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Exhausted, but being weird about sleeping because of the storm and the creeky noises of the apartment. I'm rereading Sushi's CW-verse because it's there and I've read it enough times that I can still make sense of it even with my eyes crossing.

Discovered some good gluten-free cinnamon cookies today. They claim to be sugar cookies, but they're not. It's strange right now, being really hopeful this is the answer because I want a goddamn answer (so I can stop playing "what am I dying of today?" with Google), and knowing that once I'm sure it is in the answer, I'm going to flip out in some really intense literary way about the whole thing, because you cannot, CANNOT tell me that glutee-free stuff tastes just as good. It doesn't, and I don't want to spend the rest of my birthday's eating potato fucking sponge cake either. I mean, let's face it, that while from going from the girl who can eat anything to the girl who can't eat anything is galling, there's something mildly hillarious about the whole thing as well, because really wasn't I irritable enough without getting some dumb disease whose chief symptom is irritability?

Hrrrr.

Okay, sleep take two.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yay for cookies! Even if they're not the bestest ever. Sweet dreams.

Heya...

I've been gluten-free since 1998. Going GF made lots of things a lot better, which I'll go in later for you, when I'm a little smarter.

However, from picky, foodie bitch to the newly glutenly challenged? There is life after giving up the wheat, barley, rye and oats. Honest. Ping me to remind me, if I go too long without my long and painful story being told and my ultimate return to the world of happy food.

Can you tell me how quickly it made things better? I want to find a way to judge the necessity of this exercise, although at the moment it seems rather self-evident.

Practially instantly. I stopped gluten for about 2 weeks, had a bunch as a "re test" and felt *horrible*.

After that re test, which involved a huge plate of pasta and bread, it took about 3 days of awful, gallbladder-like symptoms (and I don't have a gallbladder!) and 3 days of horrible gasto unhappiness, and then was 75 - 80% better than I'd been in years. Been pretty much GF ever since, with the occasional bite of something irresistable, but I always pay for it.

The Gluten Free Pantry and Kinnickinnick.com are your friends, though the products vary widely in quality. Frozen gluten free waffles are one of the few things that are actually *better* gluten free. If you have TJ's, they're the best, but Vans work fine.

My SGF reminds the newly gluten free that rice krispy treats are GF, many macaroons are GF, and the very best PB cookied are made with an egg, a cup of sugar, and a cup of PB (roll into balls and cook in a med-low oven until preferred doneness).

Well, this helps confirm my sense that I've finally found a diagnosis. I've been completely gluten-free for 72 hours, and was mostly gluten-free the two days before, but made mistakes I didn't realize until later. Since then, while I've not started eating fattier foods, most of the gall bladder type symptoms I was having have gone away or diminished, and I feel different and my skin looks different, etc. I'm going to give my body another week or two to heal before trying fattier foods.

I've been having Pamela's cookies, and I have to say, they are very very good. And I'm thrilled I'll be able to eat coconut again, as it's one of my favourite things, although I'll have to do a lot of playing with a bunch of Australia recipes before I can eat any of those foods again.

Honestly, while a bad case of the stomach flu obvious triggered this, I can think back to stomach problems I was having in Australia in the beginning of 2005 as probably the start of my increased sensitivity to gluten.

How wary do I need to be about things processed in plants that process things with flour in it -- especially not knowing if I am specifically celiac or if I'm just allergic as hell. I don't want to do permanent damage to my body, but damn it, I'd like to find some fucking tortilla chips I can eat, but all of them seem to be made in places that also process flour.

A highschool pal of mine used to have these most amazing cookies made with rice flour. Soft and plump and chewy goodness. If I can find the recipie I'll post it for you.

And,partway down this page http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/ there is an article about a gluten-free restaurant in Calgary. Tres cool, eh?

Ekatarina

Cool. I actually did find some incredible packaged chocolate chip cookies (what the coleagues stole). Everything else has been weird so far, and only been exciting because of how sick I've been -- so any food is new food really.