Has anyone else here had experience with this? I started a wheat free about 6 weeks ago and feel SO much better. I don't have the digestive problems I used to and have dropped 22 pounds since my last dr's appt on 6/17.

Just curious is anyone else has seen this and has good advise since I'm still definately learning. Thanks!

Wow! I almost with I had digestive problems, Darkhorse. But me and food have a life long love affair going on. Seriously, I'm glad you found the help you needed.

My second grangirl spent the first five years of her life with dairy allergies so we did soy products for her.

Her little sister is just that...little. At 21 months, she barely weighs 21 lbs. and it's been a constant struggle for her. She's allergic to dairy, wheat, gluten and soy. Rice milk and a special extremely expensive formula are all she can have besides meat, veggies and fruit. She hasn't been diagnosed as celiac...yet.

There are a couple of websites that have recipes. I've found I can make gravy for Rosie using rice or potatoe flour. My dil has experimented baking with it too. Of course you can use apple sauce or prune whip instead of butter or shortening in baking so that helps too.

Continued good luck with your health.

Thanks Truff. You have been a great supporter on BOL and I hope to meet you one day. I wish the best for your grankids and hopd that one day all the "bad stuff" can be taken out of our foods. Being a "foodie" & homebrewer, nothing was a worse diagnosis, but we are brewing a gluten free beer and life w/o wheat isn't so bad (as is evidenced by my weight loss), so I'm on the road to recovery as I pray your grangirls are. Best wishes, Becca.

Darkhorse - what were your symptoms? Our future DIL has been having stomach problems and after months of trying to find the root, has gone vegan - which is working, but to me, she needs to find the cause.....I have some issued with being a control-freak.

The DIL was getting queasy in the stomach after almost every time she ate. Her doctor wasn't much help. I know eggs are a major problem for her and the rest of her family -- eat eggs/sick on the stomach.

Anyone else have experience with this?

Dark - my grandma has this.

She's in her early 70s and it probably 'became active' only 10-15 years ago or so. She was sent to the hospital for severe stomach pains and they ended up taking out her gall bladder and she's was diagnosed with this.

She's learned to adjust well - I couldnt imagine living 50+ years, then all of a sudden - BAM - no wheat for the rest of your life...although I who knows what the future will bring for any of the grandkids, given that it's genetic.

I am sure this resource is not new to you, but I was approached a few years ago by the U of Chicago to help them educate our bank customers about Celiac Disease. They have great info at http://www.celiacdisease.net/

I've also noticed that a lot of restaurants are advertising gluten-free menu choices.

There are even a few around her that have full gluten free menus.

I was tested for this not too long ago, and while waiting for the results (came back negative), found a few places where you can buy gluten-free baked goods (and mixes). I guess it's getting more common and merchants are starting to recognize the need for gluten-free items.

Good luck to you, Darkhorse.

A friend of mine has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and her doctor has placed her on a strict gluten-free diet (in addition to some MS medications). She is doing wonderfully, has lost a bunch of weight, and feels great. I think that medical science is finding that removing gluten from the diet can help manage a number of medical conditions. I know that here in my area there are a number of restaurants with many gluten-free choices, and there's a bakery around the corner from my house that advertises gluten-free bread one day per week.

Most of the gluten free things taste the same to me - like the pasta, and some are even better!

But there are some things that I would really miss...like a Big Mac from McDs every now and then. Oh and the gluten free beer is not the best.

There's a special bakery in the mini-mall right next to my office. They specialize in glutten, wheat, and dairy free products. The name of the bakery is The Silly Yak bakery. Cute, huh?

One of my high school teachers was diagnosed with celiac. You might like to check out her blog - http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/ - she has some helpful links, including a recipe index.

Pooh, I was queasy pretty much all day, every day. When I ate, it would either come up or go right through me. I also had a lot of stomach pain and developed gall stones (which I've removed though alternative means rather than surgery). I kept telling my DH I couldn't figure out how I was gaining weight when I couldn't keep food in my system for any length of time (sometimes an hour, usually less than 15 minutes). Now if I get something that has wheat in it, I can feel stomach pain within 15 minutes & I'm sick within an hour. It's amazing I've lived like that for so long.

I thought maybe I was developing an issue with dairy, but come to find out, it was the stuff I was eating with the dairy. Enchildas? The sauce has flour to thicken. Broccoli & cheese soup? Same thing. Cobb salad? The dressing. Parm cheese on my pasta? Nope, the pasta itself.

Is your DIL eating anything with the eggs? Maybe toast or an english muffin? Even things you'd never think of - restaurants don't change their oil after ever order so your fries might not initially have wheat, but the beer battered onion rings someone else just got contaminated the oil they are cooked in. Almost all marinades & alot of dressings have wheat. One big shocker for me - soy sauce! Why on earth does that need wheat???

Reading labels has become a new past-time for me. No wheat or flour, obviously, but also watching for things like "modified food starch." Good grief! Thankfully, I've got Vitamin Cottage, Trader Joes, Wild Oats & Whole Foods (aka "Whole Paycheck") that all carry gluten-free products.

I do wish I had some of the restaurants that some people talked about though. I have had a couple of places know what I'm talking about when I start asking about wheat or flour in items and they will go discuss with the chef about what is safe for me to eat. Those places definately get repeat business.

Thanks Cub, I don't know if I've been to that one or not. I've seen several including http://www.celiac.org that have a lot of useful info. Also, the person that saw this in me lent me a copy of her book "Going Against the Grain" and that has been increadibly handy as well. After just a short period of time learning about this, I think I've probably had this issue since I was about 11 or 12 years old and it has just gone undiagnosed all this time. I'd love to find a way to get the word out about this. I actually think one of my coworkers has this as well and I've been talking to her about it.

Funny thing is, it took a pretty serious health issue for me to finally listen to my friend (a doctor) about it. She says it took a heart arrythmia (sp?) for her to listen to a friend of hers about it and it took him a full blown heart attack before he listened to his doctor about it. I think most folks just think "wheat can't be that bad for you" or something along those lines. It's on the food pyramid for crying out loud.

Ain't that the truth!

You wanna know why wheat is in soy sauce? I want to know why soy is in some rice milk. There's only ONE brand that we can buy for Rosie that's just rice milk. At least I understand why it's so expensive. It ain't easy squeezing the milk out of a grain of rice, you know.

The pasta is a little sticky but the taste is good. I haven't been able to find any gluten free beer locally so we are trying our own stab at wheat free. The first batch isn't bad (especially when you haven't had beer in what feels like forever). It's sort of like a Hefeweisen (which is really ironic ). It came out a little sweeter than we'd like, but with the traditional lemon slice, it's good for me. We're going to start the 2nd batch this weekend - a raspberry beer - and we'll be sure to use more hops this time.

I've got a vision

Also, I love the Silly Yak name!

Thanks Becka, I'll have to check that out.

I have another friend who has celiac on top of a host of other food allergies. He carries a card with him to restaurants, so that the servers & chef know exactly what he can/can't eat.

omg...Darkhouse this sounds EXACTLY like what my daughter has gone through as well. We've been hunting why she is still sick forever after they removed her Gallbladder out b/c it was diseased really bad and full of sludge and stones. She had lost alot of weight, but now she STILL has trouble eating everything. It seems to either come up and stick in her chest/throat area or go straight through her! I know she was tested several years ago for Celiac Disease & it was negative. Thanks for all of the info! Very Interesting!!!

Hope you are feeling better and kind find the things you need!

My brother and sister-in-law both have celiac. One of my brother-in-law's major issues was not being able to drink beer. He found one brand called Bard's Tale, which is actually pretty good.

My brother-in-law works for a local baseball team and travels with them all season long. Everywhere he goes, he has to ask if a restaurant how they make their food: Do they thicken sauces with flour or cornstarch? Do they make their french fries in a separate fryer from other foods that may be breaded? And even though more people are conscious of celiac, people still give him some pretty weird looks. However, I know of two restaurants that offer gluten free menus - Outback Steakhouse and Carraba's. I'm not sure if you have any of these in your area, but if you do, it's worth a try.

Some deli meats have gluten in it so be careful of that. I do believe that all Boar's Head products are gluten free though.

My grandma says she's not supposed to lick stamps because they have some gluten chemical thing in the glue!!

I am not certain if this will help or not but you might check it out - it is called Culturelle and it is a digestive aid and it seems to me that I vaguely remember seeing something in the material that came with it regarding this.

I have lots of digestive issues - the main one is that almost every time I eat it is only a matter of minutes before I am in the bathroom - I think I will discuss this with my doctor at my next appointment - for a while I thought it was sensitivity to lettuce - but now I am not so sure. I just know that it is irritating and I need to get to the bottom of it.

I do have (and enjoy) Outback near my house. Carraba's, really? I have one about an hour away but just figured eating Italian outside my home was over. I'll definately have to check that out WOOHOO!

For all of you who have said that you "tested" negative for Celiac . . . it isn't showing up on any of my tests yet, just some pre stuff that "may or may not" be related. But I'll tell you this, the change has been so incredible and wonderful that I'm a true believer and the proof is in how I feel, not what some test says.

If you have any thought that this might help you, just do what I did - try wheat free or gluten free for a week. Then take a big bite of something with a lot of flour in it. I was able to tell the difference that quickly. I feel like I have been given a chance to get my life back. Maybe, just maybe, it will work miracles for you too. I'm about to head off to see my friend/doctor that turned me on to this and give her a great big bear hug Best of luck to all of you and yours!