<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> I just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my request for emergency help this week. I really appreciated the fact that so many people took the time to try to help. The consensus seemed to be that IV medications and anesthesias are okay, but oral medications need to be checked for gluten. One person mentioned that I seemed scared and yes, I was. My daughter, in addition to being celiac is also allergic to dairy products, has cerebral palsy and is on several medications which are necessary to her well being. In addition to the fact that she had a broken femur and required surgery, I was worried about all of these very significant side issues. So I really do appreciate the fact that so many of you took the time to try to make things a little easier for us. The surgery went well, the hospital was extremely helpful and cooperative in terms of diet, medications, etc. The nurses provided us with the PDR to check everything that was going to be given to her. I did at one point call Stokes Pharmacy because one of her potential medications contained lactose. Stokes would have been able to make it up without lactose, but was unable to get the powder with which to make the medication in time. Therefore, the doctors prescribed a different medication. Someone suggested that in an emergency, pain relief is more important than avoiding gluten. I don't agree. My daughter has a neurological reaction which makes her unable to function very well. She is a college sophomore and normally quite capable of directing her own care. The slightest gluten ingestion affects her functioning for several weeks. Particularly when being given heavy pain killers (morphine, percosett, etc.) I think it is really important not to cloud the issues... i.e., is she groggy and uncommunicative because she is getting perhaps too much morphine or because we have given her a medication with a wheat starch filler? For myself as a celiac, I can hardly imagine a worse scenario than being confined to bed with a broken leg and in terrible pain with every movement and having to deal with the kind of violent intestinal reaction that I have to gluten. In terms of diet, we were fortunate to make contact with the chief dietician, who, although not celiac, is herself allergic to wheat and dairy (and also a vegetarian). She was a very lovely woman originally from India. She tried her best to get the dietary staff to understand, with little success. Finally she suggested that I buy the food and they cook it. Fortunately there was an excellent health food store nearby and I was able to get cereal, so y milk, rice pasta, tomato sauce, etc. (and the hosptial reimbursed me for the cost!) It took several days to work it all out, but by the end it was working well and the nursing staff and dietary staff learned a lot about celiac sprue. We are back at home now and all is settling down. My daughter happened to be visiting her father at the time of the accident and was an hour and a half away from home. I spent four nights sleeping in a chair at the hospital monitoring everything including possible reactions between her daily medications and medications administered in the hospital. She is now at home, relatively pain free, lying in the hospital bed that we rented for her. We also had to get a leg extension for her wheelchair so that soon (I hope) she will be able to get out of bed and into her wheelchair and perhaps even get back to classes. There were so very many issues to deal with that I felt overwh elmed at times, but I do want you to know that you really need to have someone else to advocate for you while you are hospitalized. Even the best and most cooperative of hospital staffs (and I feel this hospital staff was in that category) are not familiar with celiac disease, nor all the issues that it involves and it is very difficult to deal with it all yourself. It took a great deal of my time and energy and I can't imagine being able to do that as a patient. If anyone is in the area, the hospital was Robert Wood Johnson at Hamilton, New Jersey. If you need to be hospitalized and you can arrange it, it seems to be a fantastic hospital. (My daughter really loved the therapy dogs that came to visit her every night, particularly the one in the skeleton costume the night before Halloween). Thanks again to all of you. Jane *Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the CELIAC List*