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Hi Kandee (and anyone else who is reading),

Looks like my 1-yr-old neice probably has celiac. She's having a sigmoidoscopy and an endoscopy today to look for the telltale scarring and hopefully get some sort of conclusive diagnosis. Her blood tests were inconclusive because she lacks ImmonglobinA (rare but not serious to lack this And not uncommon, I might add. ), which is I guess necessary to diagnose celiac. So, the dr is doing the physical tests to make sure, but he's pretty certain she has celiac. She hasn't grown in about 6 months and has been losing weight, and has GERD. Oh, I'm sooo sorry. I feel so badly for your brother and SIL. But, from what you say, she certainly has all the tell tale signs. We are lucky that a doc that is part of our Celiac support group did his training with pediatric Celiac disease, thus is a world of information.

Anyway that was a longer intro than I intended. I'd like to help my brother and SIL adjust to her new needs, if she does, in fact, have Celiac. Can you please recommend some wheat-free cookbooks? My SIL can follow any kind of recipe, but being so busy with the baby and her special health needs, I'm sure she'd appreciate a simple, basic cookbook. Think you can help, please? Well, for some basic recipes, start at celiac.com..there are tons of them there...also if she does a google search for any recipe make sure it says "gluten free" as part of the search words. As far as books go, and I've read almost all of them out there, I would recommend "Dangerous Grains". It's not a cookbook but it is the best primer on the subject I've found, bar none. Second are the books by Donna Korn. She's an expert on childhood CD, has a website and speaks around the country. If she really wants to have cookbooks on hand any by Carol Feinster or Bette Hagman. Many bookstores and Amazon.com or B&N carry these. Both ladies are gluten free cooking guru's. If the doc hasn't suggested it yet, you may want to suggest that the parents and other family members get the blood test too. They are simple. The gene test may prove helpful as well.

As horrid as CD is, if they catch it this young in your niece, she is lucky and will have a great shot at growing and thriving as well as any other child.

Good luck, and if I can help any more, email me...

Kandee

Thanks so much,
Panda

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Thanks so much Kandee. They had the tests done today, and the doctor did not see any scarring or anything, so now they really are stumped. I don't know what it could be if not celiac, and I refuse to scare the sh*t out of myself by scrolling through WebMd. They took biopsies, which I guess can take about a week to come back. I didn't think I'd be praying for a celiac diagnosis, but at this point I kind of hope that's what they find. Anyway, thanks so much for your help, and I'll keep you posted about what we find out.

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