Oh! And keep a list of all the foods you/he/she cannot eat (including names of hidden gluten) with you - on the fridge and in your wallet so you have it handy at all times.

Last one - TALK to restaurant staff, friends, family when going out and let them know you have food allergies and find out what they have to offer before going over there. Its better to be real picky than to be sick. And you can always bring something with you if need be.

Layne!

1. List all the foods you love that you now have to “give up”.
(For example, macaroni and cheese winter comfort food - buy rice pasta available at almost every grocery store. Pizza? Go to your local health food store and look for GF pizza crust mix, search online for GF Pizza and the city in which you live.)

2. Meal planning - this is important for a lot of reasons and grocery shopping will take longer for about the first month but you’ll get used to it very quickly. Use resources like Celiac Canada (http://www.penny.ca/Celiac-canada.htm) and Celiac.com for ingredient lists that are considered gluten….a lot of cereals that are made from rice will be completely off limits because they use an ingredient called barley malt flavoring that is made from wheat. Use this list to compare against ingredient lists - http://www.celiac.com/articles/181/1/Safe-Gluten-Free-Food-List-Safe-Ingredients/Page1.html
Use your local health food store as part of your grocery shopping routine. Typically the employees of health food stores are quite knowledgeable and eager to help.
I have used grocery delivery services - shopping online with the ability to view the ingredient list from your computer is very helpful. Grocerygateway.com in the GTA, Freshdirect.com in the NYC area, etc.

3. Eating out - Because the amount of people with food allergies is growing at a rapid rate, most eat-in chain restaurants are used to these type of requests. Also, because they don’t want law suits (particularly applicable to peanut and shellfish allergies the management can be quite diligent about educating their staff). Don’t be discouraged by the ignorant teenage waiter/waitress who asks, “What’s gluten?”. It will get easier. Any chain restaurant will either have nutrition/allergy information on their website or will make it available to you by requesting it via email. Fast food is also made available on every fast food website. If you have a question, email the company and you’ll get a pretty quick response. There are a lot of GF bloggers out there with french fry lists - some fast food chains have GF fries and some do not. Cross-contamination is one of the things you have to be aware of. For example, Pizza Hut has released statements that since their pizza is hand tossed, they cannot say that anything in their restaurant is GF including the soda because trace amounts of gluten have been found in all of their food because of the hand tossed pizza. Any GF food fried in the same fryer as foods containing gluten is considered cross contaminated and unsafe for GF people.

4. UNDERSTAND YOUR ILLNESS. If you are a celiac, completely understand what type of disease you have. A lot of people misunderstand what that means at first. Since lactose intolerance has some of the same symptoms - digestive problems, etc people think that if they cheat on their GF diet they will just have to endure a few digestive problems and think that giving into cravings occasionally is ok. Celiac disease is not a simple food intolerance. Repeated exposure to gluten can cause severe and if left untreated, fatal vitamin and mineral deficiencies, intestinal cancer, and other severe complications or diseases. Below are a list of excerpts and sources explaining the seriousness of the disease. Once you understand what is happening to your internal organs, you can change your life with the knowledge that you will live a longer and healthier life.

From: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/celiac-disease/DS00319/DSECTION=3
“Normally, your small intestine is lined with tiny, hair-like projections called villi. Resembling the deep pile of a plush carpet on a microscopic scale, villi work to absorb vitamins, minerals and other nutrients from the food you eat. Celiac disease results in damage to the villi. Without villi, the inner surface of the small intestine becomes less like a plush carpet and more like a tile floor, and your body is unable to absorb nutrients necessary for health and growth. Instead, nutrients such as fat, protein, vitamins and minerals are eliminated with your stool.”

From: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/celiac-disease/DS00319
“When a person with celiac disease eats foods containing gluten, an immune reaction occurs in the small intestine, resulting in damage to the surface of the small intestine and an inability to absorb certain nutrients from food.
Eventually, decreased absorption of nutrients (malabsorption) can cause vitamin deficiencies that deprive your brain, peripheral nervous system, bones, liver and other organs of vital nourishment, which can lead to other illnesses. ”

From: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/celiac-disease/DS00319/DSECTION=7
“Cancer. People with celiac disease who don’t maintain a gluten-free diet also have a greater chance of getting one of several forms of cancer, especially intestinal lymphoma and bowel cancer.
Neurological complications. Celiac disease has also been associated with disorders of the nervous system, including seizures (epilepsy) and nerve damage (peripheral neuropathy).”

From: http://www.anemia.org/patients/glossary/
“Celiac Disease
Disorder that causes damage to the intestines when gluten is eaten (protein in grains like wheat, oats, rye, and barley). Celiac disease can lead to iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia because of bleeding from the small intestine.”

5. Finally, Celiac disease is considered an auto-immune disease. Once a person has one, they have the potential of developing more auto-immune type diseases. I was first diagnosed with adrenal gland failure, chronic auto-immune thyroiditis (or Hashimoto’s disease), and then celiac disease. The complications have been severe and the iron deficiency, potassium deficiency, and mercury poisoning (caused from adrenal gland failure) are just a small part of the complications. Make sure you push your doctors to further investigate. It has taken me 6 years to be diagnosed. Ask your doctors for a full vitamin and mineral blood analysis, heavy metal and toxin blood analysis, and look for doctors who are very familiar with auto-immune diseases. Ask for a
C-reative protein (CRP) test. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-reactive_protein) This is an inflammatory marker and commonly used to test for heart disease risk factors. The lab reported that anything over 10 was a heart attack risk. My test came back at 43. Although doctors do not fully understand how to apply the CRP rating to treatment, mine explained my severe chronic pain. The inflammatory marker was off the charts and the doctors don’t don’t know which disease caused this high marker. Most doctors were treating my symptoms - severe high blood pressure, inability to process fluids resulting in a the necessity of a high dose of diuretic, severe fatigue, chronic pain, headaches, digestive problems, and many more. I am in weekly IV therapy now, also called chelation therapy, to treat the mercury poisoning but also to administer my vitamins and minerals intravenously to bypass my damaged intestines. I also take a long list of supplements daily.

Lastly, I was a healthy 23 year old woman 6 1/2 years ago. I grew up with parents who were very into health food, organic produce before it was widely accepted, and continued that mindset into adulthood. I was in a severe car accident at the age of 23 that triggered these problems. At 29, I now am lucky to hide my illness by working from home and for the last six months, from bed. I am hoping to be able to work from my home office again with the help of my new doctors and work towards recovery.