<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

I initially began to write this back to the person expressing the
original inquiry.  However, I thought perhaps my thoughts would
likely not be represented back in a summary, and I felt it important
to address the group in general, as this issue has come up lately in
various forms.  This is merely a serious post about one person's life
and approach to CD.  It is not a flame, and please do not take it to
be one.

At 4:41 PM -0800 11/28/05, James Freeman wrote:

>Do different people with the
>disease have widely varying sensitivity to gluten.  If we could get
>reliable answers to those questions and if there was some way to know
>the quantity of gluten in a given food or beverage, some Celiacs might
>decide that it would be safe to indulge in consumption of a gluten
>containing food once in a while. Something like drinking a glass of beer
>at Christmas would be a good example of what I mean.

My response:

I think the main issue IS that different people do have, as James
says, "widely varying sensitivity to gluten."  Also, some have
symptoms or familial diseases that are so serious and scary that many
of us want to avoid every possible molecule of gluten we can.  Or we
have child, for whom we fear the worst if gluten is not eliminated
from their diet.  My own symptoms -- often from what has to be the
tiniest ingestion -- are very debilitating, and can take me down for
days, making it difficult for me to function, let alone WORK, which
is something I must do no matter how I feel.  My older brother had a
disease we expect was gluten-related (possibly gluten ataxia), that
ravaged his cerebellum to the point where he could no longer
communicate and could do nothing but lie in his bed and have
everything done for him.  He died earlier this year.

So, you may possibly understand why I have no interest in a list
where people discuss how they "got away" with having a glass of beer
for the holidays.  My sole interest is in knowing about what foods I
can eat SAFELY, that are 100% free of gluten.  Period.  Virtually all
doctors who know anything about CD will also say that this is a "zero
tolerance" disease, and being able to eat gluten without symptoms is
only a matter of kidding oneself.  The damage is being done, even if
you don't "see" symptoms in yourself.  But that is something that
each person must decide for themselves.

If this list was largely about people posting about "stretching the
envelope" of gluten ingestion, I would have no further personal
interest in reading it.  There is no one who would be more pleased to
hoist a beer for the holidays than I!  However, for me, it'll be a
Bard's GF beer, which isn't half-bad at all.

Thanks for reading/listening.

*Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the CELIAC List*