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Since several of you on the list seem to have food allergies and
intolerances, rather than CD, I thought I'd mention a book that came
highly recommended to me: The Complete Guide to Food Allergy and
Intolerance, by Dr. Jonathan Brostoff, New York: Crown Publishers, 1989.
ISBN 0-517-57756-9. Brostoff is the head of the most respected allergy
clinic in England.
 
Since someone on an earlier post had mentioned that some doctor had
promised that celiacs could be cured by abstaining from the offending
foods plus carbohydrates (and others thought that had occurred before a
solid diagnosis of celiac could be made), I thought I'd mention what
Brostoff has to say. He does not think CD can be cured by such
abstinence; it is for life. On the other hand, he does say that food
intolerances may be overcome in 7 months to a year by total abstinence,
even though the early effect is to exaggerate (and change) reactions to
the offending food after two or more weeks of abstinence, then
reintroducing (challenge). He also makes this distinction between
allergies and intolerances. Allergies tend to be for life, and they may
react strongly to very small amounts of the offending material; a drop of
milk, for instance, may set off severe reactions. Also any swelling of
eyes, nose, face, or rashes tends to indicate an allergy rather than
intolerance.
 
Intolerances, on the other hand, may sometimes be overcome, and usually
take a "normal sized portion" of the material to effect a strong reaction
(though some may react to just a few mouthfuls of the food). And it is not
unusual to react to a material at one time and not at another.
Intolerances may stem from an event such a course of antibiotics such as
those given before some operations, from overexposure to a single food.
Symptoms may fluctuate or change from day to day and tend to be
migraines, diarrhea, headaches, indigestion, aches and pains, rashes, and
a host of other problems. This is not to be taken as an explanation of
CD. This is just a brief summary of part of three pages that I though
might be somewhat pertinent to the earlier post about curing CD by
abstinence.
 
Is this book known by some of you? and what do you think of it? After
all, it is 7 years old.
 
Also, does anyone know what "wheat dumping into the intestine" means? My
doctor mentioned that a possibility. He wants to do two more elaborate
tests for the grain intolerance and the lactose intolerance. I haven't
decided yet if that is necessary. Seems that the treatment would be the
same in either case. One test involves breathing into something every
thrity minutes and takes four hours; the other test involves drinking
barium and xrays and takes three hours. Both sound crappy. I'd like to
know they were necessary before consenting to them.
 
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