the difference with gluten sensitive / intolerance?

With Celiac there is no anaphylactic reaction. Everything happens in the intestings. Some people have dermatitis herpetiformis, which is a skin condition and presents itself to people with Celiac.

However, any contamination, no matter how small or slight, prevents healing and can cause damage if you have already healed. This is very real and serious.

This is why Dominos has a statement that says their pizza is not meant for Celiacs. They use the same utensils for all pizzas. The laddle that puts sauce on a gluten filled pizza will be used on a GF pizza and will lead to contamination. The same would hold true in your house. Some utensils hold on to gluten better than others. A old metal colander will keep gluten in nooks and crannies even after being washed and you might need to replace it.

Hi, My Dad is Celiac but didn't get diagnosed for years. It got worse and worse (giant hives, fatigue, stomach pain). So even if your son has a mild case now you may want to switch to GF.

As far as eating GF, homemade bread tastes the best. You can try going into an Indigo or Coles to check out the cookbooks (there are usually GF ones easily available now). The basic ingredients can be expensive and as there is no gluten (the binder in the recipe) it can be frustrating to bake (very fine powder all over the counter, cookies that won't hold together, bread that doesn't brown). Healthy Gluten Free Life is pretty good: http://www.amazon.ca/Healthy-Gluten-Free-Life-Delicious-Dairy-Free/dp/1936608715/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347070638&sr=1-1

Loblaws (and some Sobeys) have a great GF section in the freezer but be careful as a lot of prepared foods and mixes (especially the cake mixes) have crazy high sodium and sugar content. Bob's Red Mill also has a pre-mixed GF flour that you can use.

My guess about the pizzas is for people like Lady Gaga who are on the diet because they want to loose weight or some other non-medical reason. I know most of the 5 Guys I go to ask if me if there is a medical reason for no bun. I can think of a few other restaurants who ask the same question.

For those in with a mere gluten intolerance, there's a chance to glean wisdom from the body, make a positive change, and release the intolerance. Not only have I done this myself (I had a very serious intolerance but not celiac), but I have helped others. Read more here: http://bridgenosis.com/2012/08/how-eliminating-a-gluten-intolerance-with-hypnosis-helped-one-leader-get-promoted/.

I would be really cautious about eating at restaurants. I was almost asymptomatic before I was diagnosed with Celiac but my reaction to trace is pretty strong and I have enough scarring that after 7 years on a strict GF diet I still have malabsorption. So while you may think that being low on symptoms before diagnosis would indicate a lower reactivity, that's not always the case.

If he gets "glutened" there's nothing you can do about it. He just has to be really sick for a while... no way to stop the symptoms. So in my opinion it is better to avoid getting sick than take risks and hope it's not too bad if it happens. One time I lost 35 lbs in a week from getting glutened because my reaction was so intense.

My husband is diagnosed with non-Celiac gluten intolerance. For him, and for people who are following a GF diet because they think it is a health craze (LOL), the Dominos pizza (and most GF restaurant foods) would be safe. For anyone with Celiac, it's not. A lot of chains have a special "Celiac menu" but in my experience if you're at a chain that's not in an urban area the cooks won't be that careful because they don't have very many Celiac customers and as a result they don't get the seriousness of contaminating someone. I get served the wrong plate all the time and the only reason I know beforehand is because it happens so often that I am totally neurotic about examining my food. Before I go to a restaurant I check reviews of the Celiac menu online and look for places with reviews like "I am diagnosed Celiac and very sensitive, I eat here all the time and I've never gotten glutened". Otherwise I just eat in.

To be honest I would steer clear of GF bread and pasta, and most of these "substitute foods". Most GF bread is not so good until you develop a taste for it which, personally, took me a long time -- and I am pretty open to wacky foods. And at $9 a loaf, the fact that it just tastes like stale low quality bread adds insult to injury. I would consider steering your whole household slowly in a direction that is lower gluten and consider getting your carbs from other stuff, like rice, quinoa, corn, whatever non-wheat grains are affordable in your area. There is a lot of good food that is inexpensive and healthy and doesn't price gouge you -- look to traditional foods from Asian and Latin American countries, for example, where rice and corn are more featured. My husband got a tortilla press and learned to make home made soft corn tortillas and they are amazing! They feel really decadent but they're not so hard to make and they are pretty much dirt cheap.

Also depending on where you live -- look on amazon for the replacement gluten free stuff he likes that you can buy through their "Subscribe and Save" program. You just buy a case periodically and there's a discount. You will save a lot.

I find that it's impossible for me to stay really GF if I am sharing a kitchen with others who eat gluten. That's the bad news. Not everyone is like that, but if he seems to be having problems, you might want to consider trying to get others on the family on board to keep him safe. It'll take time to get used to the new diet but at the end of the day if you're doing the cooking it's easier for you and safer for him if you make everyone a single GF meal to share.

Here are some sites that have a lot of FREE gf recipes which I've enjoyed:

Gluten Free Goddess
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com
(some wacky ingredients, depending on where you live, but lots of really tasty entrees)

Post-Punk Kitchen
http://www.theppk.com/blog/
(not exclusively GF, but almost all recipes on here can be adapted and she tells you how, it's a vegan site but don't let that put you off!)

I also am totally addicted to Isa Chandra of ppk's cookbook "Appetite for Reduction" which is a low fat vegan mostly-gf-and-anything-that-isn't-is-very-easy-to-adapt cookbook. It's like $10 and I eat something out of it every night. All the recipes are in the mfp database!

PM me if you have any questions. Good luck! You can do it.

thx and i did join that site. we are still waiting for his results from his biopsy. The thing is if i were to be diagnosed with it, it woudl be so simple as i will eat all kinda of foods and try new things, with a 5 year old it is super hard! he won't eat things like quinoa and such. To get him to even eat chicken with out it being breaded is like pulling teeth.. it will be a LONG process getting him out of it and we will have MANY tantrums and him goign to bed hungry b/.c he won't eat what we are making...

And that is something you will just have to figure out. If he does have Celiacs you can't give in because he goes on a hunger strike, every "cheat" will cause more damage to his little body. And hes old enough at 5 to understand that gluten hurts his body, so explain it to him. You can still make him cookies and cakes, buy buns and bread (but they won't be the same) pancakes and waffles. You can also buy some rice bread and make breadcrumbs to coat his chicken if he wants it breaded.