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Why don't you give your doctor a call and ask her (orl eave a message for her to call you back)? My doctor is very good at calling me back as soon as she can.

Welcome to the board. I'd recommend taking a few hours to look around this board. You'll start learning pretty quickly, especially if you read the message board. Print out the list of things you can and cannot eat, then head into the kitchen and toss (or mark it as containing gluten if you live with others) all the stuff you can't have. Start calling companies if you're not sure. Check out your hair products and makeup, too. Then go to a health food store and buy a bunch of gluten free bread and crackers and stuff. They are more expensive than wheat-based products and it will take you a while to find the brands you like (trust me, I ate a lot of bad tasting cookies before I found ones I liked).

You'll make a ton of mistakes in the beginning, but nothing makes you figure things out faster than getting sick. If you have specific questions, feel free to post! Good luck!

I really hate this because are going to Cancun tomorrow on a work sponsored vacation. I won't wear my bathing suit without a shirt on, but then everyone wonders why I'm wearing a shirt. I already feel uncomfortable eating special food, it doesn't help when I'm different by not wearing my bathing suit. For the last two weeks I have tried every cream I could think of, and none of it helps.

You're probably already gone and back by now, but I just tell people it's because I don't want to get burnt. Skin cancer runs in my family so I'm always extra careful.

Ninja - How did your body react when you first started eating meat again? Did you have digestive problems from your body not producing the necessary enzymes to digest meat anymore? How long did it take you to start feeling better? How did you know that you needed to start eating meat again? Why do you think your body needs meat, is it a different type of protein that you're lacking when you eat veggie?

I really think this is something I need to try, but I'm nervous. Meat grosses me out and I have zero idea how to cook the stuff.

Soy also contains estrogen so if you eat a lot of it, it can cause some hormonal imbalances.

Girl Ninja - That's interesting that you feel so much better eating meat. I've been vegetarian for a few years and gluten-free for 9 months. I'm now feeling like I did a year or two ago before the celiac made me really sick, which means I can function, but I'm still more tired than I should be. I wonder if eating meat again would help me? Do you (or anyone else) have any idea why this would happen?

I rarely remember my dreams now that I'm gluten-free. If I remember my dreams, I know that I've gotten glutened. It's one of my most consistent symptoms when I get glutened.

Here's my gluten-free Chocolate Cake recipe. It uses a mix of gluten free flours, which I've listed at the bottom.

Chocolate Cake

Place in bowl:

2 C gluten-free flour mix

2C sugar

½ tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp xantham gum

½ tsp egg replacer

Bring to boil and add to bowl:

1 stick butter

5 Tbsp cocoa

1C water

Add:

2 eggs slightly beaten

½ C sour milk or buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

Bake at 350ºF, 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

FROSTING:

Heat and mix:

¼ stick butter

2 ½ Tbsp cocoa

3 Tbsp milk

Add:

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 ½ - 2 C powdered sugar, mix until smooth

½ C chopped nuts (optional)

Use more or less powdered sugar to get the right consistency to spread on cake

Spread frosting on warm cake

Gluten Free Flour Mix:

2 parts white rice flour

2/3 part potato starch flour

1/3 part tapioca flour

Hi I was just diagnosed with celiac last week and it’s been very hard for me. My birthday is coming soon in May and I always have a birthday cake. Now that I have to stay in a gluten free diet I’m sad to thinking that I might not have a cake this year. Does anyone can recommend where to buy a birthday cake in NYC or a good recipe?thanks

My mum and I modified our old chocolate cake recipe to be gluten-free and it's delicious! I'll type it up for you tonight and post it. The first few weeks are the hardest because you still have to read every label and research all the ingredients. Give it a month or two and it will be a lot easier for you.

I used to smell no matter how much deodorant I put on. One day a few months after going gluten-free I noticed that I didn't smell anymore. Body odor is often related to things you eat.

I'm a little confused. Most coffees are gluten free so you'd still be able to drink it on the diet.

If you're asking about how quickly you will start to feel better after cutting out gluten, it really depends on the person. I felt great for the first two weeks, then started to feel yucky again, then slowly started to improve. It's supposed to take your intestines up to six months to heal. I'm at six months right now and feel pretty good, but at first I was accidently glutening myself quite frequently so that would probably put my progress back some.

Do you have a college degree? If so, your alumni association may have cheaper health insurance available. I went to UW-Madison and the alumni insurance is a great price.

I waited about three months to start drinking again. I read somewhere that alcohol is hard on your intestines if you're still healing so it's good to avoid it. I haven't had any problems since I started drinking again, although I went to a wedding the other week, I think I got glutened by my dinner and the combo of gluten and a glass of wine made me throw up.

You could always sip a glass of coke or drink 7Up from a wine glass so people won't bug you about why you're not drinking. Or tell them you're the DD.

Why don't you return the Amy's dinners? Then you won't have to feel guilty about wasting money. When I first went gluten-free, I was returning several things a week after getting them home and realizing they contained gluten.

Are you taking any medications? Those can also contain gluten, so I'd talk to your pharmacist.

I hope you start to get better. Hang in there.

I get pain all over my gut - upper, middle and lower.

I haven't gone through all the extensive testing for celiac so I don't really know what tests you should be getting done, but it seems like three months is a long time to wait to get a biopsy. They should be able to get you in before that, and you shouldn't have to be sick for three more months while you wait to find out what's wrong.

I figured out I had a gluten sensitivity by doing an elimination diet. My doctor would have done a biopsy for me, but I didn't want to keep eating gluten. I opted to not get an official diagnosis because I know gluten makes me sick. If you can't get in before January, maybe you should try the gluten free diet and see how you feel. The only problem is that once you've gone gluten free, the biopsy won't come back positive, but who cares if you feel better?

You should check out the book Gluten Free Gourmet. There's two editions of it and the recipes are great! You should definitely try the scones - my dad couldn't even tell they were gluten-free. And the chocolate cake, actually everything I've made in that book has been delicious.

There are lots of flours that you can use. Rice flour (but can be crumbly when used alone), soy flour (which I think is a bit gritty when used alone), fava/garbanzo bean flour is good, tapioca flour. Most recipes use a combination of these flours to iminate the wheat flour texture. A lot of recipes also use zantham gum which is expensive but definitely worth it. It helps things stick together because without gluten, you don't have a great binding agent in your recipies. It's a matter of playing around and finding the textures and combinations you like best.

I'd be very careful with cross contamination in the class, though. If you're using the same pans that are used for wheat flour and they're all scratched up, that could be a problem. Or if you're coooking right next to wheat flour you could easily contaminate your food. It would be ideal if you had your own area with your own pans, but it might be hard to get that in a classroom setting.

Could you send me the list as well? Thanks!

kathrynanne@gmail.com

I'm confused about vinegar. I know malt vinegar is a no-no. Is malt vinegar the same as distilled vinegar? I thought that distilled vinegar might be ok, but I ate some salsa with distilled vinegar in it and got sick. So, if it's not the same, do any of you have problems with distilled vinegar as well?

Some products labeled gluten-free have vinegar on the label. I assume that if the type of vinegar isn't specified, it's distilled. Is that correct? And if I do have a problem with distilled vinegar, can I eat the things labeled gluten-free that have vinegar as an ingredient?

Lots of questions, I'm so confused! And it would be great to be able to eat pickles and ketchup again. Is Heinz ketchup gluten-free?

I also think it sounds like your grandma doesn't really understand the severity of the disease. And I doubt you'll be able to convince her of it. If she likes to read, you could maybe find some books or pamplets about celiac disease for her to read. And having your grandpa's doctor talk to her is a great idea.

She might also feel like everyone is trying to tell her what to do, that she's been cooking for your grandpa for years and he's been fine (in her eyes, but we all know he'd be much better gluten-free). Maybe she needs to talk to someone about the psychological impact that this is having on her. Maybe she feels overwhelmed to suddenly not be able to make any of the things that she's been making for years. She probably doesn't want to go gluten-free herself and making two dinners is a lot of work.

Could your grandpa help with the cooking?

I have seen it mentioned that there are over 200 posable symtoms assosiated with celiac...where can I , or can some one send me a list. I have been abel to link some problems I have been having for years to being celiac. Just wondering if there are any more out there that I can.

Also I am in need of a food list please.

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I don't know where you can find a list of symptoms online, but there's one in the book Dangerous Grains. It seems like every possible disease you can have can be celiac realted!

There are some lists of safe and not safe foods on this site. It took me a while to find them - they're buried in the FAQs.

Safe foods:

https://www.celiac.com/st_prod.html?p_prodi...-09105060069.b1

Not Safe foods:

https://www.celiac.com/st_prod.html?p_prodi...-09105060069.b1

I have always had trouble with my periods, too. I got my period twice before I tured 20. Doctors tend to freak out about this kind of stuff so I've been on the pill ever since. I'm starting to wonder if it's celiac-related because I remember having celiac-type digestive problems back into high school. I was just diagnosed a month ago so I haven't gone off the pill yet to see if the gluten-free diet helps it.

You should read Dangerous Grains if you want to know all about the disease. They talk about the ethnicities that are most likely to have celiac disease in it. Grains were first grown in the middle eastern countries. Since celiac disease is genetic, those cultures have had longer for the celiac disease genes to be eliminated from the gene pool.

I'm a celiac disease newbie (dx a month ago) and I figured it out after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I tried an elimination diet to see if any foods aggrevated the FM and found that wheat made me so, so sick. And so did barley. I did get the blood test done and it was covered by insurance. Unfortunately you have to be eating gluten to test positive and I'd only been eating it for 4 or 5 days so it was negative. But I don't care. I know if I eat gluten I'll be on the floor with stomach cramps too tired to get up and this will last for three days. My FM symptoms get much worse, too.

PS It's really great that you are so open to learning about the disease. That girl doesn't know what she's missing

Corn flakes usually contain malt, so unfortunately it's a no-no. The first meal I ate when I went gluten free was corn flakes. I was all proud of myself for finding a corn-based cereal and didn't realize until several days and hours of celiac disease research later that I'd messed up!

I like to think of celiac disease as being similar to a peanut allergy. People who are allergic to peanuts can die if they eat even the smallest amount. Luckily I won't die if I eat gluten, but I will get very, very sick. You are not being rude to not eat at other people's houses if they don't have gluten-free food. If you know you're going somewhere for dinner, you could call up and find out what's on the menu and offer to bring something gluten-free so you can eat least eat something. Your friends should understand.