Testimonial

Gluten Belly was my son's idea over a year ago. We started to design a website for a way to help kids feel normal during their learning  journey to a healthy Gluten Free Lifestyle. Also to have a way for those kids to have gluten free kid friendly recipes so they do not feel left out socially and can learn to adjust just by changing a few habits and they too can be continue to be just as social as their gluten loving friends.

Son, was diagnosed with Celiac Disease when he was at the end of being 8 years old. The journey started for us years prior to diagnosis, but we had NO idea! When my son was 5 years old he was short and stocky, in a very healthy way, I thought,  with a height percentile 12.98% which had gone down since he was 2 years old from a 24.09%. The next year seemed normal, but he kept getting headaches. He has very bad vision and had just received his first pair of glasses and I assumed that was the reason for this. The next year (7) he had a swollen toe joint, no matter what we did it would not go away. I took him a Podiatrist, but nothing seemed to help. He began to get very skinny, however I wasn't too alarmed because all my kids are skinny with ribs showing, yet they eat me out of house and home with their great metabolisms. He also was very small statured, which I also ignored because I am too. We always did his wellness checkups with his doctor, and they would say he is very small and to make sure he had vitamins and was eating well. On his 8-year-old checkup the doctor was very concerned because Son had not grown much in two years, he went from the 12.98% at 5 years old to 1.14% by 7 years old. The Doctor wanted to run some tests just to make sure everything was normal. 

They sent us to an Endocrinologist and they began to run blood tests. They told me many things that could be wrong and asked me about Celiac Disease and if Son had bowel issues or pains. He did NOT have any of those issues and I thought it most likely would not be Celiac Disease then. Granted I never really heard of this disease and didn't have much knowledge on the subject.

Two weeks later we get the results of his blood tests and they said that his tTG-Iga was extremely high. They told me I had to meet with Gastroenterology. We met with the Gl doctor and they scheduled an endoscopy. This took some time but when those results came back with the correlating blood work, he was officially diagnosed with Celiac Disease. They instructed me to feed him a Gluten Free diet and sent us on our way. I do believe I might have received a brochure that talked about Gluten Free food.

A Gluten Free Diet... What does that even mean? After much research and countless hours, I learned what Gluten Free was and what it wasn't. I at this point knew what I needed to do to help my son heal and how I had to educate our family members on how to handle him from this day forward to keep him safe. It was a stressful and expensive journey to say the least. After 6 months on a Gluten Free diet, he still had his numbers elevated on his blood work, but they were going down so I knew we were doing things right, his toe joint was completely normal, his headaches were much less, his sweat (didn't even realize it was a thing until our journey) had a different smell to it, he was enjoying food, and in general he just seemed to feel better.

I am proud to say we have been Gluten Free for over 5 years, and we are killing it! Son now has met a few people in his life that share his disease and he realizes that it is more common than one thinks. One of the most important things, to me, was to make sure he didn't feel different and wasn't treated different. I still do this to this day! 

The first main transition for him wasn't the life at home, but the life at school with his peers and teachers without having me there to protect and guide him. I made sure that when he had his lunches at school that he had the same or better than the kid next to him. If his teacher was making s'mores for class, I supplied everything he needed to have the same experience(s). If they had snack time, I asked what snacks, and he had those same snacks (or similar). I wanted everyone to see that being Gluten Free did not mean you had to do without or have less than someone else. 

He and his brother would take certain Gluten Free snacks and things I would make at home and bring them to share with their friends at school and their friends loved it. I felt this was also teaching young kids that, while the adults in this world turn their nose up to Gluten Free food and says it tastes like cardboard, that in fact the reality is, if prepared correctly (just like gluten food), it will taste amazing if not better!

The running joke in my home with friends and family was that my cooking before we were Gluten Free would give everyone a Gl clean out. My kids disliked my cooking. Once I started cooking Gluten Free, everyone loved my cooking. My kids joke that I only learned to cook when we went Gluten Free. They now say I should open a Gluten Free restaurant or food truck because my food taste that good. While their complements and their praise makes me feel really good and makes me proud that they believe in me so much,  I would rather share my knowledge with people who need it versus opening a restaurant and limiting those who have access to this needed information.