Kids & Ciliac Disease

Look at the web site for the Celiac Foundation, a nonprofit that has information about the disease: http://celiac.org

Also go to the National Institutes of Health web site and search for celiac:
www.nih.gov

Please do any web searching with care. These are reputable sites, but there are nutty sites out there for almost any disease, sites that can mislead you with promises of "cures" or claims that the condition is caused by this or that, usually things that the site then promises it can fix for you--for a price.

But first I'd wait until you have a diagnosis - you don't, yet, and could end up worrying yourself unnecessarily, or doing research that you don't need. Stick with the doctors, push to get your child all tests the doctors recommend ASAP, and go from there. Any good doctor is going to send you immediately to a registered dietitian or nutritionist as part of the treatment, if it's celiac.

Celiac is serious -- we don't have it our family but my friend's husband nearly died some years back because doctors failed to diagnose his celiac. When he was finally diagnosed, he made a comeback and your son can too.

Gluten Free diet, not a big deal there are so many options out there. My son is 6 but we have been gluten free for almost 2 years now. It is worth it!

This site is how you clean your kitchen.
http://angelaskitchen.com/2008/04/16/clean-up-for-a-glute...

My kiddos favs are : Good Bye Gluten Bread, Perdu Gluten Free chicken strips. and I can not remember the favorite pizza brand right now.

My son was actiing out and we did Gluten free on a whim to help improve behavior. Turns out gluten was the reason his tummy was hurting. What an awesome difference. We did not test, so I do not know if he is sensitive or cieliac.. I don't care.

This site helped me with some of my new recpies.

http://www.adventuresofaglutenfreemom.com/

I may not want to wait, also, I have seen a few people get miss diagnosed, where it is a sensitivity the testing is not conclusive, another reason why I just did the diet change vs testing. If you think this is the posibiity, start today! Give it two week see if he feels any better.

The more difficult thing to adjust to is the cross contamination. Like Fries are Gluten Free, but when they are cooked in the oil that the Chicken nuggets were just cooked it, they are no longer Gluten Free.

Good luck!

My son just had blood work done on Friday to test for it! He's 4.

Just do a gluten free diet. Why do the scope if you can just cut the issue out of his diet.

HI D.,

I was actually diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis when I was 11 and have healed it, as an adult. Doctors diagnose and treat symptoms. Celiac is a new disease so we can assume its caused by something new. Gluten aggravates people but didn't in the past. Why is that? Before you panic or shift everything, it would be wise to detox your sons body and eat organically for a while. You can dodge gluten now because of his present symptoms but if his body starts working right, then gluten should not be a problem in the future. Our bodies are not meant to absorb synthetic chemicals. We get them in all forms. From the first vaccine, to the processed foods (formulas as well as baby foods), to fast food as a kid. We also absorb them through our skin by bathing and through our lungs by living in a toxic environment. Synthetic chemicals surround us and in order to live healthily then we have to at least have a safe haven at home.

When I started eating organic foods as well as supplementing with an absorbable multivitamin, my UC went away. When I detoxed our home, my allergies as well as my daughters diagnosis of ADHD was removed. When we started eating food without chemicals, my husband lost 110 pounds with the help of the same nutrition.

Get him to a good baseline of health. Look at everything else that is going on in the home. Does another child have eczema? Any acid reflux? Acne? All of these stem from the same thing....

Hope this helps. It took years for all the pieces to come together for me. I'm willing to give it all away if it will help any one person...PM me if you want more information.

Regards,
M.

My niece has celiac, so no first hand knowledge but I did see their struggles. First, there are lots of options now for people with celiac, it's not nearly as difficult as it was when my niece was diagnosed 7 years ago. I'm sure other moms will post more specific resources for you, I just have one caution - be very careful with just replacing regular food with glutin free options. My brother's family did that for my niece, they didn't really change her eating habits, they just swapped regular processed for glutin free processed. The problem with that (aside from the fact that processed in general is not good) is that many of the glutin free packaged foods are very high in sugar. As a result my 16 yo 5'4" niece is morbidly obese. So just be careful that when you remove glutin you replace it with healthy options - lean protein, vegetables, fruit, complex grains.