BRUMI1968

I just want to second the activated charcoal. My doc just put me on that one tablet three times per day to kill some of the bloat in my lower abdomen...and it seems to be helping.

Good to note for us celiacs, too, is that both Tai Chi and Yoga are bone building weight bearing exercise. Yeah!

A good way to make Brussels sprouts:

clean the brussels

cut off the yucky tips

peel the outside bits off

then slice them very thin

you should now have a huge pile of tiny brussels parts.

put olive oil in sautee pan and sautee the buggers.

Do this only for about five minutes

put in balsamic vineagar at the end

serve

if you eat dairy, sprinkle parmesan on the top

(I don't, and prefer them w/o anyway).

Much better than boiled.

Granted, Brussels aren't in season yet...but they will be come Fall/Winter.

Rob, it's great to have you - I've learned a lot lurking around this posting.

I just got some lab work back and although I'm healthy as a horse according to allopathic medicine (well, except for the celiac that is), I can't help but wonder why all my hormone levels are on the extreme low end of "normal". My doc (actually, this lab work came from my naturopath/ayurvedic doc) thinks more excerise and lack of gluten will raise my testosterone. Is there anything to wonder about with these low levels, and if so, is there anything o-natural that can be done about it?

-Sherri.

It probably depends on what you're eating. I read this great site once about IBS and it talked about the 3 components to ease of movement through the bowels: fiber, water, oil. If you are lacking in any of them, the whole system doesn't work properly.

Another site I looked at talked about the possibility that brain signals to the intestines might be different in IBS folks - like slower or something. I think the first half of my digestion is very fast (always hungry, etc.), but the second half is much slower.

Anyway, my C has improved with brown rice and fibrous veggies, but not gone away entirely. I think the activated charcoal is already helping with the bloating though.

Good info - sweet potatoes are not potatoes, not related. I'm very intolerant to nightshades, but can have sweet potatoes and yams. Though I thought they were not actually related - I believe yams are a South American food (originally) and sweet potatoes originated in Africa? I guess that doesn't mean they aren't related.

Anyway, it could be a starch thing. I didn't react well to starches until I was gluten free for nearly a year. Now it's a lot easier for me to take them - in fact, when I am not stomaching other things well, I often fall back on yams.

Take care -

Stephanie

TRUE yams are actually Asian - and we don't really see them here except in specialty markets. Yams and Swett Potatoes and the same, but different variety - like two different types of pumpkin. Ironically, 'sweet potato' as we know it has more water volume, even though they seem more starchy. The yams are more popular in the west and the sweet potato is more popular in the east and south. I think I got all this info off worldsbestfoods.com A site that I love.

I've been using Enzymedica's DIGEST GOLD, which seems to be helping me digest things better (based on the quality of my stool.) I don't think I've had any reaction to it, but I'm not positive (I'm pretty newly dx'd, and am still bloated and constipated). I don't eat dairy, though.

good luck.

I'm using an intestinal mucosal wall rebuilder called Endefen by MetaGenics. It contains:

larch gum

green tea extract

cinnamon bark

plantain fruit (a lot of this)

apple fruit power

astaxanthin

D-mannose

D-Xylitol

I can't say if it is working or not, since it has only been about three weeks or a month. I am still quite bloated and constipated (always my problem). the same nutritionist gave me prebiotics and post biotics, and I can tell by the quality of my stool that I'm digesting food better, but other than that, no indications yet.

I'll keep you posted.

I just saw my Ayurvedic doctor from India today (Ayurveda means science of life), and have took me off acidophilous and put me on something called Florastor. It was no less than $54.00. Ouch. He said that this stuff works wonders. I'll let you guys know. It is Lyophilized Saccharomyces boulardii with a dash of magneseum stearate thrown in.

That and activated charcoal.

I'm not totally sure I know what you mean here... are you saying that I might be getting too much out of my vitamin now? Or that the sources of the vitamins in the multiple aren't good for me?

I don't know...what I'm saying is that nature has put vitmins/water/fiber/protein/enzymes etc. in foods that balance out each other. for example, t is virtually impossible to get too much beta carotene (a precurser to vitamin A), but it is easily possible to get too much Vitamin A. You can't o.d. on it in food (you can turn orange, however), but you can o.d. from a vitamin pill.

I guess I was harkening back to a book I read long ago called, "Food and Healing" by Anne Marie Colbin. She got quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that women who were taking a lot of supplements were having certain problems, like cysts.

I also read recently about all sorts of things potentially dangerous about taking supplements. Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center worked on a study that gave smokers anti-oxidant vitamins. It turns out that those on the vitamins had such a higher chance of getting lung cancer, they quit the study early - folks were dying. Also, it turns out that folic acid supplements and vitamin B6 supplements can increase heart attack risk in folks who are already at risk. Vitamin B might be the best case in point - these vitamins are all in relationship to one another - you cannot take one without throwing out of balance the others. Calcium is another example - the balance between phosphorous is extremely important. They've found that many women taking calcium supplements were getting too much calcium, and therefore hurting themselves not only in bone density, but in developing other problems in having to dispose of the excess vitamins they were injesting.

My point is - vitamins are not food. Some person unknown to you and more importantly that doesn't know you or your situation or your metabolic panel results or whatever, is putting (WHAT?) into a vitamin pill for us to eat. It is not something that has been studied enough to even be completely understood. When they talk about you needing Vitamin C, they can't know what vitamin C in a vacuum is - they are talking about your system in relationship to vitamin C. Putting things in pills takes all the relationship and the systems out of it.

The reason for my post was just that I thought it would be worth giving a try. We're all detectives of our own health issues here, and it was just a correlation I noticed in your post.

Maybe I'm just full of hot air. I am myself on sublingual Vitamin B12 pills, though I am planning on quitting those now that I saw my lab results and I really wasn't low. I even had high folate, but was put on folate supplements (quit when I saw my results) -- how does this make sense?

I've blathered on...but hopefully I've at least explained my position. Good luck.

Whole foods uses gluten free vinegar in their sushi.You can have the raw tuna or salmon ones or veggie ones.

Thanks. My nearest whole foods is about 1.5 hours away, but I happen to be off to that very place today. I'll check it out.

I think how much is too much depends on how "wet" your food is. If you eat a lot of watery veggies and fruits, you don't need to drink as much.

I don't think I drink enough water...so it's hard for me to imagine how much is too much. I just know I've read someplace that there is such an amount. It's also why you don't want to drink distilled water - all the minerals have been removed.

I don't know if dark chocolate has dairy in it. I can't have chocolate for other reasons. boo hoo. Good luck figuring it out.

This won't be popular, and I have no evidence to back it up - it is just something I was thinking about.

What if when you first got diagnosed, you were low on all your vitamins/minerals due to malabsorption. Now, though, you are getting lots of yummy vitamins/minerals from your food - only you are still taking a high potency vitamin pill. Not to mention that the stuff they get those vit/min from isn't WHOLE FOOD (most likely, unless you're paying an arm and a leg, and even then, how can they get those whole foods into that tiny pill) - so how can it possibly be balanced. Food is a balanced system - supplements are fragmented and not a balanced system.

Just a thought - what if you stopped taking the vitamin pill for a week to see what happens?

Someone can certainlly be intolerant of sweet potatoes. It's important to know that they are not related to potatoes. Potatoes are in the nightshade family (with peppers, tomatoes, tobacco, & eggplant), and many folks with digestive issues have troubles with them. Sweet potatoes (and yams - same veggie actually just different variety) are in the Marigold family. They have advantages over potatoes: like someone said, lower glycemic index - in fact, good for diabetes they find - but also they don't require calcium to digest, so there is less bone loss if you are vegan as well.

I don't react to them, and in fact, eat them a lot...but I think just about anything can be reactive in an individual.

I'll just add more fodder for debate, but drinking too much water is hard on the kidneys and demineralizes the body.

That stuff is murder. I could not sleep yet was physically and emotionally exhausted. I had to take sleeping pills. Also, it made everyone and everything ugly and stinky...I used to have to ride the bus when i was on it, right at the time of day that I was at my lowest, and I had never before been so negative about anything. When you go off it, they have to test your adrenal glands to be sure they still work after having bee replaced by the prednisone. The test is interesting - it tastes funny. They give you an IV of adreneline or of something that makes your adreneline come on, I forget which. Anyway, I hate that stuff. The dreams, the anger, the tiredness -- I prefer my own adreneline, thanks. (I've been on it two separate times, longer the first time, but more harshly the second time - through IV which stings like the devil!)

Anyway, take care. Be thankful you'll be off it soon enough. Yuck.

does anyone know offhand certain health and beauty products that are gluten free...such as soap, shampoo, makeup and toothpaste?

Just got word that SMASHBOX is all gluten free.

Aveda products almost all HAVE GLUTEN, so beware of those.

I lost 10 pounds after going wheat free two years ago; since going gluten-free two months ago I have not lost anymore (but I didn't need to). I think our bodies adjust out once we're eating well. Just watch out for replacement bread/muffin/cookie type things. I've replaced those with trail mix, fruit, etc.

Good luck.

I don't know how long you have to be on prednisone, but you should definitely bone up on the vitamins and minerals that it steals from you (I forget what they are, to be honest, but the Internet never forgets). I was on high doses for a week or two then tapered to small doses for a year for ITP, a different autoimmune disease.

Hopefully you're only on it for a short while.

I've read lots of folks on here have trouble with tapioca, too.

I think people would really find interesting the connections between Celiac and autism as well as schitzophrenia.

I definitely don't lack intuition, but sometimes I lack the fortitude to stick with it in the face of adversity - you know, if I don't know "Why" I feel something ... but isn't that the whole point of intuition? Interesting. I'm going to look up this magazine. Thanks.

I've been able to remember things, like people's names,much better than before.

AND

I didn't even realize I wasn't sleeping through the night until about 3 weeks gluten-free - then I did for three or four nights in a row (I live by the train tracks, so I can't expect perpetual sleeping bliss) and realized how unusual that was. Yahoo.

As to habits - making myself lunch/snacks the night before I go anywhere is much better.

AND

for some reason, I use up food more economically. I use old rice and stuff like that.

Ha ha! Well, the word in my house is that I am huge techny internet dork So...I can relate... Dh makes fun of me being on the forum--but not in a serious manner. I mean, he belongs to a ferrari forum--so I can make fun of him too (although he visits a few times a week--vs multiple times a day!) Anywho...can't tell what your husband's tone was from your post...but after the initial learning curve wears off you may want to make sure you have some "celiac-free" space carved out in your home where you can talk to your husband about topics not relating to celiac....if that is even a problem for you guys.

Mine has his Lotus forum, but then teases me whenever I'm on the computer. Arg!!! But he's a kidder.

what does Dh mean?

I agree, Fruity Pebbles are not what I want him to be eating. No preservatives (who needs it with all that sugar) but the food colorings.... However I just want there to be one or two products that you can buy in a regular grocery store that I can tell my sisters in law about, and that he can eat with his zillions of cousins when we are visiting. They used to love to bake for all the kids but I haven't found a recipe that he can eat and they can bake yet.

There are a couple of relatively healthy cereals (Rice Twice, Erewhon Brown Rice Crisps, Perky O's) that he can eat, but he doesn't like them, they aren't easily available where my family lives, and they get very expensive when you are buying for that many children.

Generally he eats everything home made from whole ingredients, partly because I want him to, and partly because between the celiac and the allergies there is rarely any other option.

Alex

do you have the Erewhon crispy rice with fruit in it? I used to love that when I drank soy milk (I quit soy milk and switched to rice milk and now don't like it as well, but it is good!)