Celiac Sprue, Anyone else alergic to wheat gluten?

[Gilman]

Since food is always an acceptable topic, I figure a lack of a food is still under the food category.

I twer wondering if any other FF members are alergic to wheat gluten.

[moosehunter]

My mom is, has been for 20 years or so. Hard to make dinner for her!
MH

[pigman]

My 20 year old daughter was diagnosed to have celiac 18 months ago. After two months of the non gluten diet she was still loosing weight. After she got down to 77 lbs and almost died they correctly diagnosed  her to have crohn's. She is doing fine now. Celiac sure limits the things that a person can eat. My daughter thinks she is better off with the Crohn's.

[Chris J]

My sister-in-law in Scotland is celiac.  Have to be real careful cooking at home, & going out for a meal can be a challenge.  I have to say that some of the crushed nut crackers that she gets are really good.  Being hypoglaucimic (spelling?) myself, I much prefer them over the wheat flower crackers.

[Ianab]

No allergic to any food myself - well apart from a couple of vegetables (by that might be more a phobia  ;) )  But a couple of friends have that gluten allergy. One is really definate - a slice of bread 1/2 kills her.
Other friend has a much milder form, she can eat small amounts, or occasional meals with wheat in them, but if she has bread every day for a week or so it makes her ill, headaches, upset stomach, muscle pains etc. It took much longer to isolate what was causing these because there didn't seem to be a direct link to anything. Often she would eat bread and have no ill effects, it was only after several meals that it seemed to build up to a threshold and affect her. Now she is aware of it, she just can substitute out some of the wheat based food for rice or corn etc and the occasional gluten has no effect.

Makes you wonder if that affects a lot of people and they aren't aware of it?

Ian

[Brucer]

My wife has been dealing with Celiac disease (and a lot of other food allergies) for close to 3 decades. We're masters at reading ingredient labels (including what's not mentioned), we're ruthless when demanding to know what's in the food served in restaurants, and we're still finding new sources of gluten-free food.

Fortunately the food industry has been getting more clued in about these sorts of problems. It's a lot easier to find gluten-free stuff than it was 30 years ago.

[Gilman]

It's amazing how many more products that are available in just the last year.

My mother came really close to dying from it.  No functioning small intestines equal no potasium wich leads to organ failure.  It took three weeks in the hospital before the right specialist diagnosed her disease.  It also took her a year to recover from it.

On the next visit to my doctor for a bronchial infection I told him I wanted to be tested for celiac.  He chuckled and said I don't have the first sign, malnutrition.  I then reevaluated his professional skills. 

I quit eating wheat over a year ago and my lifelong allergies went away, no more annual bronchial infection and boy does the world stink at times.  What offensive odors there are (I used to only be able to smell well about three days a year.)