Gluten Free Girls (and Guys!)

Kelynn, you know I am in!:flowerforyou: I had similar symptoms. I can eat oats, I do sparingly. 2 other cuplrits for me are corn and soy. My health practitioner say they share the same phenolics as wheat. I can't remember what that means, but I just know that they affect me as well. It is soooo tough to keep away from all 3 of those!

My husband and two of my kids have celiacs (the kids are undiagnosed). Apparently my hubby and his sister were diagnosed when they were toddlers, but his parents thought it was something they outgrew, so never told them about it when they were older, and didn't feed them gluten free after they thought the symptoms had gone away. Fast forward twentysome years and our little girl is 2 years old and had failure to thrive for quite some time, so I started eliminating things from her diet one at a time to try and find if that was the culprit, and sure enough, gluten was it. The change was night and day, she stopped waking screaming at night, she stopped throwing horrid tantrums, she stopped having diaper blowouts and she soon after was able to be potty trained without screaming like the devil was in the toilet everytime we went in there, lol. Then when I introduced solids into the baby's diet, it was apparent that anything with wheat in it was giving him bowel problems. He has also developed dermatitis, my husband has that as well, since he was 12. We have been gluten free (with the occasional mishap) since the end of May, and my son and daughter have both gained weight, my daughter is back on the growth charts and my son is back up out of the single digits where he had dropped to. The interesting thing about all of this is that I found out around the same time that I am highly allergic to wheat, so when our family went gluten free, I lost 20 pounds in a matter of a couple months and didn't change anything about my lifestyle except the wheat. Go figure! I have been fighting weight loss for so long, and now I have lost 40 pounds since June, of course, the last 24 are not coming off nearly so easily, part of that has to do with holiday baking though. I have some yummy GF banana bread, bread, and cookie recipes, and of course, fudge, so it's been a bit of a struggle with willpower here.

It IS very nice to have an excuse to say no to all the treats at all the church functions we go to. So often is homemade goodies that people bring to things, and I'm missing a holiday cookie exchange tomorrow because I'm the only one who bakes my cookies with rice flour I know those things are horrible for me to go to, as I have a tendency to eat the sweets faster than anyone else in my home. As for fast meals, man, I feel you there. I have started to freeze some of our leftovers in meal size containers, so that when we need a quick meal, we don't always have to turn to hormel chili, tamales, or dinty moore beef stew, gets old fast, lol.

Celiac's runs on my mother's side of the family, while my father's side has Crohn's. I do not know if this has what has left me so extra reactive but I can't even do rice flour anymore. At first I could, but over time my body changed. Partly from accidental exposures from well meaning friends in social situations and my own mistakes when I tried to be like normal people. Even things that I had previously thought of as a safe food I have learned the hard way to never trust and recheck and reread labels. When I would be on a road trip I would just stop off at a grocery store and get some fresh fruit and some regular cottage cheese plain if I was hungry. I am not lactose intolerant thankfully. But on a trip a year ago I had just eaten the cottage cheese and doubled over in pain. I thought I had food poisoning but it felt like gluten exposure pain. I don't know about the rest of you ... but when I was a Celiac newbie I would have bloating and stomach ache. Now it is like your worst hang over nausea that just increases in intensity. I won't go into the graphic details. After which I am just a physical wreck and start to suffer from signs of extreme malnutrition due to my body's inability to process properly.
It turned out that the cottage cheese that is at the regular grocery store now adds flour to their cottage cheese. Why? I don't know. I can only get safe cottage cheese from TJ's or WF's or other health food stores.
I am like slieber's grandfather. I think it very likely could kill me.
My sister has it and tried to do the celiac lite diet .... and I hoped she would be lucky because it is a challenge for me. But it turns out hers is severe as well and she can't eat the oat either. She had her fingernails dropping off and hair falling out at her worst before she changed her diet. Even her teeth had changed color. Now her hair has recovered and her nails. Her teeth are better. Ironically, I cannot discuss Celiac's with her. She is new to it and is very angry and frustrated with the changes she would have to make ( which I understand).
I know one girl at work who is just sensitive to gluten. But I am grateful that this group is here. As it is lonely at times and the issues that come up can make socializing for me more difficult. Eating and sharing food is a huge part of socializing.
I use MFP to keep track of things I am eating and energy levels (exercise accomplished) as a way of protecting my health and seeing what works. I think for me Celiac's has been a constant work in progress. Since I don't eat any gluten or grain I don't have a weight loss issue as much as a weight regulation issue. Fluctuations can tell me if I am exposed or if I need more calories or fat to maintain a healthy weight.

I've been trying to figure out what else my son has, and to a lesser degree my daughter and husband. I may see it more in the baby because he is still in diapers, but I know that he's also got a dairy problem in a big way. If I accidentally use something like potato flakes as a thickener, he will get super sick for days, to the point that his bowels are causing him to bleed from the acidity or something, the poor guy! It's so frustrating, I keep thinking that I'm accidentally poisoning him, but don't know what it is. Anyway, he's got a doctor's appointment next week and I'm going to see if I can get them to run a full allergy panel, or at least send him to someone who will. His intestinal symptoms when exposed to gluten or dairy are far worse than the other two, sometimes I feel like not letting him eat anything but rice and peas and bananas, because I know they don't make him ill I feel like our food choices are so limited, I used to use a lot of cheese with my cooking, but now I can't put it in anything in case someone accidentally feeds it to him. Ugh, sorry for the pity party, just been quite the week with the food. And of course, the stress makes me eat more junk, lol. ARGHHH!

Well I am a newbie to celiac. I was diagnosed in March or this year. I was also diagnosed with Crohn's. My doctors told me that they have never heard of anyone having both so lucky me!! ha.:laugh: Anyways, I found out after a party serving Boulevard Wheat beer. Let me tell you I don't even want to look at the stuff again!!! I was in and out of hospitals and doctors offices for months before they could figure out what was wrong with me. Finally I was put on meds and told to stay away from gluten and I feel a lot better. I still have bad days but it is nothing like what I went through before being diagnosed.

Okay, so I've never seen goats milk cheddar cheese, I will have to look closer I guess. We haven't even bothered trying the soy cheese, because I've heard that it's not anything the same as dairy, so not to bother with it, but I do wonder about the other animal cheeses. One reason I haven't thought about doing that is that I was told that the lactase and proteins in those other animal milks were the same as cows, so it wasn't an option really, but if your family doesn't have issues with them, maybe I will give it a shot if I can find them! My hubby would be so happy if we could use cheese again that tasted like cheese!

My healthfood store has started carrying almond milk cheese. I tried it and it was OK- better than soy cheese. RiceDream icecream is very good!

Kelynn- Some people just don't get it and don't want to! I have that issue with alot of people including my MIL. She is always like "just a little bit won't hurt!" YEAH RIGHT!!!!!


I have tried the Almond cheese- It tastes good but it plugs me up....I know ...I know.... TMI!:laugh: :laugh:

Kelynn- Feel free to look at my diary, it's public. I pretty much eat the same foods most of the time and most of it is from scratch.