Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A diagnosis of celiac disease is quite rigorous. If she's been diagnosed, she has it. And even if she doesn't suffer painful side effects of gluten, it can damage her intestinal tract and raise her cancer risk. She is absolutely right to be vigilant, and shame on anyone who challenges her on it. And it's not "related to her anxiety" -- it's exactly what every person with celiac has to go through, complete with people rolling their eyes about how silly you're being.
Also, they her family is completely ignorant if they think you can't develop celiac after testing negative. I have genetic celiac in my family. Non-celiac family members are tested every 3 years, or every 1 year if their results are borderline. My niece with years of negative tests is now positive and has celiac.
Do not try to have everyone have a gluten-free diet. It's difficult, expensive, and often less pleasant. DO provide her with a separate space for her GF food, and respect it. Do be conscious about wiping countertops, although I'm sure she also cleans them herself.
Ok, thank you, this is so helpful to hear.
My husband has the idea that if you test for something enough times, you're eventually going to get a positive result. So it sounds like it would work just fine to just eat as we usually do, but to just be mindful of surfaces and cross-contamination.
Jesus, he's really not a medical professional, is he? A false positive for celiac would be incredibly rare. Requiring her to have an expensive and invasive biopsy for
his satisfaction is awful.
This poor woman. I think the most you can do for her is to give her some respite from her nightmare family (including your, I'm sorry, butthead husband) by actually treating her medical needs with respect. A small gesture of kindness means a lot when you're used to fighting the world. I brought my kid to a pizza party and found out that my friend, the party's host, had gotten me a small GF frozen pizza and cooked it on a sheet of tin foil. I almost cried at how nice the gesture was, and how kind it was of her to think of me and make me feel included.
Maybe bring a box of individual sheets of wax paper/parchment/tin foil and offer them to her as a food preparation surface. Or breakfast bars marked gluten free. Just a signal that you don't think she's being a needy drama queen or whatever. I bet it would mean a lot to her.