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If you have questions, please refer to summary numeral and quote number.
#11

>  >I feared for many years that our older son would develop autism, his
>>behavior was strange and distant, but it never happened.
>
>That sounds similar to the path my oldest son followed as well. He just
>turned 23, has just gone gluten free, and I am hoping that will finally
>enable him to get his life turned around. Last year I started to write a book
>about him, but never got past the first chapter, since the book had nowhere
>to go. It needs a point, a purpose, and, hopefully, a happy and successful
>ending, which we don't have yet.
>
>For children such as yours (and mine) who were formula fed, they most
>likely got very early exposure to gluten. I wonder what happens to breast-fed
>babies, whose mothers were consuming gluten? David did not get any solid food
>until he was about 5 months old, but his strange behaviors manifested long
>before that. Many parents of autistic children blame vaccinations as a
>causative factor, and of course this is very controversial. It is very common
>for children who seemed to be perfectly normal to begin to develop autism
>around the time they are getting these vaccines, leading people to conclude
>that there is a causal association. This was not the case with David, whose
>behavior was odd from the day he was born. And, of course, he never developed
>full-blown autism anyway, so who's to say? How does his history compare to
that of your older son?

#12

>I think the problem here is that not all celiacs have to have a
>trigger. They are born that way. Perhaps they're the ones with a
>gene from both  parents instead of just one, or they have the
>complete set of genes instead of just partial, which geneticists are
>beginning to realize is true with many other genetic conditions such
>as schizophrenia. So some are never full fledged schizophrenics but
>are what they now call "schizotypal personalities" which  stop short
>of psychosis. There then may be celiac typal digestive systems,
>which makes sense with all the variations in sensitivity and damage
>we see among us.
>
>In short, the correct statement should be: Some who are genetically
>predisposed to celiac but are not yet active celiacs may take a
>trigger to activate the disease.

#13

>Noone can answer your question, because noone has a clue what the
>environmental
>triggers are. It is known that they exist only from identical twin
>studies showing
>that if one twin has CD, the other twin has a 70% chance of having CD. Since
>identical twins have identical genes, if the disease was entirely genetic then
>there would be 100% concordance between twins.
>
>Some researchers have speculated that there is a virus involved as a trigger
>mechanism, and if this is true then it seems possible the mother
>might have had
>the virus before the child was born, exposing the child. But this is only
>speculation.

#14

>My 11-year-old son was diagnosed with celiac a year ago.  He'd had
>diarrhea all his life from the moment he started eating table foods.
>We took him off dairy products when he was five but the diarrhea
>continued until he went gluten free last year.  He was tested for
>celiac after my brother was diagnosed with it and I asked my
>sister-in-law (who's a physician's assistant) for symptoms.  I've
>since been diagnosed with celiac as well.  My mother has been
>diagnosed with celiac (her mother probably had it, but was never
>tested or went GF -- her main foods were bread and milk -- and she
>always was sick: vomiting and diarrhea).  None of my other siblings
>(I'm one of 10 kids) have tested for celiac, but based on their
>small, very skinny size and premature osteoporosis I would say
>several also have celiac.
>My other three children have been tested (blood work only) and are
>all negative at this time.

#15

>Our son, now 5 1/2 years old, was diagnosed celiac at 13 months old. He
>became ill with the first bite of food I gave him at 6 months. I had a
>perfect pregnancy and birth with him. He was a wonderful newborn and I
>nursed him until he was 10 months old. But from those first bites of food --
>baby cereals and later cheerios, yogurt with wheat germ (YIKES -- what was I
>thinking!), he was sick. Until him, there is no known celiac in our family.
>My husband and I and our two older kids have been tested -- all negative. I
>guess it has to start somewhere, but, I'd love to know what may have
>triggered this case.

GK:  As I prepare this summary I am astonished at the lack of
creative, concerned medical care that many celiacs receive.  If our
situation was not covered in a medical school case history or text
book, we are just out of luck in many medical offices.











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