kbtoyssni

I know someone on here who is in college also has one so the college meal plan must accommodate her diet. It sounds like a 504 is a great idea if you need any accommodations that aren't typically provided to students.

I would bring your own food. Even if your family cooks a gluten-free meal, if they aren't celiac themselves they probably don't realize all the potential places for CC. I've spent years learning this diet and getting it right - I don't expect a family member to figure it out in a few days. Nor do I want them going through the learning curve with me.

I was going to suggest making a cornish game hen, too. It's like having your own mini-turkey!

I would approach it from a "there has been recent research that shows you do not grow out of the disease and you must stay strictly gluten-free to avoid further complications even if you don't get immediate symptoms from eating small amounts of gluten". 22 years ago it was pretty standard for doctors to say that kids would grow out of it.

Why does his mother need to be involved in this? He's 22 so I would just talk to him. He's old enough to make his own decisions.

I would also look at the times and situations that you cheat in and try to do something to change it.

The hardest times for me is when all my friends are eating delicious stuff and I can't have any of it. So I try to always have yummy dinners in my freezer so I can grab something on short notice. I bake a lot and bring things along to friend's houses to share. I've also trained them to buy gluten-free brands of food

You usually have to just ride it out. Everyone seems to have their own form of comfort food when they get glutened - mine is milk, cheese, and scrambled eggs. Are you gluten-free or just wheat-free? It just jumped out at me as unusual since most around here are gluten-free. I'd hate for a fellow celiac to be eating barely and rye without realizing it!

(somebody said they coat their blue ones in flour)

The only M&M product that has gluten is the Crispy one.

Maybe the story about them coating their blue ones in flour is because the blue cartoon character M&M is the crispy one.

Awww. I am so sorry you are going through this. I am going through this, but it is also about all of the other illnesses I am trying to cope with. I get the wanting to have a convenient life. I get the sadness, it is really difficult to deal with all this. They are all very real feelings. I have also lost true friendships because people don't want to go out to dinner with me because I can't eat almost everything on a menu. Some friends had a party over the weekend, but didn't invite me bceuase "I couldn't eat anything there." Well, at least that's what they told me...it is really because of all the school I have missed. They don't get it...at ALL! If you ever want to talk, please feel free to PM me. Your post was in perfect time, I had a terrible day because of my dietary restrictions.

Kassandra

I know that "you couldn't eat anything there" wasn't the actual reason for your friends not inviting you, but I wanted to comment on people who do say that. I try to stress to friends that I want to go out and be invited even if I can't eat most of the food. I'm there for the social aspects, not for the food. I go out to eat about once a week with friends and 90% of the time bring my own lunch. I don't think any of them would consider not inviting me because I can't eat there. And for a quick lunch out of the office, I'm not going to force everyone to always go to the gluten-free place. If I did that, I think they would stop inviting me! I guess it's like adjusting my actions so I can still fit into my old lifestyle.

FF- this diet isn't easy, and it is a major life change. It takes a huge shift in mentality to learn to deal and be ok with your new life. It's normal to have a period of mourning for what you've lost because there are some things that you'll never be able to do again. But life isn't over. There are plenty of things you can do, but it's going to take time to be ok with it. I would also suggest talking to a psychologist. They can work wonders!

I doubt emailing Bravo would help if it's lawsuits they're worried about. I love when places offer gluten-free menus. It helps me eliminate all the foods on the full menu that I shouldn't even consider. At least I know ingredients have been checked for the foods on a gluten-free menu, and it saves a ton of time because I don't have to ask a bunch of questions and have my waiter check the packaging.

That said, I have no problem with restaurants putting a "we do our best, but cannot guarantee no contamination" statement on the menus. I know it's a kitchen, I know they're doing their best, but there is always a risk and celiacs should be aware of that. Bronco - do you know if these "we can't guarantee it's gluten-free" statements hold up in court??? If not, well, I expect gluten-free menus will become more and more scarce.

I was a carebear, too! Good choice of costume

Weight training is very important to weight loss. Muscles burns a lot of energy even when you're sitting around doing nothing so add a few pounds a muscle and you'll be burning many more calories a day without changing your workout routine. Can't remember the exact number - is it 50 cals/day for a pound of muscle? It's something like that.

That's great! We need more doctors to go to conferences like that.

I wasn't diagnosed when I was a kid, but I did bring my lunch every day. My mother was big into health food so I had a sandwich (on my dad's homemade bread), apple, pretzels and milk every day. I hated it, and was embarrassed by it and didn't like to eat most of it. It's boring, the bread looked different that everyone else's and was crumbly, I never liked the taste of milk, and apples weren't my favorite fruit. I would have been so happy with a juice box or granola bar.

Now that I'm old make my own lunches I usually have a salad (which I love!), string cheese, some sort of leftovers from last night (like cold pizza or Indian food or Thai ramen noodles or lasagna - I realize some of these are hard if you don't have a microwave) or rice/baked potato with melted cheese and salsa, sometimes a Dove chocolate or two, some piece of fruit. I occasionally eat "junk" food like the chocolate or some chips. I know it might not be the best thing for a kid to eat all the time, but one serving of this stuff a day isn't going to kill a kid and it will go a long way towards making him "normal". I'd ask him what he wants to eat. He'll probably want to eat something similar to his friends, and you won't know what that is until you ask.

And get him a fun lunch box. I loved my lunch box in first grade, but by fourth grade I was embarrassed by pink Minnie Mouse. All my friends used brown bags, and I wanted to use them, too.

Came up with another one, courtesy of a coworker

Office Coffee:

Open coffee pots can get crumbs in them. Try brewing coffee at your desk or seeing if you can get the closed coffee thermoses instead.

Office Coffee Condiments:

Coworkers try pouring excess back into the container, contaminating the whole thing. Use single-serving sugar and cream or bring your own from home and leave on your desk.

I just about had a heart attack the other day. The containers of sugar we buy have such a small hole, I never imagined someone would try to pour excess back in!!!

You mean these aren't normal-person behaviors??? Thanks for posting!

I hope I don't sound like I'm just believing what suits my situation, but-- I really believe that food has A LOT to do with our mental states. I saw a documentary a few months ago about a school for hard to deal with kids, kids who've gotten in trouble, etc, I can't remember what you call that kind of school- I'm foggy today. It's a school kids go to when they've been expelled from their regular schools.

The school switched over to organic, healthful foods, no msg, no junky stuff, no chips, candy, or soda allowed on campus, etc. You would not believe the change in these kids. They calm down, they focus on their classes, they take up music classes, they improve themselves. How much of this is due to the healthful food?

There was a school in Appleton, WI, that did this. I wish more schools did it. They spend more money on food, but the number of discipline problems decreased dramatically. It was shocking to read the statistics. I know there's a theory behind kids have to learn to make good decisions, but serving lots of junk food is just setting them up for failure.

This thread says that A1 Sauce is gluten-free: Open Original Shared Link

Good question. Maybe her third or second hour class is in a home ec room that has flour in the air. Or maybe she sits in a desk that had a kid who always snacks on wheat products the hour before her. Or maybe she really dislikes third period or dislikes someone in the class or something so it's stress-related.

Reminds me of when I was in grad school. Every Monday at 1pm I had a meeting with my advisor. Every Monday around 12:30 I would start getting stomach pain, headaches, throw up. I thought it was because I didn't like him. Then I got diagnosed with celiac and realized I always ate the wheat snacks we had in our kitchen for lunch and the gluten was making me sick! Not that this has much to do with your daughter, but it does seem like there's too much of a pattern going on here.

Congrats!!!

You can also get toaster bags: Open Original Shared Link

You put your bread in and toast in a regular toaster. I use them while traveling. I've even put a cheese sandwich in them and asked a restaurant to toast for me so I have grilled cheese.

1. Is there a good single source for finding message board-type depth of detail about food sensitivities? Book, website, whatever. I'm hungry for info and want/need instant gratification.

This is the best board I've found (but I'm only gluten-free). Start searching here and you'll be occupied for days!

2. Just what exactly is gluten-lite? Is it eating mostly gluten-free, but still having some gluten? Or is it eating no gluten, but not really being that careful about cooking equipment, placement of stuff in the fridge, etc?

Either could be considered gluten-lite. It's the people who don't eat bread or pasta, but don't worry about BBQ or soy sauce. It can also be the people who eat gluten-free foods, but don't worry about CC. Neither of these methods will make you feel better.

3. For those with non-food-sensitive family members, just exactly how do you handle dealing with their food choices? Do you have separate cupboards and/or sections of the fridge for trigger foods? I live with a junk food addict. A truly dear man. But oh! His eating habits are simply appaling (always have been and I married him anyway) but now they have the potential to affect my health.

When I lived with my parents, we bought naturally gluten-free brands of condiments, salsa, corn tortillas, pasta, etc. Any gluten food was packaged stuff. Dad had a separate counter that he prepared gluten foods on and if we were having say, cheese spread on crackers, he'd scoop some spread into a separate bowl just to be sure he wouldn't contaminate. You may want to have a special cupboard for gluten foods if they are going to be tempting for you. There are also many gluten-free junk foods so I'd encourage your husband to eat those instead!

4. While we're on that subject - is there a way of cleaning cooking equipment/surfaces in a way to ensure no CC? Is there something special to use or do you just make sure to use a lot of hot water/soap/elbow grease to make sure its clean?

Good ol' elbow grease is probably the best way. Some things are impossible to clean (like some pans you just can't get everything out of the corners!) but counters and stoves can be cleaned.

5. If you have pets, are there any special tricks you use (besides washing hands thoroughly) to ensure no CC between their food/treats and you?

I'd try to buy gluten-free pet food. There's lots of mainstream gluten-free brands of dog and cat food out there. I just have fish and have not been able to find gluten-free fish food. So I tap the side of the can until the flakes fall out so I don't have to touch them and wash my hands right away. The problem with dogs and cats is they can get food on their coats and track it through the house or lick you and get gluten on you.

Another thing to consider is even if you give them information, are they really going to be able to cook safe food for you? You might have a very supportive family, but there's a huge learning curve here and gluten is in all sorts of things they might not realize. There are very few people I trust to cook for me even if they are supportive and understand the diet on a high level. I have friends who are good at reading labels and can buy packaged food that I can eat, but might not understand all the pitfalls in their kitchen (wooden spoons, flour stuck to the corners of baking pans, condiments that have been double-dipped etc). So you might want to consider bringing some of your own food anyways.

I'm assuming that SCD is someone with celiac disease that happens to be asymptomatic or someone who doesn't have a lot of GI symptoms. Which means you still have celiac disease, and consuming gluten occasionally will cause damage to your intestines whether you have symptoms or not. But it sounds like you do have symptoms.

Since you have felt better the last few days of being gluten-free, I see no reason why a doctor should have a problem if you coming to them asking to be tested. The problem is that many doctors don't know that much about the disease - don't realize that false negatives are very common for both blood tests and scopes. And you need to be eating gluten to get tested. So now the choice is yours: to test or not to test. You feel better already, so if the test comes back negative, are you still willing to commit to a gluten-free diet? Are you willing to go back on gluten to be tested? There is nothing wrong with using dietary response as your diagnosis as long as you can still commit to a gluten-free diet. Some people need a doctor to tell them to go gluten-free.

It's never happened to me, but this is the reason why I refuse to have wheat flour in my house. No matter how careful you are, that stuff gets all over the place! It's nearly impossible to clean up.

Maybe you could call Wal-Mart and ask them??? It might be the same customer service number as Wal-Mart, too.

jmd3 -- Do you find that all margarita mixes are OK? I would hope to find something that I can always have in a restaurant or bar and not worry. I would also be concerned if the bartender made the drink the traditional way with something like triple sec; I don't think those things are distilled, but finding good info on this entire subject is difficult. It seems like most of what I find is about avoiding yeast (and other things) due to a candida overgrowth, which is completely different.

If I can pick my mix (like at home), then having my preferred Bloody Mary won't be a problem. What the heck is gluten doing in there to begin with? Given how I reacted, I wonder if the bartender (or waitress) might have messed up too. The waitress said they had a special Bloody Mary-type drink made with their gazpacho. I said I couldn't have this because it contains gluten and I wanted a regular Bloody Mary.

I was at one restaurant who added beer to their homemade margaritas!!! Now I get strange looks from bartenders when I ask whether there's beer in their margarita because it's a common thing at all.

There is one type of Bloody Mary mix that's gluten-free. Can't remember the name right now because I've never seen it in stores. I make my own from plain tomato juice.