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Tammy - posted on 12/11/2011

Hi, my son - almost 13 yrs. has celiac as well. I know what an "adventure" it is when you first start this gluten free journey. Seems everything has gluten hidden in it and you suddenly have to read every label for things like HVP and HPP and autolyzed yeast that contain gluten but don't say gluten. It WILL get easier ! Your sons body won't heal until he has been completely gluten free for a while so I'd just go for it and remove the gluten. Remember to give him separate jars of jam, peanut butter etc so that it's not contaminated from the crumbs on your knife ! I try not to buy gluten free baked products any more because it's more expensive than baking your own and it's just low fiber processed food that don't have any nutrition or fill him up anyway. I have hundreds of recipes , many of my faves are on my blog www.gfrecipes.blogspot.com if you are interested . Good luck with this and be patient with yourself ♥ it gets easier .

Nicole - posted on 12/09/2011

Our oldest went more slowly off gluten than a dramatic cut-off. The reason? Once he had positive bloodwork, we kept him on gluten but we started to cut back on the amount. Then, after his GI doc did the endoscopy, he felt certain that it was celiac but we had to wait for the results. In the meantime (less than a week) he said to take him off the major gluten stuff (cereal, pasta, bread, etc.). Once we had the results we became very choosy on what we bought that was labelled GF.



You son won't heal until he's off gluten entirely. What helped me most was sticking to a whole foods type diet and picking 2 things my boys really loved to eat and to find a GF alternative. One of the more difficult things in the beginning (though kids tend to get over it more quickly) is that you need time to adjust to tastes and textures. Though there is plenty out there that does not taste GF to a gluten eater.



What does your son like that is naturally GF that wouldn't upset him too much and cause problems?



Oh, I mostly shop at "regular" stores like Kroger or Meijer. I try to keep my family's meals whole foods and not too much processed stuff. One, it's a cost thing (3 kids plus one on the way) - and my kids eat a lot for being so young. Also I want to teach my celiac kids how to eat on a small budget and to not really on the more expensive GF prepared foods. For specialty foods, like flour or GF oats, check out subscription on Amazon. Sometimes I find it cheaper to go that route for those kinds of things. Then the challenge is to spread it over a certain amount of time!

Jenna - posted on 12/08/2011

Hey im from the uk so not sure wher you could shop but you are supposed to take them off gluten straight away once you have full diagnosis! once gluten is removed from his diet his vili will start to repair themselves. Good luck x