Been there.
Done that.
Moving on.
As I'm sure you've gathered from the title of this entry, my family is 'going gluten-free'. Honestly, at this point, we're more teetering on the edge of the gluten-free horizon, ready to fall into gluten-free oblivion. I'm going to be completely honest with you. Before gluten-free was something that I needed to know about, I honestly thought it just meant no bread. It's so much more than that. SO. MUCH. MORE. Let me give you a little bit of a back story. Ready? Here we go.
My youngest daughter, had been complaining a lot about having stomach aches. At first, my husband and I thought it was the typical 'I-don't-want-to-eat-dinner-so-I-will-fake-a-stomach-ache' stomach ache. They seemed to happen, at first, on the nights when what I was serving for dinner wasn't her favorite. Then, the frequency increased. It went from about once a week, to three times a week, to every other day. My husband and I got worried, so off to the pediatrician we went. Naturally, our regular pediatrician was on vacation. (I hate not being able to see our regular doctors. I feel like I don't get the same quality of care when someone fills in for them) It would be two weeks before he would return to the office. I didn't think it wise to wait that long, so I reluctantly made an appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at his office for the next day.
When we got to the office, I had knots in my stomach. I tend to overreact a little bit when it comes to the health of my children. I'm the first to admit, that when they're sick with a standard cold, I think they have pneumonia. So naturally, as we're waiting in the waiting room, the little hamster was running VERY fast on the wheel in my brain. Luckily we didn't have to wait very long, before our name was called. We got into the room, and the NP comes into the room, introduces herself to both myself and my daughter, and dives right in. Asking a lot of questions, doing the exam, standard doctor's visit stuff.
As she's feeling her tummy, she said something that scared me to death. "She has a very large mass ......." I honestly don't remember what she said after the word mass. I stopped listening. Mass. Mass. My baby has a 'very large mass ....' Mass of what? Remember how I said I think the worst? This case was no different. Once I finally got out of my own head, the words that finished her original statement, finally made it to my ears. ".....of poop that's kind of stuck here."
Wait. What? Can you please repeat?
"She's backed up. Constipated."
You've heard it, probably even said it before. Full of shit. My daughter was. Quite literally. That wasn't the only thing though. She'd lost weight since she'd last been seen. Which hadn't been that long before this visit. She'd lost enough weight that the NP was a little concerned. She sent us downstairs for an abdominal x-ray, as well as a blood draw. Of course this visit occurred on a Friday, at 3:00 PM. There's no way I'm getting results right away. At least not the blood work. We went back upstairs to see her about the x-ray. Which showed just how full of shit she actually was. The NP gave me her card, that had her personal phone number on it. Said that as soon as she got the results of the blood work she'd let me know. I didn't expect to hear from her until later in the next week. So imagine my surprise when she called me later that night around 9:00 PM.
She told me that she'd suspected she might have a gluten allergy, which is why she ordered the blood work, and that the blood work confirmed it. She advised me to follow up with her normal pediatrician (which we'd already made an appointment for) and to go from there.
Fast forward 2 weeks, back at the pediatrician's office. He goes over the blood work results in more detail, and tells us that he has submitted paperwork to our insurance company for our daughter to have a procedure to confirm a diagnosis of Celiac Disease. We would be meeting with a pediatric gastroenterologist, to schedule a pediatric esophagogastroduodenoscopy. In English, it meant that my baby was going to need to have a tube put down her throat for further testing to confirm her diagnosis.
Queue anxiety.
We would end up at Dorenbecher Children's Hospital in Portland. Quite possibly one of the best Children's Hospitals in the entire nation. The staff there are nothing short of amazing. I thank the Lord that we're close enough (even thought it's more than 2 hours away) to be able to have them as an option. They made the whole process, quite frankly, easy. For my husband and I, and for our daughter.
Now, comes the hard part. And the point of this entire blog entry. Learning how to be gluten-free. I stress the learning part. Like I said before, I used to honestly believe that needing to be gluten free was merely just not eating bread. I was so wrong. I mean, that's part of it, but there's oh so much more.
Did you know that some lotions and even shampoo's can contain gluten? I sure didn't.
We met with a Nutritionist, who gave us a ton of information and valuable resources that I am SO thankful for. It will help us better find products that contain gluten, by teaching us how to look for it.
Let me share a few of the things that I've learned so far:
Gluten is the generic name for certain types of proteins that are found in the common cereal grains wheat, barley, rye, and their derivatives. Spelt, semolina, durum and triticale are examples of some other gluten-containing grain products that are commonly found in food products.
Wheat. Barley, and Rye. Really?! That's like in almost EVERY thing. All-Purpose flour. Have you ever looked at the ingredients of AP flour?
This is the flour that I've bought since I've been buying my own groceries. It's the flour that my mother bought when I lived at home. It's literally all I've ever used or been given. Take a look at this ...
Do you see what I see?? Bleached Wheat Flour, and Malted Barley Flour. The first 2 ingredients are wheat and barley. One thing that the Nutritionist told me, that I wasn't aware of before, was the malt ALSO contains gluten. Who knew. I certainly didn't.
That being said, there are a LOT of things that I didn't know about, that can contain gluten in one form or another. With that, thanks for the FALCPA (Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act) requires that a majority of packaged food products that include an ingredient that contains protein from ANY of the top 8 allergens (milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, soy, wheat, and crustacean shellfish) be labeled n one of two ways: the allergen must be named in either the ingredient list or a separate 'Contains' statement immediately following or next to the ingredient list.
Let's look back at the All-Purpose flour I used as an example above. Here's the ingredient list again:
In the coming weeks (maybe months, who knows how long I'll be able to carry this out) I'll go into more about our gluten-free journey and how we've gotten there. I'll share tips that were shared with me, and things that I've learned along the way. I'd eventually like to share recipes, and other resources as well. So stay tuned.
If you have any questions for me, about our experience, please feel free to ask. Additionally, if you have anything to add, or any of your own tips you'd like to share, again, please do. After all, we're in this together. Right??
Until Next Time ...
~A
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