diagnosing celiac/gluten intolerance stuff...

[Guest guest]

At 06:43 PM 3/1/2004, you wrote:

>My question is ... how did you come to suspect these things? How did you

>feel, was it some specific episode (probably more in the gluten area, I

>guess) or something more general? Or was it just something you read

>about and decided to experiment with to see (i.e. removing foods, adding

>them back in, etc.)?

for us it was pretty easy - nix's sister was actually diagnosed as

celiac-sprue, and once you know that it runs through siblings, the job gets

easier. the second part of making this job easy is that nix was already

diagnosed as ADD. we'd done ritalin for a while, and then ditched that and

got rid of sugar and processed food/flavorings/colorings - that helped a

lot, but when we ditched grain altogether, the ADD went away. even our

friends were noticing that he was sitting calmly through meetings, etc.

then one day he accidentally ate a fishcake, without thinking about the

flour in it. the next two days? he was a complete dip. so, confirmation!

for me it was a little harder. i know i'm malabsorbing, i had a devil of a

time getting pregnant, and my mom has terrible gastro-intestinal trouble. i

only have moderate gi trouble, though i had some issues as a kid. though

these things *could* have other causes, considering that grain isn't

*helping* me in any way anyway, it was a very easy decision to just cut it

out.

for amber it's a given. (another reason for me to cut it out) we're just

not ever going to give her anything with grain, with the exception of the

regrettable amount she's already gotten through the boobie...

-katja