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Warning, This is long and complicated.

I have now completed two months of weekly acupuncture treatments for food
allergens.  I shall continue with treatments to deal with air born
allergens like outgassing of formaldehyde, pollens, etc.

In order to understand all this you must know about my health history.  As
an infant  I  was "allergic" to breast milk and a very colicky baby. As a
young child I remember frequently being given perigoric (a form of opium)
which I now know is used to treat diarrhea.  I had dreadful teeth with
continual cavities, no matter how much I brushed and flossed and avoided
sugars. I was small of stature and skinny as a toothpick.  I had severe hay
fever during rag weed season, and minor hay fever at other pollen times of
the year. Cats, molds, etc. were also problematic. I also had frequent
upset stomachs and swollen glands.  A couple of broken arms from minor
falls.  I think I was also a rather unpleasant child.

My mother always had a stomach ache.  She had had surgery for stomach
ulcers, and gall bladder removal, spent one year of her life in bed with
rheumatic fever, and frequently took pain medications. She ate a very
limited diet.  As a child she said she was always being fed thick cream "to
put some flesh on her bones."  When she was in her 80's, I was finally on a
gluten and dairy-free diet and realized that she, too, would benefit from
that diet.  She was willing to eliminate dairy when the cause and effect
were pointed out, but as her diarrhea was sporadic, she never gave up
gluten.  She lived to be 93.

My father had no overt celiac symptoms, but had a dreadful disposition -
what I now call irrational anger.  Although very intelligent, he was a slow
reader.  Our older son used to exhibit that same disposition and was
severely dyslexic as a grade school student.  He went thru a phase of
sprue, with a thrush-covered tongue, when he was three or four months old.
He was put on a rice diet for a time, and when the white coating on his
tongue, and the foul stools were gone, he went back on regular baby food.
The sprue symptoms never returned, but his irrational anger and mental fog
persisted until he went gluten-free and added niacin to his diet.

I continued to be very thin all through school.  And had a "delicate"
stomach.  When I started college, I had my first beer and that resulted in
diarrhea.  I didn't make the connection for a few weeks, but eventually
realized that the two were connected, and quit drinking beer.  In the '50's
that was the drink of choice on our campus.  I couldn't understand the
attraction - and still can't!

From age 23 to 39 I had occasional problems with diarrhea alternating with
constipation, but nothing out of the ordinary.

At 39 we moved to Mexico City and my health began to deteriorate.  Two
different times I was treated for amoebic dysentary with a strong medicine
called Flagyl.  The severe dysentery was cured, and despite many efforts to
culture another amoeba, since moving back to the States, none has ever been
found.  When we moved back to Minnesota (I was 41) I found that my diarrhea
problems traveled back with me.  There followed ten years of visits to many
doctors, various tests (but never a biopsy) and many types of medication.

By age 50 I began to gain weight, and added almost 20 pounds of not very
well distributed fat/fluid. That at the same time that the diarrhea had
turned to steatorrhea.  I was really feeling run down and added wheat germ
to my diet.  That resulted in horrendously itchy "blisters" around the anus
and in a balanced pattern on both buttocks.  After the blisters healed
there were red welts that took many months to disappear. (I now believe
that was DH)

At 52 I finally began reading medical books at the library and found a
section on gastroenterology.  When I came to a description of celiac
disease I could identify with every detail of the article.  I immediately
took myself off gluten and the change was nothing short of a miracle.
Within  three days the diarrhea - which by that time had become
steatorrhea - stopped.  My energy level returned to normal and above
normal.  My grumpy disposition vanished.  It was easier to read music and
the speed of my reading increased. And the addiltional 20 pounds dropped a
pound a week for ten weeks, then leveled off at about 105. (I'm 5'2" and
had weighed in at 95 most of my adult life.)

Three months after self-diagnosis, I again saw my gastroenterologist and
told him I had solved the mystery.  He was NOT delighted by my glowing
health, but instead wanted me to immediately return to eating gluten for
three months so he could perform a biopsy.  I was teaching junior high
school English at the time, and refused to make myself sick so that he
could prove or disprove my self-diagnosis.

That was 1982.  I have been gluten free from that time until three weeks ago.

The NAET treatments, which began in early March, started with a basic group
of allergens, and then went on to specific foods.  After the treatment for
gluten-containing foods, I did not dare try to eat gluten for almost four
weeks, and then had one pop-over.  A scary thing to do.  NOTHING happened.
A week later I tried a croissant.  Again, NOTHING happened.  Since then I
have eaten a piece of pizza, a regular molassas cookie, and a flour
containing corn muffin.  On Memorial day I ate a pasta salad.  NO REACTION.
In addition to gluten, I am now eating all the things I have been avoiding,
and have had NO symptoms.  No head ache, no nausea, no diarrhea, NO grumpy
disposition. Nothing untoward has occurred.

Will I go back to a regular, gluten-filled American diet?  I doubt it.  But
I will be able to eat in a restaurant or as a guest at someone's home
without worrying about the food. My plan is to limit gluten and dairy to
small amounts, but I shall continue to eat them occasionally. And I will
not feel that my life is being lived behind a high fence labeled
"Gluten-free only!"

Am I recommending this for others on the celiac list?  No.  Not
recommending.  I am just telling you how it has worked for me.

It is with a sense of awe that I now walk through a grocery store and look
at the things that I might again eat.  It is with amazement that I see
signs advertising turkey dinners at small town churches and realize that I
will dare stop in and eat their food.

Let me once again assure you that I may have only been gluten-sensitive and
not a celiac.  There will be no way to answer that question unless I
develop symptoms or have a biopsy after three or more months of eating
gluten-containing foods.  Even then, I'm not sure the answer will be
precise.

However, some of you may also know that you are allergic to gluten rather
than being celiacs.  And for you, this may be a possible glimmer of hope.

I send this with sincerity and awareness of the fact that friends are
already telling me that I am playing with fire.  I'm 69, and am willing to
take a chance.  If I were 35 and caring for small children, it might be a
different thing.  If I had a child who was gluten-sensitive or allergic but
not  biopsy diagnosed celiac, I would look into the possibility that this
might help.  You will all have to make individual decisions about what to
do with this information.

Gayle Kennedy