Some common symptoms of Celiac Disease include:

• Recurring bloating, gas, or abdominal pain
• Chronic diarrhea or constipation or both
• Unexplained weight loss or weight gain
• Pale, foul-smelling stool
• Unexplained anemia
• Bone or joint pain
• Migraine headaches
• Behavior changes/depression/irritability
• Vitamin K Deficiency
• Fatigue, weakness or lack of energy
• Delayed growth or onset of puberty
• Failure to thrive (in infants)
• Missed menstrual periods
• Infertility – Male/Female
• Spontaneous miscarriages
• Canker sores inside the mouth
• Tooth discoloration or loss of enamel

Anyone who can identify with one of more of the symptoms listed may have Celiac Disease and should consult a doctor for more thorough testing, which typically starts with a blood test.

In addition, anyone who has been diagnosed or has a family member who has been diagnosed with any of the following may also be at risk:

• Type 1 diabetes
• chronic fatigue syndrome
• fibromyalgia
• irritable bowel syndrome
• eczema
• Sjögren’s syndrome
• Peripheral neuropathy
• thyroid disease
• Dermatitis Herpetiformis
• osteoporosis

Thank you to Mary’s Gone Crackers and the Celiac Disease Foundation (CDF) for releasing the above checklist of symptoms in recognition of National Celiac Disease Awareness Month in May. More than three million Americans are estimated to have Celiac Disease, yet 97 percent of people go undiagnosed. The number of Celiacs is in fact greater than those with Crohn’s Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease combined.

Celiac Disease is one of the most common genetic conditions in the world that often goes undiagnosed because it is a multi-symptom, multi-system disorder. Symptoms vary and are not always gastrointestinal.

“We are proud to partner with Mary’s Gone Crackers to help raise awareness of Celiac Disease, said Elaine Monarch, founder/executive director, Celiac Disease Foundation. “We hope this checklist will encourage people to consult their healthcare professionals for proper diagnosis.”

“Celiac Awareness Month is the perfect opportunity to shed some light on this widespread condition, and we are pleased to help educate people that there may be a name for the symptoms they thought they had to live with,” said Mary Waldner, co-founder of Mary’s Gone Crackers. “I spent years trying to find the source of my digestive pain and fatigue and my son’s migraines. I want others to know that they can achieve real health when they avoid gluten containing foods.”

Mary was inspired to create Mary’s Gone Crackers after she was finally diagnosed with Celiac Disease and had scoured store shelves for tasty foods that she and her son could enjoy. Mary’s Gone Crackers are delicious and nutritious — I highly recommend them! Whenever I serve them to guests, they have a pleasantly surprised look on their faces! I am looking forward to trying their new Sticks & Twigs snacks, coming this summer (hopefully I will have a sneak preview here!)

Learn more about celiac disease and its symptoms.

Filed under: Celiac Disease, Symptoms | No Comments »

Know anyone with a food allergy? Watcha doing on September 20? How about joining Team Sure Foods Living on the Walk for Food Allergy in San Francisco? September is usually a beautiful time of year in San Francisco, so come on out to Golden Gate Park and show your support for food allergy research. You don’t have to have food allergies to participate and there is no fee to walk (but hopefully you will donate too!). If you can’t walk, please donate on behalf of my team.

Living with food allergies is an every-day challenge. There is currently no cure for food allergies, but The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) is working to change that. Their national fundraising event, Walk for Food Allergy: Moving Toward A Cure^™ . consists of walks in many different cities from August to December to raise awareness about food allergies and sponsor education and research. I for one do believe that a treatment can be found for people with food allergies, and I have hope that it will be in my daughter’s lifetime.

I hope to walk with you on September 20! To join my team, click here.

Walk details:

When: Saturday, September 20, 2008
Time: Check-in begins at 8:30 a.m.; Walk begins at 10:00 a.m.
Location: Golden Gate Park, 501 Stanyan Street, San Francisco, CA 94117
Distance: 3 miles

Thank you!
Alison

Filed under: Events, Food Allergies | 2 Comments »

Dear Readers,

I just want to let you know that if you are having a hard time finding my website through Google’s search engine, it is because my website got hacked into. Without getting too tech-y, I will try to explain what happened…

Someone out there (be it a person or a machine) hid a bunch of spammy words in the code of my website (the kind of annoying/offensive stuff that you get in junk email). When Google’s robots came to automatically “index” my website (put all my pages into its search engine so that people can find it), they discovered the hidden text and found it to be “outside [their] quality quidelines.” So they kicked me out of their search engine. No warning, just an email.

Being kicked out of Google is like internet death. Great for the true spammers out there, but for me? Ouch. To Google’s credit, I had no idea that my website contained all that spam until they told me and I have made and am working on changes to prevent this from happening again. I have submitted the site for reconsideration, but don’t know how long it will take. So, in the meantime, please still visit the website and refer others to it via other search engines or by typing out the url: www.surefoodsliving.com in your web browser.

Thanks!
Alison

UPDATE: I am back in. It took a month.

Filed under: Sure Foods Living News | No Comments »

Years ago, when a boyfriend of mine spent the night at my apartment for the first time (nothing happened, I swear!), he awoke to someone screaming. He jumped out of the bed in full combat mode, ready to attack whatever hideous creature was making those awful sounds. That hideous creature, of course, was me. “Help me! Help me!” I was shouting. “My legs! My legs!” Both of my calves were in painful cramps. If you have ever had one leg cramp, you know that you can pull yourself up and stretch it out. But double leg cramps means you are basically paralyzed, unable to maneuver yourself anywhere.

I gotta hand it to that boyfriend, he came through in crisis — he immediately grabbed my feet and pushed my toes toward me, slowly relieving the cramps. Surprisingly, he stuck around and got used to the middle-of-the-night cramp drill and even married me eventually, despite all my weird ailments!

The leg cramps were worse at night, but also occurred during the day. They came on stronger if I was dehydrated or if I drank beer. Sitting for a long time in one position could bring it on, such as the time I was on airplane returning from a weekend volleyball tournament, where days were spent playing in the hot sun and nights were spent in the bars. The plane had just landed, and as everybody rose to get ready to exit, both my quad muscles in my legs cramped. It was so painful that I involuntarily began shouting profanities (namely, the f-word). I looked up and saw a sea of faces looking down at me. “Leg cramps” I said in a little apologetic voice to the crowd. I looked over at my friend sitting next to me for support but she could only hide her own face and her giggles.

I not only had leg cramps, but I also got cramps in my hands, feet and a few times the muscle between my chin and neck cramped after I yawned (I didn’t even know I had a muscle there until it popped out!)

So what was causing these cramps? Not potassium deficiency, as everyone liked to believe. “Eat more bananas!” people would say. So I ate more bananas. I even drank tonic water because it contains quinine which was used to treat nocturnal leg cramps (now the FDA warns against using it). I had my potassium levels checked and they were normal.

It wasn’t until I had to change to a gluten-free diet after being diagnosed with celiac disease that the leg cramps went away. What a relief! Now I think that the cramps may have been related to my iron deficient anemia (caused by celiac), but no one is sure. All I know is that I don’t miss them one bit (and neither does my husband)!

Filed under: Celiac Disease, Gluten Intolerance, Symptoms | 9 Comments »

Maybe I’m jumping the gun a little bit on summer, but we just had a record-breaking heat wave here in northern California (it was 97 degrees in San Francisco one day!), which prompted me to start stocking and making summer treats. When you are a kid with food allergies, running out to the ice cream truck and picking out anything you want from the pictures on the side isn’t an option. So, what’s a mom to do?

Luckily, there are a still a lot of refreshing treats that are okay for kids with food allergies. Here is some helpful information and summer treat ideas for when summer officially begins!

1. Popsicles & frozen fruit bars

Most commercial frozen pops are free of the top 8 allergens. They are mainly sugar and/or corn syrup and food coloring, which I usually try to avoid, but sometimes it’s nice that my kids can have what the other kids are having for once! Here is the list of Popsicle brand treats that are probably okay (check the ingredients for your individual needs). You can find a healthier kind of frozen pop made of fruit juices at the grocery store. I like Breyer’s Pure Fruit bars. I also like to make my own pops using fruit juice - check out all these fun pop molds!

The company that makes Good Humor, Klondike, Breyers and Popsicle has the following allergen statement on their website:

Unilever Ice Cream is a member of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis’s Network and the Food Allergy Resource and Research Program. Upon the advice of these consumer and industry groups we do not provide a list of flavors that do not contain gluten. There is always a concern with any product list that it would be replicated and the end recipients would not receive updates that would be required with a formulation change. The safe approach recommended by these organizations is to read the label each time a purchase is made.

Recognizing that reading food labels can be time-consuming and tedious, we wish to encourage you in your daily effort to read all food labels, as it is the best way for us to ensure that you receive the information you need to make an informed and confident choice.

We do want to reassure you that we work closely with all of our ingredient suppliers, including packaging, to verify all ingredient components. This includes those ingredients in natural flavors, colors and spices that would be a concern to persons with sensitivity to gluten. We ensure that this information is then included on our product’s ingredient label as “flour” or “wheat flour etc.” If a source of gluten were used in a product, it would be clearly listed. Some of our flavorings may contain ethyl alcohol, however, because the alcohol is distilled, they would not pose a threat to anyone who is gluten intolerant.

2. Snowcones & slushes

Most snowcones that you find at fairs and amusement parks are free of the top allergens. Usually they are made with crushed ice and a flavoring syrup (corn syrup). Even some packaged snow-cones are okay. Want to make your own at home? Here are some snow cone supplies. Otherwise, you can just make a slush in your blender by blending ice with juice. Serve it in a fun cup with a straw or spoon, or in the real snow cone cups with straws.

3. Ice cream treats

Most ice cream treats, including Fudgesicles, are off-limits for kids with dairy allergies, but there are some dairy-free options. Soy Dream and Rice Dream both have ice cream bars (but none are both gluten-free and dairy-free). Rice Divine makes ice cream bars and sundae cups that are both gluten-free and dairy-free (contain soy). Turtle Mountain makes soy-based dairy-free ice cream bars and ice-cream sandwiches (not gluten-free), and a dairy-free and soy-free fudge bar.

If you can’t find any of those, make your own ice cream sandwiches: take 2 homemade baked (gluten-free) cookies or packaged cookies and put ice cream (or dairy-free ice cream) between. Make a bunch ahead of time, wrap with with plastic wrap and put in the freezer.

Make ice cream cones at home with gluten-free cones! You could even bring your own cone to your local ice cream shop and have them scoop into it. Boy would your kid be excited! Here are the 3 different kinds of gluten-free cones (all are dairy-free also):

• Barkat ice cream cones - can be found at Glutenfree.com or Gluten Free Mall
• Barkat waffle cones (contain soy flour, may contain traces of peanuts and tree nuts) - can be found at Glutenfree.com or Gluten Free Mall
• Cerrone waffle cones - can be found at Glutenfree.com
• All three varieties can also be found at Allergy Grocer

4. Smoothies

Smoothies are always a yummy, healthy option that is refreshing for summer. Here are some allergen-free smoothie ingredient ideas — using a blender, combine them as you like! If you use some amount of frozen fruit, you don’t need to add ice.

• fresh and/or frozen fruit: bananas, strawberries, mango, peaches, blueberries, raspberries (some kids don’t like the little seeds in their drink)
• juice or milk (cow, soy, rice, almond, hazelnut, coconut)
• rice protein powder or vitamin powder

There you go! Now all you have to do is stock up on sunscreen and you are ready for summer!

Any other ideas? Feel free to add a comment below!

Filed under: Babies & Kids, Food Ideas, Products, Recipes and Cooking Tips | 3 Comments »

Q. I am 30 years old. My question is that for the last 6 months I have been getting really sick during the night. I have hypothyroidism, and am really hypoglycemic. It wakes me up at all hours of the night and running to bathroom with diarrhea. I called my doctor about 2 months ago and did a stool culture, but nothing showed up. I am at loss!! I have no idea what is going on with me? Is it stress?? I am going to school, but I don’t feel that stressed out. I am not on any thyroid med because for the last year my thyroid has been normal, I just had it checked two months ago. I had a really nasty stomach flu about 6 months ago, ever since then my stools are not normal. I am fine one minute and then sick the next. No throwing up, just the other end. All I know is I want to feel better. Any suggestions??? I am also wondering if I could have some sort of wheat or milk allergy? I eat a lot of wheat being hypoglycemic. And I do notice sometimes after having something from milk in my food, sometimes I wake up sick. The weird thing is that it happens in the night most. I do not feel like it is heart burn. Thank you for listening!! I would appreciate any suggestions!!

A. Any nocturnal diarrhea needs to be aggressively investigated. Celiac disease is a real possibility as is inflammatory bowel disease. Diabetes can present like this, and post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome is an outside possibility. You must see a gastroenterologist soon.

Health and happiness,
Dr. Aron

Have a question?

Filed under: Ask the Doc, Celiac Disease, Symptoms | 1 Comment »

Nobody wants to have a food allergy or gluten intolerance and have to eliminate something from their diet. But what I find interesting is the reaction that people have if it is suggested that their or their children’s health problems (like rashes, eczema, asthma, stomachaches, gas, colic, reflux, headaches — the list goes on) or behavioral/developmental problems in kids (clinginess, tantrums, excessive, crying, delayed speech, attention deficit disorder, and more) or emotional/psychological problems in adults (depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsiveness, addiction) could be due to a food sensitivity.

I have observed people having the following three types of reactions:

Reaction #1: “No way, not me”

For most people, believing that food could cause the above symptoms is difficult. Why is it so hard to believe that what we put into our bodies could actually affect our whole bodies, including our brains (last time I checked, this was part of the body)? Food is our nourishment — we need it to survive — so surely it can’t be harmful. I have heard people argue, “but food is natural.” OK, I say, but some mushrooms are poisonous — go ahead, I dare ya!

Sometimes a person tells me about a problem and how it is affecting his/her life or the life of the child. When I gently suggest gluten intolerance or food allergy, suddenly the problem is “not that bad.” Let’s see, so the problem is bad enough to go to a doctor, it’s bad enough to take medicine for it, it’s bad enough to see a specialist, it’s bad enough to make someone miserable, but it can’t be bad enough to have to change one’s diet… that would be AWFUL!

When I have suggested to someone that they might be gluten intolerant, I have heard the no-way-not-me variation of “Well, I don’t really eat that much wheat anyway.” I challenge anyone to see if they are not eating wheat at least 3 times a day, including snacks. People eat so much wheat! And dairy! And now soy because it’s in everything. Most people are simply not aware of what they are eating. Before I was diagnosed with celiac disease and had to begin to carefully read labels, I thought I ate a very healthy diet. I now realize that I didn’t really know what I was buying or eating.

Some no-way-not-me people do come around after a while and begin to have Reaction #2 below. Many do not (and continue to be miserable).

Reaction #2: “Hmm… I’ll think about that.”

These people know that something is not right and once food allergy is suggested, they are open to considering it as a cause. They may sit with it a while, observe, talk about it some more, read about it, and/or plan it out, and then they may get testing done or do their own elimination diet. However they approach it, sometimes a change is made and ultimately, hopefully, an answer is found. Most people with the I’ll-think-about-it type of reaction feel that changing the diet is a sacrifice that they are willing to make for their own, or their children’s, health.

I’ll-think-about-it people often end up having Reaction #3 below, although some waffle between Reactions #1 and #3.

Reaction #3: “I’ll do it!”

I am always surprised by the people who are willing right away to try eliminating something from their diet. They just do it. They don’t make a big deal about it, they don’t stress over it, they just do it. I don’t know why I am surprised, since I was one of those people. Once I knew that celiac disease and gluten existed (from reading about it on the web), I began eating gluten-free that very minute. When my doctor told me not to go gluten-free until I took a blood test (because it could affect the test results), I cried. I didn’t want to eat gluten ever again!

Still, I am impressed by the mother who stops eating dairy while breastfeeding to see if her infant becomes less colicky, the guy who stops eating gluten to see if his eczema goes away, the mother who stops feeding her baby gluten and dairy in hopes that it will help with seizures, and the many others who removed something from their diet in an attempt to feel better. They decided it was worth a try — if it worked, then hooray! If it didn’t, they were no worse off than before.

Why these reactions?

I have wondered, does the severity of the problem determine a person’s reaction? In my experience, not necessarily. Yes, some people with very serious health problems may be more willing to try a change in diet because they haven’t found answers elsewhere. But I know parents with sick children — and I mean very sick — and people who are suffering with undiagnosed health problems who will not try a gluten-free diet, will not try eliminating dairy, will not make any dietary change to see if it makes a difference.

What drives these reactions, I think, is whether one believes or not. This is also true of doctors — if they themselves don’t believe that food can cause ill health, then they don’t suggest it to patients, and in many cases make patients feel silly (stupid) for asking about it.

So what’s your reaction?

Filed under: Babies & Kids, Food Allergies, Gluten Intolerance, Symptoms, Emotions | 6 Comments »

Did you know?

• Celiac Disease is the most common genetic disorder in the world. It affects as many as 3 million Americans, or roughly 1% of the population.

• Type 1 Diabetes affects 1,177,500 people; 6% (70,650) of those diagnosed also have celiac disease.

• 610,000 women in the US experience unexplained infertility; 6% (36,600) of these women might never learn that celiac disease is the cause.

• 350,000 people in the United States are living with Down Syndrome; 12% (42,000) of them also have celiac disease.

• The number of people with celiac disease in the U.S. is roughly equal to the number of people living in the state of Nevada.

• The National Commission on Digestive Diseases (NCDD) recently noted that physicians and medical staff members are unaware of the how common celiac disease is or what symptoms to look for. One of the Commission’s goals is to “improve screening, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of celiac disease.”

What can you do?

May has been designated National Celiac Awareness Month by the Celiac Disease Foundation, and a bill is up for a vote that asks Congress to support the goals and ideals of National Celiac Awareness Month.

The American Celiac Disease Alliance (the group responsible for getting Congress to require food labeling of allergens) has issued an action alert: share the facts above with the legislators in Congress. Raising awareness of celiac disease can lead to increased physician education and training. This goal and the bill are supported by the American Gastroenterology Association, American College of Gastroenterology, American Dietetic Association, and the American Osteopathic Association.

All you have to do is click this link, fill out the form and either email or mail the letter. Together we can really make a statement!

I am grateful to the American Celiac Disease Alliance for all their work!

Filed under: News & Research, Celiac Disease, Gluten Intolerance | No Comments »