dani nero

I agree with and echo Takala 100%

The beginning is always the toughest period because of your attachment to sugary/ gluten-ie foods. You'll realize happy moments don't have to revolve around sugary treats once you've lived without them for a while, and you'll discover your new favorite alternatives in time too :-)

I used to be in love with nutella, and going dairy, sugar, and soy free meant no more nutella, and I went without it (or any other sugary treats) for a little over a month. One evening however, when my cravings got the better of me, I fixed myself a huge spoonful of nutella. I decided that one spoon won't hurt me. Guess what.. I didn't like it! It was way too sweet for my liking to the point of not being able to taste the nutty chocolate. I couldn't even finish it, and I actually ended up tossing the spoonful and the nutella jar away.

When you're off the sugar, your taste-buds actually heal and regain the sensitivity that they have lost. Same story with salt.

As for cakes and ice cream, there are alternatives.

I don't have any cake recipes, but I do have two cookie recipes that I got from pricklypear.. they're not cake but at least something close?

Recipe 1

Instead of full eggs you could do egg whites. Replace butter with shortening or oil (I think you'd reduce oil a bit if using). I'd refrigerate the dough before baking. You could add some cocoa. I'd use half the amount of maple syrup to sugar.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of rice flour

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1 cup butter

• 2 eggs, beaten

• 1 cup sugar

How to make it

• Mix all ingredients together to form dough

• Roll dough out and cut out as desired, its fun to make these into holiday shapes or quick and easy just to cut into circles

• Bake at 350 degrees 8-10 minutes

• Frost or decorate as desired

Recipe 2

You can use only egg whites or egg replacer

INGREDIENTS


1 cup Arrowhead Mills Brown Rice Flour


2 Tbs butter or vegetable oil


¼ cup honey or maple syrup


½ teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla 


1 egg (beaten)


1 cup nuts (ground)

Directions: Blend all ingredients thoroughly. Chill for several hours or overnight. Roll into 1-inch balls and arrange on oiled baking sheet. Press flat with bottom of glass. Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes.

Those don't look so mild to me.. Mine are ant-bite size, and they only scar if I break the skin.

Interesting :-) My birthday's in May!!!

What can we do to raise awareness?

A friend recently invited me over and went out of their way to make me something gluten free and I had to turn it down and hurt their feeling, because it had rye. In their defense they only remembered the word wheat. Although cross contamination was a huge fear in my mind had it not contained rye. I felt so awful. I had no idea they were planning on making me something to eat, and they were so excited about making me something gluten free. Sometimes it is just so awkward trying to explain to people that you can't really trust eating away from home with out sounding ungrateful or hurting someones feelings.

What do you guys do in these situations?

I would call them in advance and explain the situation.

If their feelings really did get hurt, I would tell them to grow up.

You haven't mentioned much about your lifestyle.. like what do you usually eat, what precautions have you taken to make sure you're completely gluten-free.

The way you're feeling now is directly related to your health situation, believe me! Depression and feelings of hopelessness are caused by whatever is making you feel ill. We'll need more details to be able to find out what is making you feel ill though :-)

Face it guys and gals.. Those who are fatter want to get thinner, and those thinner want to get fatter! Those who are neither thin nor fat probably don't like their bodies either haha :-)

I would say "let's all just be happy about our looks and be thankful of what we have", but then I would be a hypocrite!

jtazman99? it's been a while since you posted, how's your wife?

Having celiac doesn't mean you lose weight or gain it. It's seriously different from person to person. Some people gain, some lose, and some are unaffected, and regardless of how much they weighed before going gluten free.

What you can do is to minimize or eliminate processed and ready-made foods (and grains if you're willing) from your diet, and stick to cooking with natural foods that don't require a label to know what's in them. Also 20 min of motion a day if you don't already have the habit (at least two hours a week would be good) to keep your metabolism in check.

This is not a diet, it's just that your body type probably doesn't handle grains and processed foods so well, and it's telling you that by storing fat.

Also, can you please specify if it's a one time thing, or lasts for a few days, and how long each cramp episode lasts?

Well, the longer you're off gluten, the stronger your gluten reaction (usually). And yes, of you didn't have obvious gluten signs then you can develop them or you can develop new ones. I think that's what is happening to me.

Honestly, I really do hope it's a gluten-cramp. I know this might sound wrong to some people here but life would be so much easier for me if I have a clear sign that I've been glutened, then I wouldn't have to keep thinking and monitoring myself. It was like I had to be a little paranoid all the time in order to keep myself healthy. Having a clear signal would mean I would know for sure if something's wrong and I wouldn't have to be tracking something that's not visible!

Hell no.

Been there, done that. They will give me acid reducers (which I can buy OTC).

I'm getting my old skill of visualization back - breathe deep and imagine the pain going away and the acid stopping. It works. Like biofeedback for high bp.

I just hope it's gluten (and therefore will pass), not some other food issue. That would suck lemons.

Well keep us posted on this! If it continues and when it stops. I also hope you're not reacting to another food or that something else is wrong. I have to say it's nice to see people with good mental control.. You're not freaking out at all. I tend to get paranoid in the beginning and my mind starts to wander :-)

I am positive I got glutened about a month ago, but I didn't have any cramps then.. I just had lower-left abdominal (back and side) pain when I moved.

Well, I have limited experience with glutening symptoms because I was never one that obviously reacted (well, maybe over 10 years ago..).

The one time I am pretty sure I was glutened I felt like I'd been caned - more like the flu - a rock in my stomach and all of my muscles ached.

This last time I think I was glutened it was my stomach (directly under my ribs) that clenched, knotted and swelled....followed by too much stomach acid.

Next night I had muscle cramps all downy legs into my feet. That continued off and on all day. I get a twinge here and there - sometimes just muscles jumping.

I'm still getting the clenching stomach/acid thing every other day or so - I'm on day 5 now???? This is all new to me (well, I had these symptoms in my late 20's but they went away).

Day 5? Prickly, maybe it's time to call the doctor? :-(

Thank you guys! I was asking because I had seriously painful cramps last night.. I was about to scream. They were in my lower-left (front and back) parts of my abdomen and around the center. It started feeling like my left side was tied into a knot together with my left thigh muscles with faint cramps, but got more and more painful. At first I thought it could have been due to the constipation I'm having, so I took a laxative and went to the toilet shortly after. But the pain started getting worse, so then I thought perhaps my appendix decided to explode, or maybe trapped gasses, and then I thought it might have been another kidney stone. My husband wrapped a blanket around my stomach and force-fed me an espresso (he believed it was trapped gasses and coffee would induce some more bowel movements). The cramps did start to ease 15 minutes after and I fell asleep while they were going away. I woke up pain-free this morning.

We did have chicken from a restaurant on the 29th and 30th.. but I've never had gluten cramps before, so thought I'd ask. Is it possible to "start" getting them out of the blue?

Hi All

Recently found out that I most likely have Celiac disease, and am really struggling.

I'm a food lover, and every day it seems like there is something else I can't have. Even stupid things like finding out I can't drink my favourite beer and thinking, well thats ok I'll have Jack Daniels instead then finding out thats a no go is really getting to me and I'm struggling to cope.

If anyone has any advice re. the mental side of coping with this, it would be really appreciated.

Habbukuk

Hang in there Habbukuk! Lucky for us life is not just one path or one door, when some doors get shut we can always open new ones :-) You'll find new things that you like. I learned to appreciate food MORE after going gluten free, because I had to do most of the cooking. Cooking is becoming a passion and with that passion comes great flavors and yum yums!

Me neither, MOMMIDA. Sitting on a cushion right now, although some of it has come back. More oomph, but still not right.

My butt and boobs, once perky and full, just fell. No muscle mass. Flat pancakes back there. Not funny at all. My legs and arms were like sticks and I hurt just to wear clothes. My ribs and pelvis hurt so bad ---as if I had been run over by a truck.

Everything HURT--to sit, stand, walk or lie down.

For 3 years.

It was excruciating HELL.

I am still in rehab 16 months after DX.

Pics of me from this time reveal an old woman who looks like she

is having cancer treatments. People I know gasped when they saw me. The doc who treats me now, looked at them and said "Oh NO, that's not right!" (yet no doc thought this significant?)

Yeah, Celiac is a great way to become a walking skeleton.

You're not called a warrior princess for nothing :-)

It's just hard to be able to understand what a person is going through without being in their shoes.

At least I am one of those people who carry my fat well...curves in ALL the right places! HaHaHa!!! I'm GREATFUL for THAT! LOL

Lol :-D You go girl!

I am overweight, but my fat is also distributed. My weight always goes up and down, ranging between 149 lb and 160 lb, and I'm 164cm tall.

I'm wondering what gluten cramps feel like? Can everyone try to describe theirs? What area of the abdomen, are the lower-back and or sides, thighs/ legs involved? is it stabbing or pinching type? does it just come or come and go? Is it on the left, right or center? Stuff like that, anything you could think of?

Edit: Also, can you please specify if it's a one time thing, or lasts for a few days, and how long each cramp episode lasts?

It's better than people taking one look at you and thinking they know what and how much you eat just because you're overweight, including doctors.

People think you're lucky because the media tells them the thinner the better (everything is about looks), and they find it hard to even comprehend the possibility that there could be any different worlds than the ones revolving around what the media feeds them.

Best thing to do is not take it so seriously :-)

Sorry for the delayed response.. just thought I'd leave an update when I started feeling better to skip the whining :-P

I've been gardening as much as I could the past three days in hopes to manage my temper. It didn't really help as I was bursting out from the smallest things ;-( I noticed also that I get extra angry and crazy when I'm hungry, to point of losing all reason! (yikes, best to be kept fed)

I was actually surprised that I managed to do so much! I read that a lot of you get so fatigued that you could barely type? but I managed to dig, pull, push and so on in the garden. It was hard but I did it, and the endorphins lifted my spirit (they were just what I needed!). I didn't get irritated even once today so I'm guessing that whatever was going on might be passing? but my immunity has dropped drastically though.. my gums, lymph nodes, and throat are all so painful, specifically when I eat.

The swelling in his eye is going down and the doctor is fairly optimistic about saving his testicles.

Hahaha :-) That's exactly what I felt like doing to my hubs!

Thanks for reminding me of what I need to keep in mind: That I'm healing, and thanks for the comforting *Big hug*

You're all in my heart, too! :-)

I picked up a bunch of really great SAFE foods at trader joe's. I got sunflower oil and a sunflower nutbutter with no preservatives! Just nuts and sea salt. I also got quinoa, and a bunch of pears, apples,more garlic and some cabbage(even though I hate it) and celery. I already had alot of meat so this stuff should last me a while.

Sounds like you're going to eat well.. One thing comes to mind, isn't sea salt high on iodine? I might be mistaken, and the quantity of sea salt in the nutbutter might be small, but be careful.

By the way. I went to the pharmacy to get probiotics, and they didn't have any without soy and the pharmacist wasn't open to the idea of custom probiotics. She told me I needed a doctor for that. It seems I'll have to buy them online.

I'm sorry, dani.

I hope this feeling passes for you.

Do you have your lab results from 2 years ago for your thyroid?

Is there any way you can get an independent lab to test your vitamin levels? If you can see deficiencies and substitute accordingly it may help. Low b's, d and iron can do terrible things to your mood, energy.

I'll ask for the lab results on Wednesday. We have a short holiday until Tuesday. I think that they also checked B levels and they were normal.

I did try to find private clinics to do some testing for me, specifically a dermatologist to get a DH biopsy, but they couldn't do it for me and told me to take an appointment with a normal public clinic. It might be a different story for simple blood test so I'll try to find one.

I'm on my way to trader joe's I will pick up as many new items as I can and try and mix them in with things I already have.

Let us know of your progress (whether better or worse)