Thursday, January 28, 2010

Celiac Disease....the Rich Man's Disease?

I had it said to me that Celiac is the Rich Man's Disease because it's so expensive. Have you ever heard of something so ludicrous? I mean come on. Yes the food is slightly more expensive but really in the long run it's not.

  • I sat down and figured out how much it costs to make a loaf of bread, even when using brown rice flour that's $11.99/3 pound bag, and it works out to about three dollars a loaf. Not that much more than going to the grocery store and picking up a quality loaf of whole wheat bread.
  • Prepackaged Ian's Turkey Corndogs are $5.49 a box. Horribly obnoxiously priced however they don't have nitrates and the kids love them. Plus you get what you pay for right?
  • Gluten free all purpose mix. Here it's $4.99 a box. Not that different than bisquick. Maybe a little more expensive but not much
These are just a few examples and while some stuff is more expensive I look at gluten free food the same way I look at medications, if the benefits outweigh the cons then we are good. I don't but prepackaged gluten free stuff very often but they are nice to have on hand for those nights when I stay at work an extra hour and the kids are starving by the time I get home. I would much rather keep quick, easy stuff on hand in order to maintain our strict gluten free diet then end up going out to eat and risking cross contamination issues because I wasn't in the mood to cook. And staying on a strict gluten free diet saves me money because I don't have to go to the doctor all the time because I don't feel good, I'm slowly getting more and more energy back to play with my kids and to enjoy life. And that you can't put a price limit on!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Awakening.....

I'm simply flabbergasted at the foods that have wheat in them.
  • Bouillon. Really? Why? What purpose does putting wheat in bullion cubes serve? I even tried to google and find the why and came up with nothing.
  • Beef/chicken base. Again I don't know why.
So with this tidbit in mind I set out today to make my own veggie and Chicken broth. And came across some interesting facts.
  • It's so easy. Even if I wasn't a cook it's easy to throw a bunch of veggies in some water and cook it for an hour.
  • It's extremely inexpensive. I could go purchase pre-made broth, after finding the only gluten free broth I can find in my small town, at $3.69 a box that barely made one pot of potato soup. Or, I can make my own stock pot full of veggie broth for about $5.00.
  • I know exactly what's in my broth and don't have to call or email the manufacturer to find out what "natural flavoring" could be.
Let's move on to regular eating. It's been four days and I miss the convenience of running to the store to get a loaf of bread, bread crumbs, something for the kids to eat for lunch or heck even something for me to eat for lunch. I'm very optimistic by nature and while I get annoyed that every. single. detail about eating how has to be planned at least a few hours if not an entire day in advance I'm also thankful. Nutrition is very important to me. Even before my diagnosis. Now If I have a stressful day and just want to run through a drive-thru and grab some dinner I know I can't. Now we are almost forced to eat carefully and healthy. That's what cool about this. Even though I know there will be nights I'll end up in tears because I would love nothing more than to order pizza, throw a blanket down in the living room and have a picnic without having to cook OR do dishes in the long run we will be healthier! That's the prize I have my eye on!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Day 2.

Had an awesome day. Filled with my personal favorite gluten free bagels made by yours truly. Did I mention how yummy they are and they even have a tiny bit of nutrition which I'm quickly discovering gluten free bread isn't full of nutrition is is? Sigh. I'm slightly crazy about teaching the five year old boy child and 2 year old girl child that veggies are great and should be eaten all. the. time.
Enter gluten free bread. Sigh. So my bagel recipe uses no less than five and more like eight gluten free flours. However, they are decent so when I have to have bread they will be my go to recipe!
I've been writing down everything that I eat simply because I have an appointment with a dietitian and it would be nice to show her I know what I'm doing and I'm interested to see what I think about my early days a year from now.
I digress. As I'm writing down my day I notice that I didn't even think twice about that Large McDonalds McCafe Caramel Iced Coffee I got this afternoon. I just ordered and drank it and does it have gluten in it? Crap. Evaluate how I feel and notice I have a slight headache but that could be from the long day at work, the screaming kids I came home to, or a variety of other things. I pull out the laptop and set to work on google to find the answer to the coffee dilemma. This of course gets me no where as just as many people say caramel coloring is glutinous as those that say in the U.S it's gluten free. No help. (if you are reading this by accident and now the answer please comment and tell me. I promise I won't cyber stalk you for being my single reader, aside from my mom)
Off to go eat some Enjoy Life Snickerdoodle cookies dipped in Very Vanilla Soy Milk.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The verdict is in.....

I have Celiac Disease. Diagnosed exactly two days ago.
I wish I could say that I found this really great doctor that had this really obscure thought as to what my afflictions might be. Or that I told him all my symptoms and he immediately said "Oh I know what we should do next." That all would have been to easy and everyone knows nothing about Celiac Disease is easy....right?
I've had this rash for almost 11 years. It's always been on my feet and ONLY on my feet. I've been through countless doctors telling me it's Athletes feet (really?) or ringworm (I was officially horrified/disgusted) and my personal favorite answer was (wait for it)

"I don't know."

Really?? That's your educated answer that you just charged me $150 bucks for? Thanks for that.

So I went to trusty google for help. I have numerous degrees from google university and went to work searching my symptoms (really I typed in herpes of the foot because, I assume, THAT'S what it feels like) and came up with Dermatitis Herpetiformis. Wow cool. But never in my research did I find that a gluten free diet would help this condition OR that 25% of patients with Celiac Disease have this.

Flash forward a few months and I started researching and dabbling in a gluten free diet for my wild children. I didn't think about it at the time but my feet were decent. Almost to the point that I could actually consider getting a pedicure. I of course didn't maintain a gluten free diet full time and soon my rash was back in full force. I went back to google again and this time discovered there IS a link between DH and Celiac Disease.

I made two appointments. One with an internal medicine doctor and one with a dermatologist. The dermatologist said it looks like regular eczema but went ahead and biopsied it anyway. The MD asked to see it and said hmmm. He then said well we can test you for Celiac. Seriously no problems.

So I got tested on Thursday and my results came back on Tuesday and were definitely positive. Because I have a positive biopsy for DH I, luckily, don't have to have a intestinal biopsy.

Now on to get the kids tested and work on implementing this gluten free diet!