About Us - A Gluten Free Frenzy

In December of 1998 just weeks after our youngest son Nathan was born Martha began experiencing recurring bouts of gastrointestinal pain bloating and diarrhea that usually occurred during the nighttime. In addition she had dry flaky skin and fatigue.

In January she made her first trip to the doctor to figure out what was wrong. The doctor incorrectly diagnosed her with irritable bowel syndrome.

However during the months of January February and March her symptoms continued to worsen. By March of 1999 she had lost 30 pounds. In April multiple tests were performed to identify the problem. They did an ultrasound on all of her major organs and upper GI. The upper GI found a spot in her upper intestine. Finally by the end of April and after a few more lost pounds she was diagnosed with Celiac disease.

Hooray let's have an operation and get this thing over with so we can have our lives back. But it cannot be fixed with an operation. OK then prescribe some drugs and let's move on. Sorry it cannot be stabilized by the use of medication. Well then what? She is already malnourished and doesn't look like she will last much longer. You will have to change your diet.

Oh! Is that all? No problem! ... Well not exactly.

Celiac Disease is an inherited condition also known as Celiac Sprue or Gluten Intolerance. Celiac Disease is a medical condition in which the absorptive surface of the small intestine is damaged by a substance called gluten. This results in an inability of the body to absorb nutrients: protein fat carbohydrates vitamins and minerals which are necessary for good health.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat rye tritical barley and oats. It is the gluten in the flour that helps bread and other baked goods bind and prevents crumbling. This feature has made gluten widely used in the production of many processed and packaged foods.
Those of European ancestry are more prone than other groups. Because its symptoms can vary it often goes undiagnosed in Americans; statistics show that 1 in 2760 have the disease but some research indicates the frequency may be as high as 1 in 200.
At present there is no cure but Celiac Disease is readily treated by following the gluten-free diet.

So we started researching Celiac Sprue and quickly discovered that all grains like wheat oats barley and rye would have to be eliminated from her diet. Completely. Even trace amounts that are found in foods that are not normally thought of as a wheat/grain food such as meat marinade ketchup sour cream and salad dressing... A trace amount ingestion will not immediately take her back to where she was it will result in a very uncomfortable night of bloating and sitting on the toilet.

Throughout the entire process she was experiencing gall bladder pains. Finally in May of 1999 she had her gall bladder removed. It is very common for Celiacs to have gall bladder problems because the lower intestines are not doing their job and consequently damage the gall bladder.

The 'pure' food approach quickly became boring and depressing for Martha. Especially most seemingly "pure" foods in restaurants are spoiled with vinegar food starch or other fillers. It's difficult to enjoy eating when your diet is limited to a few items.

Eating out at that time was practically impossible. We were already having enough troubles with the disease now we have to start interrogating restaurants wait staff about every ingredient in their menu items. When we did get a server that was not perturbed by all of the questions we didn't know all of the hidden ingredients to look for anyway. Some trips were successful others were less than.

So we did more research and began finding veins of information about Celiac on the internet. In fact we are continuously updating the "safe" list of items. As we discovered more facts about Celiac we began to expand our diet at home. Although selection is limited we are able to eat at restaurants with relative confidence that illness will not result.

In the second quarter of 1999 Nathan began to eat solid foods. Slowly over the course of the next month or so he developed a nasty diarrhea that just would not quit. During our research over the previous few months we consistently ran across information that indicates that Celiac is hereditary so we decided to take Nathan off of gluten as well. Within a couple of weeks his stool normalized. Needless to say Nathan also continues to be on a gluten-free diet.