Celiac Disease

We finally found out why Jess has been having so many stomach problems. Over the years she has had stomach pain and was taking antacids daily. We finally went to a GI specialist and had an upper endoscopy (camera down her throat). When they did the procedure they were unable to see anything wrong but did a bunch of biopsies of her stomach and small intestines. From those biopsies they were able to determine the diagnosis of Celiac Disease. What this Celiac Disease is a intolerance to the proteins found is wheat, ray, and barley. The only treatment for this disease is to be on a completely gluten free diet for the rest of her life. Between my mom, Scott and I we have done some pretty good research on this matter. One of the strongest things we found is that it is common. The statistics say that 1 in 133 people have this disease and that it runs in families. The statistic that my mom found it that if you have a sibling or a parent with it you have a 1 in 20 chance and if you have an uncle level relative or a grandparent it is only 1 in 40. I am going to get myself tested along with Kody to make sure that we are OK. There are a few websites that I found to be really helpful. celiac.org is the main one that I have been reading but there are quite a few out there. This should prove to be a very educational experience because we are going to have to read every label before we feed it to Jess to make sure that there is not any of the "forbidden" food listed. There are a ton of little things that I never would have thought of such as malt, malt flavoring, vinegar, oat flour, oats at all. Some of the foods that Jess has to give up are her favorites and for anyone that has spent any time with her during her life time at all has already thought of it, yep, Taco Bell is a forbidden food. I don't know if she will be able to have it once in awhile or if it is gone forever until we get her back to health in about 6-9 months. It may never been in the cards for her but that is something time will tell. Wish us luck and cross your fingers that Kody doesn't have it also or I will be spending more on food then I do on daycare! That is all for now. I will keep you posted of Kody's results!