Intro

[Guest guest]

I just realized I have been asking tons of questions and I haven't

introduced myself yet.

I'm Kris and my husband was just diagnosed with Celiacs two weeks ago.

He has been ill on and off for over six years and has had a host of

medical problems. We just figured he had a really low immune system for

some reason. He grew up very healthy but as an adult he seems to always

have some medical thing going on. For the past three months the problem

has been severe abdominal pain. Several trips to different doctors and

none could come up with a reason till we asked about possible food

allergies. We were thinking lactose intolerant since he drinks a lot of

milk and we were surprised when the blood tests said he had Celiacs. We

had never heard of it before. He has been doing very well on the GF

diet and all the abdominal pain has gone away. Well except for the mayo

incident...we found out about cross contamination the hard way. So far

we have just been reading info on the internet and from the Idiots Guide.

We live in a very small town just outside of Eugene, OR and have an old

farm on 15 acres. We don't have any farm animals just two dogs and three

cats. The wildlife is entertaining enough that we don't need farm

animals. We have been here two years and have had deer, bear, bob cats,

coyotes, raccoons, and on one rare occasion we saw a cougar. We are in a

heavily forested area so the wildlife is usually just passing through or

stopping to eat apples out of the orchard.

We are very fortunate that my husband got diagnosed after we moved here

(we moved from Portland two years ago) as it would have been much harder

to deal with being GF when we lived in the city. Course it would have

been nice for him not to have been sick for so long. We ate out a lot

when we lived in the city and now we have a small orchard and we started

a big garden this spring so we have lots of organic food and we are able

to do a lot of canning.

Anyway, I will probably have more questions so I hope I don't get too

annoying. My biggest concern right now (other than finding a bread my

husband likes) is what will happen when we travel for any length of

time. I realize there are a lot of things Celiacs can eat but eating out

has been very daunting and I imagine it will be even harder when you are

away from home for more than an afternoon. It doesn't help that my

husband is a picky eater to begin with and he doesn't like rice, or corn

chips, corn tortillas, or some of the other wheat alternatives.

One more question... Does anyone subscribe to the Gluten Freeda site and

do you find it worth the $30 to join?

Kris