Anyone experienced with Celiac Disease?

[Karen]

Two of my friend's children have it. It means you have to avoid all wheat products, which is hard, but not impossible. Learn to love your veggies!

Rachel and I joked that if someone gave us a cheeseburger, I could eat the bun, she could eat just the burger, and we'd give the cheese to the doggie, because it touched the beef which I am allergic to, and the bun, which she cannot eat!

[Medusa]

The husband of a friend of mine has had it for years and didn't know it. He had lost so much weight and most of his food went right through him and caused him terrible stomach pains but he didn't realize that it was due to his diet because nearly everything that he ate caused those symptoms. It tends to run in families of Irish descent, which he is. My friend learned how to cook gluten free meals and he's so much better now. No more Friday night pizza, at least not the kind that they were having every week. There are several sites where you can get gluten free recipes and that has helped my friend plan meals. Good luck and let us know what the tests say.

[smokey the elder]

I don't know that much about it, but I think people can eat starchy foods like rice or potatoes if they have it. It's the processed stuff that often lays traps.

[pomtzu]

My ex has it, so of course has to be careful of what he eats. You need to learn that you must read ingredient labels on all packaged foods too. Anything with wheat, rye, oats, barley, or buckwheat is off limits. You just learn to modify your diet and avoid the offending foods. My ex was a great lover of Italian food, so this was difficult for him when I would cook Italian for the rest of the family. When the rest of us had spaghetti, I would cook spaghetti squash for him (it was really tasty), I used seasoned cornmeal to coat chicken when frying, etc, etc. - you just learn to adapt your cooking (and eating) to the situation at hand. Good luck!

[Russian Blue]

Yes, I'm very familiar with the diseases resulting from gluten and lactose intolerance. My mother was diagnosed with a very severe case of ulcerative jejunitis back in the 1970's when there were barely any resources. Now, you can go to larger grocery stores and health foods stores and have many gluten free products to choose from and resources available!

You may have already seen this site, the Calgary chapter of the Canadian Celiac Association (CCA). This Canadian site gives you all the starter information you may need:

CCA

Check out the PDF's along the right side under Training/Education resources, great info!

Also, in case you want to read more, here's a huge site dedicated to the disease:

Celiac.com

[Queen of Poop]

Thanks for the info and support everyone. Testing is done, now I wait for the results.

[kitten645]

I'm familiar with the diet as I work at a grocer that pioneered gluten free foods. There's even a couple of magazines out there that deal with it. LMK if I can pass along any links. Good luck!
Claudia