.

Ok so its a bit more complex... the body seems to be able to give subtle signals.. like cravings for salty food or other types and even pica type behaviour. (We did a whole thread on pica once)..

As an example I had a friend who was working out a lot and was getting cramps not to mention little heart flutters. After working out she went and got chinese food.

I gave her some potassium and magnesium salts and the cramps disappeared along with the craving for Chinese food.

My reasoning was she was craving salt because she had a potassium and probably magnesium inbalance and eating more sodium just made it worse but her body was just craving 'salt'.

I got her to supplement for 3 days, especially before and after workout with a baby diarrhea supplement and introduced K rich foods like apricots and bananas and it hasn't come back.

This is possibly the same thing... you are eating because your body is missing something BUT it doesn't know quite what!

Even after you eat it still needs this 'something' and so you still feel hungry.

  Ursa Major said:

Wildcat, if you've been off gluten for about a year, there is no way that eating wheat for two weeks will be enough for an accurate diagnosis. It is more like at least three to six months of eating about four slices of bread every day. And even then you might still get a false negative.

Well you can't really be definitive, its possible for the blood tests to be positive after a week depending what they call 'significant', just unlikely it is significant... the problem is you have to eat enough to be really ill, regardless of the time it takes. The problem is if you do two weeks your results will be compared to a 'norm' of 6 months... and I doubt they will then say "but you were only eating for 2 weeks so we will take the small positive as diagnostic... " and the most likely outcome is "you have mildly elevated antibodies... keep eating wheat and we will test again in <insert a random period based on your insurance>. "

As Ursa say's for the biopsy to be postive will take MUCH longer. On on top of this the nature of the biopsy makes it a lottery, if they sample the correct places or not... and the only way to be sure is by destroying pretty much all the villi. By this time you will be VERY sick ...

Continuing as Ursa said

  Quote

You see, your intestines have healed by now. In order to get positive testing, you'd have to actually destroy your villi again, making yourself very ill, possibly causing irreparable damage in the process. Not to mention malabsorption, the rash you get (which sounds an awful lot like dermatitis herpetiformis to me, which is the outward manifestation some people with celiac disease get), and possibly other autoimmune diseases you may trigger.

I believe that it would be a foolish and dangerous thing to do. I bet if your doctor would have to face the choice he is giving you, he wouldn't do it to himself. Or his wife or child, for that matter.

I so wish I didn't agree so strongly... especially the latter part!!! The danger is the damage won't properly repair ... you trigger something nasty.. etc. and also because of the maladsorbtion this just spirals... even when you stop your body is in such a mess with destroyed villi and maladsorbtion that it is incredibly hard to turn this around. Your body needs nutrients to repair but can't get them... the very trap we started off in.

  celiacgirls said:

This is something to think about. Back in the pre-gluten-free days, my oldest one would explode and hit the younger one. Now that the oldest is better, I see the youngest one isn't just sitting there innocently when this happens. So I realize she probably isn't as "perfect" as I think about her diet. Unfortunately, I can't threaten her with homeschooling because she would like to be homeschooled. I will talk to her about the importance of eating nothing other than what I send her or she knows without a doubt is ok and we will do followup blood testing in a few months.

Just a thought but I wonder if by giving some responsibility to the eldest regarding the diet of the 9yr old you might solve two things at once and there is little to lose?

My experience is kids can be far more responsible when they have a younger kid they are responsible for...

The flip side is it might instill some responsibility into the 11 yr old as well. It might not help but ??? the downside seems pretty small?? By 11 she will probably take more responsibility for her little sister than for herself... ???

Sympathetic though i am to those who have problems loosing weight on a gluten-free diet many of us actually have the opposite problem.

I know my issues are complex, involve not eating regularly etc. but also some adsorption issues. Heck, I'm typing this now wondering if I should go out and if I can be bothered to eat knowing full well if I don't it will be 8PM before i do...

  Fiddle-Faddle said:

I don't believe an endoscopy SHOULD be considered the diagnostic gold standard. It's simply not as accurate as bloodwork and dietary response.

Worse still it can lead to false negatives that are very hard to then retract!!!

Depending on the knowledge of the GI the danger is a negative biopsy can lead to a diagnosis of 'IBS' or something non specific even when blood tests and dietary response show the opposite.

At best getting a positive biopsy means deliberately damaging an internal organ in a way that might never be fully repaired.

If the biopsy is to look for complications or other things that is a different matter but as a diagnosis for celiac its worse than useless and contradicts the maxim "do no harm" ... I have heard of cases where a biospy has been negative and the patient has then been told to eat more gluten for longer to get a positive result. The only interpretation of this is to ask a patient to deliberately damage themselves in order to fulfill a criteria. Outside of watching House M.D. I can't think of any other doctor who would deliberately harm a patient to make a diagnosis??? Especially when the patient is already responding to the 'cure' which in this case is a gluten-free diet.

As ravenwood glass points out ... delayed reactions are not only possible but seem common for me.

This can be UTTERLY FRUSTRATING ....

I find I have random events for 4-6 WEEKS ... the first 1-2 days Its 'mostly' then the rest of the week its diminished .. then its like my body suddenly finds this bit that was locked away and I randomly get glutened.

Previously I had 100% control on my diet.. 100% gluten-free kitchen... and everything I ate made from fresh ingredients, no tins, packets or anything. This is how i found out how long these delayed reactions last. The ore gluten-free experience you get... and the more little slips the more distinctive the feeling becomes. We talk about 'brain fog' etc. , its a very specific feeling...

I agree, you were LUCKY to get diagnosed... sad as that is it's a reality.

As for 'help' ... Again you were lucky in a funny way. Most Doctors have no idea what gluten-free diet entails... they just never considered the issues like cross contamination or hidden gluten.

The help they are able to give is likely more harm than good. Lets presume you know its obvious you can't have normal bread and pasta... the lists likely just say 'cookies, cakes ....etc. etc.) so if you follow his chances are you're still getting gluten and wondering how/why??

This forum will really help much more.

Hang about, read old posts, do searches from cross contamination or hidden gluten etc.

Well I never saw any NEGATIVE side effects to them...

How good they are??? Hard to say but I personally believe that the Western diet has removed them almost completely.

An interesting statistic is that many Mediterranean countries have longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality etc. than the UK, US and countries where these are removed from the diet.

I eat a lot of raw food, including eggs (FREE RANGE ONLY), unpasturised cheeses (sheep and goat cheeses) and raw meat (Carpaccio, prosciutto crudo, Breasola) and drink raw goats milk when I can find it. And I also get the active yogourts.

I know millions of French and Italians who eat this reguarly yet I never heard of anyone actually dying from it!

This doesn't mean people might not get a little tummy bug from time to time, it just means they are not dying from it nor their babies...

When I was in France and eating Fresh food almost exclusively I didn't bother supplementing the pro-biotics. Now I'm in London and its near impossible to find fresh food I can eat I think it might be a good idea. (Not that I'd eat raw beef in the UK anyway, the quality is terrible)

So I can't give a definitive answer.... my personal preference is to get these naturally... raw cheeses, yogourts etc. (for instance one important pro-biotic is found in sheeps stomachs and this is exactly the part used to make natural rennet. Hence if the cheese is unpasturised the cheese becomes a culture of this (its a while since I researched this so I forget exactly which one).

Lacking this I think pro-biotics can be a good idea.

Funny thing...

I worked onsite for a week and the only food I could find was crisps and the new walkers corn tortilla things.

I got accused (in a light hearted way) of being sponsored by Walkers.

Nikki ... I agree on the codex stuff.. however I do think walkers make more effort than most. In a bizarre chance I was in England the weekend they made the error and actually got one of the suspect packets before I found out and reacted accordingly.

I might be getting some low grade gluten from the S&V and corn tortillas, its hard to say because I got so essed up a week or so ago and I'm still paying the price of risking going to an Italian resto with my Italian class .. (I'm learning Italian now I'm stuck in London)

  celiacgirls said:

My 11 year old has been told I will home school her if she continues to cheat on her diet. I can not go back to the way it was when she was eating gluten. She was defiant and could even be violent. It was terrible.

This is my 9 year old. I really don't think she is cheating because she comes home and tells me about the smallest things that aren't perfect that she does. If the teacher tells her and her friends to be quiet, she will come home and tell me, all upset that she was ''bad".

It honestly never entered my mind that she could be cheating until it was suggested here. Maybe she is. It almost makes the most sense because I feel like I am extremely strict and careful. My oldest one acts so badly when she has gluten that I don't take any chances.

Rather weirdly .... I am an older brother... and my brother 2 yrs younger.

I was the 'bad one' at school .. my brother the 'perfect student' .. etc. when my younger brother got a skateboard I wasn't allowed because I would kill myself .. when he was 16 he got a motorcycle ... I wasn't allowed etc. etc.

Like your 9 yr old he would come home from school and recount the smallest things and be upset... (and I think he genuinely was) but he was the one for instance smoking at 14 .. and the one who later did hard drugs..

My parents were utterly convinced that any trouble was me... yet he made far more. He relied on being my brother at school. That is I was regarded as someone not to mess with (with good reason) yet I never went looking for trouble, its just if someone did try and bully me I would make sure they spent at least a week off school, preferably in hospital. At times this involved kids much older than I was and I was often having arms broken etc. by kids 3-4 yrs older when they tried to push me about. With the way English schools worked by the time my brother got to the same one as me noone would even attempt to bully me because my response was always as violent as possible (bearing in mind I was always small).. which got me rather a bad name at the school that my brother used to maximum potential.

All this time my parents thought he was goody two shoes .. when in reality he would deliberately provoke kids often 2 yrs older than me and then run to me for protection....

I never told my parents but certainly in the latter part of school from 11 on most of the fights I got into were the result of my brother ..

One incident I'll recount when we were 11/13 or perhaps one yr older ...

We were messing about making gunpowder and my brother (for some reason) threw a lit bag which hit me in the forehead. I got pretty bad burns before I jumped into the nearby canal.

I hid my wet clothes, bought a dressing with my lunch money and didn't tell my parents it was him ... and instead said it was some kids messing about with fireworks. My parents were divorced and it must have been a Friday and we spent weekends with my father.. he presumed my mother had me to the hospital and visa versa on the Monday...

A week later ... we were playing with some minature darts .. basically a pin on the end of a stick of balsa with flights and one hit my brother. Knowing I would be in trouble for even making these I begged my brother not to tell, he really had a tiny pinprick... I still had a huge bandage and had got a HUGE tetanus a week late when my parents finally found out neither took me to the hospital.

He of course told my father immediately...

My brother never was and still isn't a bad person... however he certainly wasn't the little angel my parents both presumed.

In many cases I just took the rap for him... I don't know why, perhaps its what big brothers are meant to do???

p.s. I certainly did have mood issues .. and of course looking back its easy to see why with the gluten and all but perhaps your eldest is just less secretive about small stuff... and perhaps she is also looking after little sister as well.

  celiacgirls said:

My daughter had a variety of blood tests done by an Environmental Physician. Apparently, he routinely looks for gluten intolerance. Her antigliadin Abs, IgA was 2 (positive > 4) and her IgG was 14 (positive > 9) She has been eating gluten free for 18 months. Does the positive IgG mean she is getting some gluten some where?

I am very careful about gluten. We hardly ever eat out and our kitchen is gluten-free. I don't even bring body products into the house with gluten. I will go over everything again, but how likely is it this is just leftover antibodies from 18 months ago?

Or she is just eating other kids food...

Of course every parent will say 'but my kid doesn't smoke/do drugs/insert here' .. my mom certainly did but she was certainly wrong, just like all my friends mom's.

  Mango04 said:

Does the company process flavors that are not gluten-free (first see if you can find that out - maybe on the company website)? If they do, your best bet is to call the company. Ask them if they process the flavor you want on dedicated gluten-free lines. If not, ask them about their policies regarding cleaning shared equipment in between batches.

Walkers are quite good...

A while ago they had a CC problem with the 'old' cheese and onion line (at that time non gluten-free) contaminating the salt and vinegar and they came clean so I tend to trust more than most.

However, I really can't be bothered saying more when the poster cannot even be bothered to type 'someone'.

I find this extremely offensive, someone whom expects me to answer a question they cannot be bothered to formulate so i guess it will be the last post of mak07 I bother to answer until they learn English.

  kbtoyssni said:

England has much better labeling laws than the US so regular grocery stores have lots of food with a gluten-free logo. They also have tons of great tasting sweets! I bring cookies back with me because they're much better there.

Better is subjective...

In the UK gluten-free doesn't mean gluten-free, it means less than xppm gluten.

If you just do a gluten-free lite diet then this might be OK, otherwise you need to be very careful... for instance dextrine and malto-dextrine can both be derived from wheat in the UK and the label still say gluten-free.

  loco_ladi said:

not sure why but the link did not work for me so am posting it again for you:

https://www.celiac.com/articles/222/1/Glute...ages/Page1.html

also I have gone out a few times myself and as long as I stick to the list I have had no problems!

get out enjoy and send us a picture of your bloodshot eyes in the morning, your way overdue for a hangover!

Unfortunately that list is full of errors.

Some are so basic as to be laughable; were they not to make us ill whereas other are more degrees of certainty.

Seriously though, would you trust a list says "Mead - distilled from honey." when Mead is not distilled but fermented?

If the list is wrong on something so basic as this how can you possibly trust your health on it?

For instance (and this is still one item of BS on that list, sticking with Mead)

Braggot a type of mead is made with malt... but the whole list is so full of errors its hardly worth trying to correct them and so far from scientifically accurate it is worse than a joke. I would,'t know where to start pointing out the inaccuracies in that list they are so diverse and Scott is certainly not interested in FACT or likely to correct the list so I see no point listing the many errors... since they will not be corrected.

  Bully4You said:

the spices themselves should not contain gluten - HOWEVER - some companies put gluten in spices to help keep them from clumping or whatever. I am not sure which brands are safe; I'm sure someone else will answer that, or you can search for safe spices.

The safest option is to buy whole spices and grind them your self.

Coriander,cumin,star ainseed,black pepper -> THESE JUST GENTLY ROAST THEN PUT IN A MORTAR AND PESTLE

cinnamon,nutmeg -> NEED GRATING

black cardamon,green cardamom,bay leaves,clove -> THESE I PUT WHOLE IN A MUSLIN BAG AND COOK IN THE CURRY AND DISGUARD AFTER

ginger,pimento -> DRY YOUR OWN FROM FRESH ... WITH GINGER YOU CAN EVEN USE SOME OF THE PART YOU USUALLY THROW WHEN USING FRESH

Turmeric powder -> STILL USE THIS AS POWDER, BUY A GOOD BRAND

  numbfeet said:

. As far as I am concerned that is one of the reasons I pay taxes - to pay experts to do it for me when I cannot.

Yeah, I pay taxes too. You'd think the government would pay someone to help me fill out tax forms to my advantage too?

Strangely, when I do my own (boring as it is and pressed for time as I am) I end up paying less tax.

I find the same with my health research, the more I know myself the better the results when interfacing with 'medical professionals'.

  blueeyedmanda said:

I am sorry to hear this, now that you are aware of them is there going to be some kind of treatment?

B6 and gluten-free diet works well!

  Yellow Rose said:

I told her he was an idiot and didn't know what he was talking about that if she had the antibodies she had Celiac just like I did.

Really what else counts?

I look at it this way...

If I get a chest biopsy and its negative for cancer does that mean i keep on smoking until its positive?

The whole basis of the biopsy is you damage a important organ so someone can see it's damaged... if you are reacting to the protein and producing antibodies this seems as stupid as keeping smoking until you have lung cancer IMHO...

Non celiacs do not produce antibodies... regardless of if the damage is visible you are causing harm. I think you are 100% correct.

Yes (putting the same amount of effort as the original question)

Grr....

annoying as it is this sort of accident will always happen. Its annoying but its just life and no point blaming yourself. You identified the risk so that's a big plus...

Its a toughy...

I think many of us go through stages but there are often plateau inbetween.

For me after 6 months I thought I was gluten-free ... and 6m-1yr I stagnated .. then after 1 yr I went back to basics.

Everything made myself... no gluten in the house at all.

It coincided with me moving and I just threw out any dodgy items and kitchen utensils and the like. Also I really identified things that were iffy. I used to get some tortilla chips which I found out were made in the same lines as some flavored ones. I stopped eating this type of food as well.

This was like a final bit in the puzzle for me.

Wow .. you pretty much caught all the gotchas.

I think your less confused than you think .. perhaps dazed ...

You probably are getting some CC (search cross contamination on this board) in the kitchen.

OR

it could be withdrawal... it affects some of us more than others.

Personally I think the amount of withdrawal is probably linked to how much 'other' damage we are doing ourselves. Other meaning non-digestive tract damage.

My best advice (what I wish I had done) ... and I realise you can't just do this easily.

Make all your own food in as risk free environment as possible. Remember knives and forks, cutlery ... butter and condiments etc. as well as dishcloths are all potential sources of CC. The FASTER you get through this part the better. If you keep getting glutened, even by small amounts its 3 steps forwards and 2 steps back...

Like many things in life going gluten-free and the resulting knowledge and symptoms tend to be big steps of good and then longer plateaux where you seem to stagnate. Often we then find a new CC source or something before finding the next level. Most people here have anecdotes and gotchas.

Pasta can be difficult. The hard part is the stickyness/consistency .. I have made it a few times but its hard to roll out as unless you get it just right it either stcks to the machine or falls apart.

Although I love pasta I just cut down and buy the pre-made stuff.

I sometimes try thicker pasta like canelli which can be rolled thin enough by hand.