<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Hi Shannon, My mom could relate to you. She has had debilitating osteoarthritis, and went on full disability pension in her mid fifties. She only went g-f two years ago, and much of the damage appears irreversible, but the improvement has been startling. We now play golf when I visit, instead of her sitting in a semi-stupor on heavy doses of morphine for the pain. My brother didn't have any immediate reaction to gluten either, but he died November 18/96 of lymphoma. If you will look at the literature on celiac disease and malignancy, you will see that we are 40 to 100 times as likely to develop lymphoma if we are eating gluten. (There was some doubt that he had celiac disease, as he never underwent an endoscopy and his primary tumour was surrounding his left kidney, not in the GI tract.) After a while on a strict g-f diet our risk drops to about the same as the general population. That is one problem with cheating. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think it is an important issue, which is why I'm sending my response to the list. best wishes, Ron Hoggan Calgary, Alberta, Canada