8 Months Gluten Free

8 Months gluten free!!!  It does not seem like it has been 8 months since Em's diagnosis.  I would have to say that she is still in a healing phase and easily affected by accidental gluten exposure.  At 8 months we are still finding things we didn't realize had gluten in it.  She has made such a huge improvement though.  Her chronic issues have become random issues that pop up only when she accidentally gets gluten.

No more diarrhea.
No more eczema.
No more sores.
Very few headaches.
Very few tummy aches.
No more blood in the stool.
No more yellowing around the nose and eyes.
No more running to the bathroom at school 6 times a day for a bm.
More ENERGY

She is so easy with this.  She knows gluten will make her sick, she is learning what has gluten in it so that she doesn't eat it when it is offered to her.  Halloween will definitely be a test now because of all the candies with gluten or cross contamination.  What a PAIN cross contamination is!!

Em is now 54 lbs and 50 inches tall.

Removing gluten has not been without struggle, as easy as she has been.  Back in April, she was sent to children's hospital because she was very dehydrated.  For several days she had refused to eat or drink anything and was vomiting the occasions that she did.  They started an IV and did an abdominal x-ray.  They figured out then that she had a blockage in her intestines.  The dr's were able to get things moving without resorting to surgery, thankfully.  At that hospital visit, the doctor also realized that she had reflux, and as a result of that had damage in her esophagus.  We went home with a prescription for miralax and prilosec.

They were unsure if her blockage was because her muscles were unsure of how to handle solid bms after having diarrhea since she was 3 weeks old, or if the transition to GF grains was just too much.  It made sense that GF grains would have that effect, it is mostly rice and corn flour, both of which are binding in large quantities.  So the decision was made to go more grain-free than just gluten free.  Fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts, etc.  I only buy maybe 1 loaf of gluten free bread a month now instead of weekly like before.

Em's favorite lunch is salad!  That makes it really easy.  She loves the Laughing Cow cheese wedges that she eats with GF crackers.  She also gets yogurt every day to help with the probiotics, she is lucky that she doesn't have a dairy intolerance though like most people with celiac disease.  It has been a lot easier to adjust to than I ever expected, but she has always loved fruits and vegetables, so that easily makes up the bulk of her diet.

Oats are a no-go, no more oatmeal, no more oatmeal cookies, she is just intolerant to it for some reason and gets very bloated and tummy aches when she eats it.  That makes things more difficult because a lot of GF products use oat flour or whole oats.  I am not sure if it is cross contamination that causes the issue, or if it is the oat protein/gluten that gives her an intolerance issue.  I've heard of both and, at this point, am not willing to try oats that are assured not to be cross contaminated. 


I am so happy to have things turning around for her!  I can only hope that the more we learn, the less accidental exposures to gluten she has, and the easier things get :)