gfp

I'm going to interject my own little bias here. I am a research scientist and I have been doing this for 20 years. I've worked with both MDs and PhDs. I have found that the average physician is not very intelligent, as I define the word. They learn to memorize series' of symptoms and events and assign a diagnosis to the best fit definition. They do not learn to think through a problem and consider alternative answers.

Hmm look what happened to art with the invention of the camera .....I wonder what will happen to GI's with the growth of computers:D

A doctor is not the mechanic, he's the guy in the parts store that knows a little bit about every car; enough to probably sell you the right parts in most situations, but not enough to help you if your cat gets her head stuck in the seat. Unfortunately the scientists, who are the mechanics, couldn't care less about healing someone. They just want to know why, not how to fix it.

Very rarely do practicing doctors try to act as scientists. They can't compete, it's not how they were trained. The ones that are capable of research usually stop practicing as physicians.

I disagree here.. I seriously think that is what the 10 yrs at med school is for. Its basically just training to stop you acting like a scientist.

I had a discussion with a friends wife who is an internationally renounded consultant vascular surgeon. (and she also has some patents so she's not dumb) she's now in charge of testing labs for a product she invented and sold to Boston scientific but she finds the whole science aspect outside of her training despite being a honors science student. I think that is what 10 yrs of med school does....

Its like when I was sharing the MRI with research Dr's and not a single one had any idea how to maintain or fix it. I know what you mean about stupid ... or as you say "not very intellegent" and its almost like dealing with children. You explain something pretty fundamental and they just look at you like they never graduated from science 101... but this seems to be from my expectations I think. I expect to be able to speak to them as an equal but they seem to want to put themselves on another level.... a bit like the old Royalty who made a point of not being able to read and write.

I think that we as a society have deified MDs, and it's the people with "unusual" ailments that pay the price.

Yes or we allowed them to deify themselves or a mix.

Its like "I spent 10 yrs studying medicine .. I am an MD... I don't need to lower myself to your level by grubbing about understanding how things work... I repeat I'm an MD....

My Dr. gave me a chewing over for doing my own stitches .. so I asked her why.... "well your not trained"

its not rocket science ... i used a sterile wrapped needle and thread, i disinfected it and washed it out.. what would you have done differently? Well .... ???? the only difference is I would have a scar where you did your incompetent stitching and you can't see the stitches with a naked eye on any of mine.

The only real reason I need a Dr. is to order tests and prescribe drugs I can't buy over the counter.

My last visit cost me 40€ to go in and say give me a prescription for 3 months aerius (desloratidine), its spring! The whole thing is just a gravy train .... i want spectacles they have to give me an eye test if its more than 1yr in France or 2yrs UK.... Yeah sure my astigmatism has changed.... ???? Result I lost my reading glasses 3 yrs ago and I have to manage without because I refuse to pay to find out my astigmatism is still astigmatism.

The same goes for lots of things ... need a vaccination you need a nurse to do it? Seriously junkies can inject themselves while stoned !

Interesting discussion guys. Especially about the bike. I didn't know that, but generally when I hit the bike trail I've got rollerblades on. I do have those foot clips on my bike, but I can assure you, I do not ride properly.

A good place to practice is on a static bike.

Its a lot harder to concentrate on traffic etc. and maintain a cadenence and because most people actually have been doing it "wrong" since childhood the second you stop concentrating you fall back.

Once you do it its actually easier, especially a touring cadenence of about 80 rpm .. to do a 100 rpm you need to be pretty fit and a sprint 120rpm is really only feasible for a seasoned cyclist....

BUT just getting it up to 80 will really help with burning calories and not building huge thighs.. (I guess most girls don't want huge thights, muscle or not ) buy you also go further and feel less tired (until you stop ) if your serious you can buy the little bike comps for $20 which will mark cadenence and beep if you drop below a level. 20$ isn't much compared to membership of a gym!

Im not trying to say you have to do it this way but if someone is cycling to loose weight (and its an excellent way) then they might as well benefit from it as much as possible.

This obviously involves eating sensibly as well but I think most people here tend to have healthier diets than the SAD....

I agree about the falafel mix, it totally rocks!!!

Have you tried the amarinth corn flakes? ..... WOW.... better than the 'real thing'

Seriously they don't seem to do (or its not exported) those products lthat are just plain horrible... everything they do seems to be good and my main problem is finding it!

Soooo, my question is why didn't my G.I. when he obviousy couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, suggest keeping a food journal.

Quite simply he wouldn't BELIEVE YOU.

If you take my earlier statement with a Dr. saying "It would hurt more if it was broken" then this illustrates this point. We all deal with pain at different levels ... I know I can control it ... just as an example I got stung by a jellyfish last week about 10 minutes before some other guy. I just went on snorkellng and ignored it .. the other guy ran screaming form the water .... I was looking for the shark (really) so I don't understand how a Dr. can look at my ankle and say "It would hurt more if it was broken"!

I have since learned Dr. need treting like small children to get any decent response. If he touches the ankle scream, pull away ... jump. I always assumed they needed to feel the bones .. they don't they are just trying to see how much it hurts since their ESP is temporarily suspended ... I mean presumably they all have ESP .. afterall they created the universe and everything in it so who am I to say how much it hurts ....

Last summer I had to have a small operation under my fingernail and the Dr's changed over in casualty so I ended up with another Dr. who thought the first one had aneathetisted it. After spending 30 mins depseratly looking through an Italian phrase book and dictionary with the other hand I finally managed to get him to give me the anaesthetic! Everytime I told him "it hurts" "io ho delore" he just smiled ... and it wasn't till I got to the point of asking if its possible to have an anaethetic it actually occured to him it might be nice! An idiot could have seen there wasn't any anaesthetic in since the finger wasn't all puffed up ...

But the point is Dr. ask you things but don't actually listen. They are just distracting you in the mostpart.

its like the GERD issue... they just dismiss it because you are not qualified (didn't spend 10 yrs learning to follow the service manual) to have an opinion over if it hurts, you have gas etc. etc.

In reality this is the reason for the biopsy.

"I feel better on the gluten-free diet" doesn't mean anything... the service manual says this is the test and that is the test!

There are good doctors, bad doctors, indifferent doctors, doctors that think they are gods.

Absolutely so bear in mind 50% of Dr's are below average!

Remember the other Dr.... had seen thousands of GI patients but never seen one with celiac disease? Someone said "nope you just misdiagnosed hundreds"

Remember Dr's bury thier mistakes ... and are pretty much protected given you need another member of the "we studied 10 yrs club" to testify against them and most Dr's misdagnose hundreds of patients everyday.

Putting your complete trust in the Dr. is like putting it in the walk/don't walk and not bothering to check the traffic.

NO, he just left me to be a prisoner of a drug. And what about the risks and side effects of taking acid uptake inhibitors for the rest of my life?? I am not a doctor basher either.

Bear in mind my GI is a close family friend ... and an outstanding humanist. You couldn't find a nicer guy... he recently took a leave of absense (from a well paid consultancy position) to work for free in Sri Lanka (after selling his second car to give to releif aid) and generous to a fault and i really like him as a person BUT ... would I put my life in his hands without questioning ... NO.

We are big Orgran fans (gluten-free/cf) and never had a problem with their products either. Orgran doesn't do anything else but gluten free products, not like other companies that do gluten free as an afterthought because they think they can make a quick buck.

I agree, they seem to make an effort and are dedicated to gluten-free .... I buy their products whenever I can and they don't seem to do bum products (by which I mean the ones you think hmmm I'll try that and end up eating the cardboard instead!)

ps. The falafel mix is EXCELLENT

Since Hunters blood work came back fine. The Dr says hes not sure if its Celiac, and to put him back on a normal diet for 2 mths then do a repeat scope... I told his nurse of the positve changes in him. She said well try it and if he gets negative reactions then let them know right away. UGH! I thought there were no false postives on biopsies? Why would he question it? He said there was "mild blunting" Does that change anything? I told the nurse to have him call me. But she said it wont be until this evening. Any thoughts?

"mild blunting"?

Well how loing has he been gluten-free? This is the whole problem with biopsy. In theory if you go gluten-free you are cured since the biopsy is after sometime hopefully negative but this is like saying your eyes are perfect because you can read the board with your glasses on!

Duh, I mean its not going to just get better if he keeps eating gluten! Reminds me of Spike Milligans epitaph "I told you I was ill" .....

Any common sense appraoch says "mild bluting" ... heck lets get him off gluten before any further damage is done. To me this is like getting a chest x-ray and the Dr. saying .. you just got mild emphyscemia, keep smoking and we will be able to tell if that is what is causing it!

Guys... do not count calories when you exercise. You will get depressed... I can run for an hour and not even burn off lunch.

Good advice but its not so much the calories that count (as you go on to say) ...

The benefits of the exersize go way beyond the simple process of burning calories.

To loose wait, you need to master portion control of your food, and eat better foods. To increase your over all health and the effectiveness of your diet you need to increase activilty level (ie exercise). That is the secret behind all "diet plans".

I think it depends on the individual, many people here are probably way above average on healthy diets to start off with but like everything else the whole approach needs to be properly planned. I know people who eat 9000 calories a day, 24 raw eggs every breakfast with protein shakes and still find it difficult to gain weight exersizing 5-6 hours 2:3 days but you need to be really fit to start out to do 5-6 hours of meanfingful exersize everyday.. I know I couldn't do 2 right now and I just came back from a camping vacation walking 20-30 miles a day in 100+ heat. I proably ate double my normal intake (lots of mozerella and gluten free pizzas in Italy) but I still managed to loose a few lbs (I have no idea exactly because I don't and would never own a scale which is possibly a worse idea than simply counting calories on exersize )

The problem is most people don't actually realise what they are capable of building up to.

Most track athletes gain weight in the off season but they up their calories when they are pre-season .. and cyclists even more so but you are correct in terms of the average Joe.

I actually paid my way through university doing semi-pro kickboxing and to maintain my weightclass I was doing 3-4 hours 2:3 days pumping iron, 20km running mon-fri (distance to uni x2) and 2 hours skipping on top of sparring (you can also make money doing this, especially if your a small guy because the heavyweights love fighting someone quicker and they genuinley try not to hurt you) and actual training. Sat and Sundays were days off where I cycled 100 miles+ with my buddy the amatuar racer unless there was a marathon or 10k race to do.

Anyway, they point was .... I decided to go up a weight class because it was getting increasingly difficult to do that amount of exersize and study. So I increased my calory intake first to 6000 then 9000 and still counldn't gain enough weight.. (actually it pushed me over so I was at the very bottom of the next weight class - not a good thing) and the only thing allowed me to gain enough weight to keep going was dropping the amount of exersize. Of couse I was an undiagnosed celiac

You can exercise all you want, but if you do not start first with what you eat you will make little to no progress, in fact you could very easliy backslide.

This is true for people who are not already well above average fitness but I just want to point out that if people persist they can get fit enough to eat what they want in terms of calories so long as they have the time and ability to exersize.

Im certainly not preaching.... Im just saying the facts not what I do.... I'm about as unfit as Ive ever been right now and you are absolutely correct that to start the catabolic process off and get fit enough to exersize you need to reduce your intake unless you happen to have a long history of hard exersize.

You've done a gluten challenge, and now you know for sure. Stop the gluten, and you'll get better. Your kids will survive a day or two of chocolate bars for breakfast!

Gotta say I agree..... its sounds pretty conclusive to me.

CALORIES BURNED IN 30 MINUTES OF ACTIVITY:

Bicycling:

leisurely/moderate: 300

fast w/o coasting: 450

Walking:

3 mph: 124

4 mph: 188

5 mph: 300

I looked this up too! Great minds think alike....

"when you walk you keep your heart rate in your fat burning zone but when you cycle your heart rate goes up and you leave your zone to convert your fat in to muscle instaed of loseing weight".

This is something I never thought of.....thanks!

One thing to take into account is most people don't cycle properly. Almost all people who have never done it in a club or competitively tend to use too low a gear and push the bike instead of spinning it.

Its practically impossible to ride a bike properly without toe clips or cleats ...(well its really hard even for someone who rides at an amatuar level) the proper way is to

Open Original Shared Link

see the importance of cadenence part.

OK, you might think this doesn't affect you, your not out to win a race ... but it does. When you have a cadenence of 80-100 rpm you are buring fat and building less muscle. The excersize stresses the red muscle fibres which use oxygen and this is then expelled via the pumping action which prevent lactic build up.

If you drop below 80 or worse 60 then you are pushing the white fibres and building muscle more like lifting weights and lactic acid will build up.

So if you want to loose weight you need ideally to get into the 80-100 RPM zone and this is hard without having your feet attached and being able to pull as well as push.

A friend who is a amatuer racer uses a spinner at home, these just attach tot he back wheel and they are not so expensive. He uses a cadenence of 120 for training (you can adjust the tension usually using fans)

I mention this beccause of the heat. Its relatively cheap and takes up little space when not in use and you can watch a video, listen to music etc. AND have it directly under the A/C

What an attitude! I haven't read the magazine, but my mom likes it.

I completely agree with you about the personal care products. I see gluten like poison and I don't like to have it anywhere near me. If I have to touch something with gluten, I wash my hands immediately. What is the point of putting on lotion with gluten in it and then washing your hands right away to get the gluten off - that would really help moisturize.

I wonder why the magazine doesn't see the difference between absorbing gluten through the skin (we all get that this doesn't happen) and accidently ingesting gluten that is on your skin.

I don't .... I mean if a product is enriched with "pure organic wheat protein" and that protein isn't adsorbed then why have the products? (rhetoric) Coconut oil is a large molecule as is aloe vera oil .. we obviously adsorb those (speaking as someone just back from a vacation )

The skin is our largest organ ... it is capable of adsorbing lots of things.

Do they end up in the gut? Probably not but this doesn't exempt neuro symptoms. If you are using an allover body cream even if its poorly adsorbed that is still a huge surface area ....

This is without even decending into an altiods type thread! The basis being if gluten isn't adsorbed then it must stay on the skin so a partner could ingest it.

Great, another thread bashing MDs. So of course I have to reply.

Of course another "I am god" thread so I have to reply.

The worst thing any patient can do is to try to diagnose themselves, because 99% of the time they will get it wrong.

Do you have proof .. 99% seems pretty steep and every time I have even been to a doctor and known what the problem is I have been right. Lets see when I broke my ankle is 3 places and ripped the ligaments I got told by the first Dr. it was a sprain and he didn't bother to x-ray, even if I told him I knew it was broken ot the ligaments snapped because I heard it happen... second Dr same thing ... third time lucky I get the consultant working casualty and it takes him 2 minutes to diagnose and then order x-ray's for confirmation but by this time I have been hobbling on it for 6 weeks and damaged it so it will never repair... so we are at 66% error here for doctors. I don't bruise .. I tell the dr this and they just look knowingly yet its true..

I think I am far more qualified than a Dr to say "it would hurt more if it was broken" as I have probably broken far more bones than most dr's. (my old GP when I was 18 was an exception but then I used to train with him for kickboxing)

That's why MDs go to school for 10 years, with 8 hour lectures every day, and than 8 hours of studying afterwards. That amount of time (10 years) is required for the process to integrate all the knowledge from the various disciplines of medicine.

Nope most Dr's have science backgrounds pre-med school and it takes 10 years to get the scientist out of them. Dr's are not scientists, they are just mechanics, they need to realise this. However most mechanics are sent back to training every few years as the cars they work on change, injection systems and engine management computers etc. but Dr's have no requirement to even be current with medical research.

When patients try to diagnose themselves sometimes they'll truly believe that they have a disease because many of the symptoms fit perfectly, but what they don't realize is that there are literally a 100 other diseases with the exact same or simillar symptoms.

It appears doctors are no different. Most of the people here most have gone through several MD's and specialists before being diagnosed. 10 years ago I was seeing a specialist GI with my GERD and related symptoms .(stomach/intestinal cramps., diarrhea). it is now established that over 50% of celeiacs experience GERD and at the time I mentioned this I was told it was absolutely not related.

Well guess what .. the same GI had probably seen 20 or so other celaics with GERD and told them its unrelated. When I mentioned the excessive amount of gas he told me it was just in my head... GERD doesn't make excess gas... and of course h. pylori was yet to be discovered so having GERD was just a symptom of not taking enough of the wonder drug ranitidine .. take 3 of these everyday for life and have a sandwich was the response after the gastric biopsy.

The point is WHY were thousands of GI's seeing tens or hundreds of thousands of patients with stomach/intestinal cramps., diarrhea AND GERD unable to actually link the two? I once had a car (UK Ford escort 1.3L) and it kept busting into flames ... I saw a mechanic but had no money at a service station and he just told me to remove the cranckshaft emmision filter and stick a coat hanger or used welding rod I could find in his forecourt (he couldn't give me one but casually diguarded one for me to use) ...

Why .. because he had seen other cars of the samne model with the same problems .... but Dr's seem uniquely unable to master this art. If its not in the service manual it doesn't exist.

So I don't think MDs are useless at all, unlike what some people claim on this board. If you want proof, than look at the rise in life expactancy over the last 50-100 years. All of that is due to good old medical science. For example if you had diabetes 50 years ago you'd die in weeks, now you can live an almost normal life. So who says medicine is useless?

What have GP's or GI's got to do with this?

The treatment of diabetes is thanks to science, not doctors. Doctors are not scientists, the last scientist doctor (excepting Warren and Mitchel and one or two notable exceptions) was Lister.

The term medical science is an oxymoron, medical science is stuck back in the 19C* in the same position as physcis was when Kelvin decreed all that was left was to calcualte the last 6 significant figures.

When Dr's do act as scientists they are ridiculed and the drug companies stump up the cash to pay MD's to ridicule them. Right now Hadjivassiliou is in the same position as Warren and Mitchel were ...

*Can you fix an MRI? you see Dr's have no clue yet any research physicist regardless of field and speciality could fix an MRI or other instrumentation from first principles. (I have first hand experience of this from timesharing an MRI with a hospital) You are using tools you don't even understand the physcis of and using microbiological science you can't understand. If you can't fix a relatively simple machine or understand a relatively simple machine like an MRI then what makes you think you know every cellular process of the human body?

That is OK, if like Newton you can say you need to stand on the shoulders of giants but first you need to get down off the pedestal which makes you think you are master of heaven and earth and realise you are just technicians.

I think the statement is just very honest.

I find all thier products excellent, even though they are hard to buy in France if I see them I buy them especially the gluten-free cornflakes with amarinth.

I doubt any of the major manufacturers can do better ... they have to buy from somehwere and in this case they seem determined to state that part of this is outsourced but the fact they recognise this and are implementing testing gives me more confidence.

Its a bit lie a resto where the waiter nods and smiles and says its OK vs one where he says they will do there best and scrub down the kitchen, use seperate pans etc but that they made fresh pasta yesterday and some may have got into the air even though they scrubbed down the kitchen.

The first one probably never even considered the possibility so the latter is IMHO a better place to eat.

Since experts in the field can't seem to agree on anything, it's a good thing that so many people who think they have issues with gluten are willing to take responsibility for their own health situations.

I guess this is what the editor believes she is doing? I dunno but either way there is a polite way to do something and an impolite way.

I think the way she said it is what counts, I mean I guess if she wants to lose advertising then its up to her and its not stoping anyone buying the stuff, just advertising in that mag but as someone else says sounds like a grumpy celiac being all to direct to me at its certainly not the way to talk to your readers if you want to keep them.

I mean camper vans have no proven health benefits to celaics but someone might want to run an ad in the mag because they figure celaics might WANT to hire a camper for thier vacation because then they are independant of finding places to eat. Not to mention lipstick is a cosmetic product that certainly can contaminate.

My website doesn't have any paid advertising (my decision) but I will advertise a gluten-free resto for FREE because people want to and if someone wants to rave over gluten-free cosmetics then its up to them ... so its a bit weird IMHO but she might actually beleive that the gluten-free cosmetics are just taking advantage of celaics ... if she had worded it nicely (I mean this is what editors are meant to do) it could have come across better???

Silly lady IMHO

They don't make any profit off of a diet.

Worth quoting again ....

You're kidding. I can actually buy that glucose drink they gave me for my GTT . And it would be good for me

Tell me more .... please

I'm guessing its just a salt and glucose mix, commonly used for rehydrating after D!

I've a few left over.... if you have an Italian deli they actually sell some stuff in a jar flavored lemon ..(brain fog atm so words escpaing me, typing in English is a challenge cos my girlfried is watching TV in French and I find it hard to think in one lang and listen to another when glutened) I really like it (as I say I think our body often knows best) .. its sold as a heartburn remedy for over eating but very common in trattori.

The stuff I got was just from a pharmacy, its was 100+ and We had walked all round most of Rome and I noticed my sweat had no salts and accompanying headache. I just asked for salt for dehydration and when I read the packet it said it could be used as a daily suppliment ....obviously different brand for you but you can buy similar dyorlite etc.

Another thing you can try is the soluble vit C ... same principle the bicarbonates are there for a buffer against the acid and you can usually find orange or lemon flavors .. if you replace the soda your getting vit C and a drink!

Get out of my head!!! On the first account, I have had that conversation with DH, almost to the letter. There's nothing like having to reshop everything all over again because you had to abandon your cart And there are few things in this world worse than a wal-mart bathroom.

You haven't been to France then

Just got off the flight from Rome and international Roissy airport has SQUAT toilets... for <$DIETY's> sake....

I mean its hard enough to hit a bowl... (I guess people get the point) not to mention I have my pockets full of passport and stuff ... UGGGHHHH

And there's nothing like going commando after an accident

And DH thought I was just trying to be sexy

I'm on a challenge eating everything I think I'll miss before my biopsy. Those pancakes this morning nearly killed me

I too, am dreading the holidays. My mom has already said that we're pretty much doing gluten-free thanksgiving so that I don't have to have two seperate turkeys and the like. We'll see how that goes, but I'm bringing all my own pans

Be really careful.... I have challenged myself a couple of times after accidental glutenings and I find that 2-3 days you can hold off the symptoms but there comes a point where I literally turn green (according to people with me who I have had to convince NOT to call an ambulance, I look that ill)

I'm really sensitive but I find that a pizza makes me no worse than a bread crumb so a couple of times i thought what the heck... I once managed 8 days of controlled D and C and cramps then got hit in the waiting room of casualty in Florence! The dr's were trying to get a piece of metal from under my nail (somewhat painful) when I turned green.... try as I might in my limited Italian I couldn't get them to understand I knew exactly what was wrong, why I was green and sweating like a stuck pig! And for the life of me I can't pronounce celiachia .... aggggh!

We don't skin either. We use red-skinned potatoes, and follow the same procedure as carla. I smash a clove of garlic or two and put that in while mashing, along with butter, milk, sometimes cheese or sour cream, whatever I feel like at the time. Just mash and add stuff until it tastes right.

For a really good mash try adding some dried cepes/porcini to the cream and a bit of butter then heat in micro till its all melted (put a plate over the top ) don't boil you just want it pretty hot to soak out the flavor....and add this into the mash the longer you leave warm the better as the flavor comes out and the dried mushrooms get tender, I usually cut them with scissors you can add some fried in butter button mushrooms as well ... just make sure the cepes are rehydrated first... and 'rince' the cup using a little extra cream...

goes really well with unskinned mashed pots... especially russets (red)

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Sorry you get the side effects

I don't get any of them! I have so much chronic inflammation in my stomach that I'm at risk for cancer, so it's important for me to keep the villagers happy

Yes, its a pain but if they work for you then thewy do work really well. Even with the side effects I got benefit and after resting my stomach for 2 months it was much better.

Now Im careful what I eat .... buckwheat gives me heartburn if I eat a lot.... etc. so I try and keep to lighter stuff, especially in summer its easier.

10 yrs ago i was told I'd be on ranitidine for life.... after going gluten-free I am nearly OK.... I can push myself over eating the wrong stuff or drinking champagne for instance so I avoid it. I have quite a few left and theyre expensive (more than most drugs) so I keep meaning to send them to my mom who suffers and hope she doesn't get the side effects.

There is another acid blocker as well whivch is nearly as effective can't remember right now but doesn't seem to give me such bad side effects.

Overall I think that they are a good thing but especially if you can get away with taking them in the short term as suggested to Lister.

My family and I are going camping and I dont know what king of food to bring does anybody have any kind of suggestions. The comments would be really helpful I dont want to starve for 3 or 4 days while everybody else eats delishouse food.

It depends where you are camping.... I just dragged a stove around italy and didn't use it once.

Lots of salads and stuff, fresh fish (when by the coast) etc. etc.

Got to buy those fries and try to deep fry them, but I have been symptom free after eating McD's fries - I read they say there are no detectable traces of gluten - they cause issues for some?

We covered this about 5 times but ....

1) The analysis they chose is a bit of a cop out, in other words aiming to give a negative.

2) Who really knows ... I mean with CC its always a risk and McDo's are hardly the least rushed in prep etc. so even if they are truly gluten-free then the risk of CC is reasonably high.

We all hear stories of them using the dedicated frier for some other product but also if a bit of bread falls in they are not going to notice and if they did wouldn't throw out the oil so its a risk everyone should take for themselves. (IMHO)

Prilosec isn't just for reflux. I'm on it because I have chronic gastritis, which is inflammation in your stomach lining, often caused by too much acid. I don't have reflux. Prilosec is a PPI (proton pump inhibitor) and makes your stomach produce less acid, thereby reducing inflammation. The term to take it is two weeks or however long your doctor perscribes.

It's also gluten-free.

The burning gurgling sounds like gastritis or an ulcer, and the prilosec helps with both.

True, its very effective but I get every damned side effect on the warnings. Aching muscles/back and headaches....

it does work really well though and I put up woith the side effects for 2 months and it made a big difference but i wouldn't take it long term.

So does this mean that my stomach has too much acid in it ? And is there anything I can add to a carbonated drink to get rid of the bubbles so I could drink it ? I used to be able to stir the bubbles out and be ok, but not anymore.

For some reason I could handle the soda flavored glucose drink when I had my glucose tolerance test.

I don't know what the difference is, but I didn't have any trouble at all with it. In fact, the nurse said that she had never seen anyone enjoy it as much as me. I'd buy it, if I could find it.

I was thinking this meant I could handle a regular soda, not diet, if I could just get the bubbles out.

Marcia

Yes and No ....

You could add a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda which would nullify the acid but in the short term create more bubbles and if added to a can would certainly overflow it and it would taste a bit weird and if you drank a lot elevate your sodium and blood pressure. Same adding regular salt.

better would be one of the rehydration things like the glucose drink.

I recently found them in Italy when I got dehydrated walking 30 miles a day in 100+ and I think they taste good... then our bodies often idenitify what's good for it, they are potasium and Magnesium salts and effervese in water. you could easily add to an orange drink or better still make your own fizzy orange/lemon with fresh juice

This is the same stuff added to soluble asprin to buffer the acid.

You could try a two stager with 2 packets (the ones I had said 2 packs a day as a suppliment) add half of one and it will take out the bubbles because they will nucleate round the natural ones then add the rest after to add back some natural fizz! I think you might need to experiment with taste!

Thanks for all the ideas. We live in a very small town in the middle of rural Missouri so we don't have any of those places. I wish we had a little more urban areas close to us.

parboil the fries before frying ....

To get the McDo "flavoring" you can add some beef stock to the water you use to parboil make sure they are dry as the water will evaporate off and make sure the pan is less than 1/3 full for safety.

Higher temp oils are best and you also adsorb less fat the faster you fry, parboiling means you get the crunchy outside and soft inside.

Buying the right potatoes is also a good start.... you want older potatoes and softer.

However overall I prefer Vincents leaving the skin on for most things ..and the only real thing I eat McDo style fries with is raw meat, either tartar or carpaccio for the texture.

DH gets on my nerves when he is eating something with gluten and then asks me "do you want some?" I usually give him "the look" and then he says "I'm sorry...I forgot". You would think he would remember after I have been gluten free for 6 months now. I think it is harder for him to understand since my symtoms were never severe. He has more stomach problems than I ever did, but he refuses to admit that it might be something in his diet that is causing the problems.

Most people have been really nice about me being gluten free. My mom's friend invited us over for the 4th and she even made some dishes special for me. She made this broccoli slaw with noodles in it and left out the noodles for me.

I think this illustrates the two main problems

1) People who knew you before diagnosis.

Well the problem is you were never quite open about symptoms. I mean who is! People always ask over dinner and my usual response is "you don't want to know while your eating" but seriously we don't say things like "oh last week (nearly) I pooped my pants in the mall" we keep them to ourselves.

GERD is OK to talk about ... brain fog .. heck we can't even describe in real words so we keep quiet about most of our symptoms or at least the regularity.

Imagine

..........."How was your day dear?"

......... "Oh I went downt he mall and did some shopping but then half way round the aisles in the supermarket I got stomach cramps and started sweating .... then my stomach started gurgling and I was almost doubled up in pain... but luckily I abandoned the trolley and walked in very smnall steps to fins the loo and then I had explosive D ... I thought it was finished until I stood up then again... but I went back and half an hour later my trolley was still where I left it so overall a good day .. how was your day?"

These people have seen us eat gluten all our lives or close and we don't talk about the symptoms in detail or frequency ... at best we might say "oh I had a bit of an upset tummy" sop when we discoiver what it is they don't remember our symptoms because we never laid it on thick....

I think the best method for this is to explain why we didn't go into the symptoms, remember some really embarassing times etc. like "that time we were at XXXX and I ran off to find a loo I actually pooped myself and had to leave my underwear in the bin for sanitary towels! (I actually have a little 1" swiss army knife I use for cutting the underwear - I guess people get the point)

2) You hit it.. FEAR ....

3) There is also the cultural problem of bread/wheat. Especially for Xtians or Jews who have a religious aspect to wheat. Its part of our heritage so to speak, not just communion or passover but everything from Manna to the 2 loaves. Bread and wheat has held a special cultural place.

The reason I am posting this is, to remind people to re-check ingredients on foods you think are gluten-free, because they've 'always been' gluten-free.

Well, my favourite chocolate is Lindt Lindor dark chocolate (with a cream centre). Last year it definitely had no gluten in it (even though it had a tiny bit of dairy and soy, which seemed okay and not causing a problem). So, I assumed (stupidly) that it was still gluten-free. Lately I've been having diarrhea and stomach pain, burning and tearing eyes and rashes again (amongst other symptoms), and didn't know why.

All those cleared up these past two weeks, because I ran out of chocolate and didn't have time to buy more. Yesterday I got some again and ate half of it. Not doing too well today, still not cluing in, I ate a few more pieces. Enter Susie, my youngest daughter (14), who comes up, says, "Can I have some of your chocolate?" I agree halfheartedly (kids always wanting MY treats, when they can eat anything they want, grumble, grumble), and she takes some. While chewing, she turns the box over and reads the ingredient list, saying, "Mom, are you sure you should be eating those, they have Barley Malt extract in them!"

Ouch, leave it to kids to make you feel stupid. There goes my favourite treat! I am glad that she is paying attention (sometimes) and cares about what I eat.

So, the moral of this story is:

Read the ingredients of products you buy every time you buy them, never assume they have the same ingredients as last time you bought them, they may suddenly contain gluten!

Second moral is have someone else read the labels!

My girlfriend (edited to stop sating gluten-free) always double check for me. We (humans) like to hear what we want and so if you want chocolate its easy to skim the labels and rely on "it was OK before"

Its not often but sometimes my gluten-free finds something I missed ... if you have brain fog then you can probably mutliply the risk x10 ....

awww so sorry you are feeling bad... every so often I'll be eating something that I've eaten a dozen times and all of a sudden it will occur to me to check the label, usually I'm safe, but that ONE time that I've made a mistake means that I'm in for weeks of misery... So I am absolutely neurotic about checking and triple checking labels, and for some reason the rest of my family doesn't seem to "get that".

Yep very true ... however I think the most dangerous things are those with some CC or trace gluten we only partially react to. I guess we all have comfort/safety foods. For ages I had some corn tortilla chips and had sporadic symptoms always the same brand and always unflavoured ... then one day my gluten-free points out "made in a factory using wheat" I swear it was new .. but I had been getitng progressively worse.

My belief is that we eat stuff like this and its just below a trigger but gradually builds up. I get little spots (not DH) but id put money they contain gluten ....

The problem is if we ate this once we would probably be fine but the real danger is in your regular comfort foods!