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Hi,
Thank you to everyone who responded to my gf, soy-free milk substitute
question -- I received lots of helpful suggestions.  I figured out
something else that would work too -- coconut milk and butter -- in
cooking, etc., they seem to work as well as regular milk and butter.
Right now I'm drinking coffee with coconut milk, and it tastes at least
as good as any of the other milk substitutes I've tried.

I'd be really curious to hear people's stories of their experience with
CD -- symptoms, how they got diagnosed, etc.  I haven't actually been
tested for it yet because I'm away at school and don't have a doctor
here, but I'll get tested when I go home for the summer.  It seems very
likely that CD is my problem.  My doctor suggested I might have it, and
I've been doing a lot of reading and it seems to fit.

I'm going to outline my experience with CD (or whatever I'm suffering from):

I'm a quarter Swedish, and I think the CD comes from that side of the
family (I read somewhere that Scandinavians have a particularly high
incidence of CD).  On that side of the family I have:
a great aunt with CD
a great uncle who died young of totally unmanageable diabetes
an aunt with scleroderma
a cousin with epilepsy and autism
my mother definitely has defective tooth enamel
most of my relatives have some severe allergies

When I was young I had only occasional diarrhea, but I had very frequent
stomachaches and vomiting, as well as frequent respiratory infections,
strep throat, etc. -- I was probably sick for several days every couple of
weeks.  I developed asthma when I was 4.  Also, I've always bruised
extremely easily.  Because of all the strep throat, I had a ton of
antibiotics, all of which I became allergic to.  When I was 10 I was
diagnosed with wheat and milk allergies, and when I stopped eating those
things I stopped getting sick (I haven't needed antibiotics since then!)
-- however, I still didn't feel great -- lots of stomachaches, headaches,
tiredness, etc.  (I was eating rye, oats, and barley, so if it is CD I
have, that would explain why I felt better but not all well.)  When I was a
teenager I started eating milk and wheat again and gradually became so
sick that when I was 16 I missed about 3 months of school.  For a month
the only things I could eat were applesauce and rice.  Improving my diet
made me well enough that I could go back to school, etc., but like before
I was still tired, headachey, foggy in the head, etc.

When I was an undergrad I became a lot healthier and (thought) I could
eat a moderate amount of wheat and milk, which I did.  Two years ago (the
summer after I finished my undergrad degree), however, I became very
depressed, and it became quite a struggle to control that.  I was
typically losing 4 or 5 hours a day to depression.  I gradually became
sicker until by October and November of this year I was suffering from:

frequent stomachaches and nausea
a pain in my lower left abdomen
an extremely rumbly stomach
frequent loose stools (not really diarrhea, though) which burned --
        somewhat more yellow than I would think is normal
gas
frequent headaches
depression
constant fatigue
anxiety attacks
that unpleasant foggy-in-the-head feeling
feeling feverish, especially in the afternoons (although not actually
        having a much of a fever -- never above 99.2)
hypoglycemia
dizzy spells
poor appetite
what seemed to me like diabetic symptoms -- I would feel hungry but
        eating wouldn't help, or I'd feel full when I should have been hungry
itchy skin (without a rash)
a dry, scaly, bumpy, red, itchy rash on my elbows
constant wheezing (which was only partly helped my my asthma medication)

I was a total wreck.  In December I gave up milk and wheat, which helped
somewhat.  About a month ago I totally gave up gluten and immediately I
felt a lot better.  The asthma disappeared entirely, the rash on my elbows
is almost gone, I haven't had any panic attacks, I am only very
occasionally depressed, my head is hardly ever foggy, I have more energy
than I have ever had, my appetite is excellent, I no longer feel feverish,
etc.  Rather than having several loose, yellowish stools a day, I am
having one well-formed darker one.  I'm not totally better -- I still have
some headaches and stomachaches, but perhaps I am eating some gluten I'm
unaware of, or perhaps I have another allergy.  Most of the time now I'm
amazed at how good I feel.

Is this similar to what other people have experienced with CD?
Thanks,

Emily Doolittle