Hello to Everyone!

First of all, isn’t it wonderful to have a forum to share experiences, exchange information and build up our confidence in making the choice to be dedicated to a gluten free lifestyle. Kayo & Andrew, thank you!

My name is Kristine, and I have been studying labels, learning to cook from single source ingredients and trying my best to keep my family feeling good, and away from gluten for the past 8 years. My husband has celiac herpetiformis, and says he feel like an ‘ll out of 10’ when he’s clean from gluten. I live with a very different man when he’s ‘in to it’. He experiences classic symptoms such as itchy, painful blisters that appear on his skin, extreme tiredness, irritability and bowel discomfort. He says the feeling is hot / cold in his stomach, and is usually shortly followed by diarrhea. My 6 year old daughter is also highly sensitive to gluten. Her stomach feels similar to her father’s when she tries to sneak a cupcake at school, and her behavior which is usually spunky and full of fun turns aggressive and uncooperative. Interestingly, my husband at the tender age of 8 months old had a telescoping of the bowel, the large into the small, and required emergency surgery. My daughter at just 5 days old also had similar surgery because her intestine ‘twisted’ at the duodenum during my pregnancy, and needed to be cut, repaired and reconnected in the hopes that her intestinal track would function properly - which in time it did. That was a very scary experience for us all. I adhered to a very strict gluten free diet during my two subsequent pregnancies, and had 2 healthy babies. They are now just 1.5 and 3, and we have not really tested their abilities to process gluten yet.

Today, we are thankful that although father and daughter have matching scars on their bellies, we share our lives together happily. We are also grateful that although it certainly has it’s challenges to live gluten free in our society, unlike other diseases, it is within our power to control with proper diet choices.

I look forward to sharing what I’ve learned about gluten free living, and most certainly to learning from this community of individuals that can help each other through our support network!