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The responses to my question "Is this real" were overwhelming ... both
in information and support. Thank you, thank you, thank you all! They
made this past week bearable. I will share many of those reponses in a
summary soon.

My question was about son's symptoms as we challenged our self-diagnosis
of gluten-intolerance ... by feeding him wheat products. As I mentioned
his doctor says he can't be celiac ... long story, told earlier. And,
most of you have been there with medical "help" anyway.

So, I've spent the past week allowing my almost-3-year-old to have small
amounts of food with gluten in it ... pizza, half-piece of toast,
cookie, wheatable crackers ... just a little everyday. By the sixth day
he was having explosive bowel movements. And, somewhere during the week
his behavior completely deteriorated ... he started  throwing things
like our wooden kitchen chairs and saying "I hate this chair". We're
talking a 30-pound short kid tossing heavy tall wooden chairs! He would
undress and toss his clothes around saying "I hate this shirt" ... he
threw a tin of Lincoln logs at me for no real reason. We're talking a
little guy who'se normally so cute and lovable ... OK, a normal
two-year-old with two-year-old tantrums, but not this kind of violence.
After eating wheat his nose would run for an hour and stop.

At first my husband said, let's keep going because he got sick ... a
fever and throwing up, not sleeping well. He suspected it was the virus
causing this behavior. I held my tongue. I don't want to deprive my son
of a basic food just because I THINK he has a problem with it ... but by
day EIGHT ... we decided ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ... so he's back off wheat and
we're waiting for his body to return to normal.

Because the doctors deny any problem ... and in fact our GI is intent on
proving me wrong ... I asked her what else it could be and she just
focuses on it not being celiac AND she says neither allergies,
intolerance nor celiac have anything to do with behavior. OK, I know I
need to run away from her. I'm sure she's a great doctor, but we don't
have a good doc-patient relationship ... I feel like she's not listening
to me and now I'm not really listening well to her. And, she's probably
just as frustrated as I am that she can't help. And I want help. I don't
know why I need validation so bad ... but I do.

Anyway, we may try the challenge again in two months and see if the same
things happen. If so, we'll continue on our own wheat-free path, because
we don't need science when it's already so REAL to me.

Thanks for listening. I know that this is a tough disease to get a
handle on ... hard to identify, doesn't make sense to many outsiders,
not fair ... etc.

Paris in Cleveland