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Dear all,

This is my first posting to the list as I have only recently discovered
it exists! It's great to know other people understand my problems.

I've got a question regarding straw. As well as being a coeliac I also
suffer with very bad asthma. A friend has suggested that my wheezing may
be worsened by the fact that I keep small mammals (hamsters and mice) in
the house, whose cages contain straw. This straw may have come from
wheat. Does anyone know if this could affect me?

I have learnt a lot about my condition since subscribing to the list
only a few days ago. Does anyone else have a history similar to mine? I
was taken into hospital at 3 months old when weaning onto solid food
made me ill. I was kept there until I was 7 months old before they
diagnosed coeliac disease.

At four years old the doctor suggested that I would have outgrown the
intolerance to gluten and could be put back on a normal diet. After a
few years my mother took me back to the doctor due to the symptoms
returning. A locum (stand in) doctor told her to put me back on the gf
diet, on which I stayed until I was 20.

After having my first child my current doctor decided I ought to have a
biopsy to see if I still needed the prescription food. This proved
negative (I since realise that it would have done due to having been on
the diet for years!) and I was informed that I did not have Coeliac and
could no longer have my bread or flour on prescription.

Having eaten a normal diet again for a number of years I had been unwell
and even lost my job due to my symptoms causing trouble during the day
(wind, smelly diarrhoea and abdominal pains). I had yet another biopsy,
again negative, and a scan for gallstones, positive. I am awaiting an
operation for the second and have put myself back on a gf diet anyway.

I feel so much better (apart from the gallstone pain) that I will stick
to the diet now whatever the doctors say, but it would be nice to have
an official diagnosis. I'm sure the hospital won't take any notice of my
dietry requirments when I go in for my operation later this month.

Thanks for reading this epic.
--
Carol Leather
An English Coeliac