When and how to introduce Gluten

[Angelorum]

to a kid who may have inherited Celiac disease?  Okay, I know Celiac isn't an allergy, but I figured you mamas would be the most knowlegdable.  DS is 21 months old, and doesn't seem to have any allergies or sensitivities, aside from a mild dairy problem that he outgrew over a year ago.  DH was diagnosed with Celiac about 15 years ago.  Apparently both of his parents carried the gene, 4 out of their 6 kids have gotten the disease.  I'd heard that a kid would be less likely to develop the disease if gluten wasn't introduced too early, or eaten too often.  But when is early, and how much is too much?  It's not a big deal to keep him gluten free at home, but he's starting to attend nursery at church, and will go to day care for a few hours a day 5 days a week when I go back to school in the fall and the snacks provided at those places almost always have gluten in them.  Should I bring him separate snacks all the time?  Or is he old enough to let him have gluten every day and just watch for symptoms?

[deditus]

I think gluten is poison to everyone and if I or my child had the genes predisposing to cd, our home would be gf (as it is right now and always will be).

[changingseasons]

You could always do the Enterolab gene test to see if he inherited the celiac gene (or other genes that suggest gluten sensitivity.)

[Panserbjorne]

Originally Posted by deditus 

I think gluten is poison to everyone and if I or my child had the genes predisposing to cd, our home would be gf (as it is right now and always will be).

this. lol.  And I think regardless he's more likely to have issues and I'd not introduce it at all.  I may not overly worry about x-con as I do for dd...but I wouldn't be looking to get it into his diet.

I know this probably sounds extreme, but frankly you could avoid a whole lot of difficulty by not consuming it.  Especially given that you already KNOW how to be GF because of your dh.

Unfortunately I would just provide my own snacks. 

[Angelorum]

I would love to get the gene tests!  Has anybody had any luck getting insurance to pay for those?  I asked our pediatrician about it, and he didn't even know such a test existed.  I sent him info from one of the labs that does it, and he said he'd look into whether their labs could do it, but that was months ago and I haven't heard anything.  We'll probably shell out the cash for it ourselves someday, but we've got a lot of more important bills to pay off for now :(  It would be great to be able to rule out the possibility of Celiac though.  

I guess I don't buy that gluten is poisonous to everybody.  And we do keep him gluten free at home because it's not hard, we do it anyway for DH.  I am leaning toward bringing separate snacks for the daycare.  But as long as he's not having problems with it I do intend to let him have cake at friends birthday parties in the future etc. 

[Panserbjorne]

Originally Posted by Angelorum 

I guess I don't buy that gluten is poisonous to everybody.  But as long as he's not having problems with it I do intend to let him have cake at friends birthday parties in the future etc. 

Of course we won't all see this the same way.  However they're saying that more than 1 in 30 people now have significant issues with gluten (though they don't necessarily know it) that don't show up on the standard tests (which are tragically uninformative anyway.)  In fact there was just a piece about this very topic in a naturopathic journal....I think it was the NDNR.  I'd have to check.

The problem is it's insidious, and for someone sensitive it can take 6 months to get out of the system, it can present in a variety of ways involving several different systems.  Are you going to KNOW when it's a problem?  Not likely.  Not everyone is lucky enough to have clear cut symptoms.

And as far as gluten being poison-that may be a bit extreme for the average person.  However I'd encourage you to do your research and see exactly what it can do in the body before making a choice.  Not everyone believes that HFCS is a problem either-and they're entitled to that opinion too, but what's the quote?  I think it's Harlan Ellison....you're not entitled to your opinion.  You're entitled to your informed opinion.  I think we'd all agree that where our kids are concerned it's important to do your due diligence and explore every angle before making a choice.

If in fact he's one of the lucky ones with no issue (not likely given the genes) then doing a piece of cake now and again may not be an issue at all and that would be fantastic.  I just hate for anyone to assume it's not and end up with chronic conditions that no one ties to gluten consumption because it doesn't look the way they expect it to.  It can present too many ways to count and it's only really in the last decade that they've boned up on CD in general-which is only ONE disorder associated with gluten consumption.  Your dh was lucky to get diagnosed 15 years ago.