Guy at work watched me turn down donuts for about the fourth time and asked if I’d tried just building up a tolerance. Like a little bit each day.
He seemed to genuinely think he’d solved it for me.
What’s yours?

My partner has celiac (diagnosed 7 years ago) and I am not. We keep our home 100% gluten free. The only time I eat gluten is if we are out. In the past month I have had gluten three times.

1. A pastry for my birthday, outside

2. A pastry when I was out at a coffee shop by myself

3. Taco bell because I had a pregnancy craving - i ate outside

Each time I have it, I wash my hands, my face, and brush my teeth before touching anything. I sometimes take a shower.

The problem is, it doesn't seem to be enough precautions for my partner. He offers to buy me the food, then gets frustrated when I actually get it. I'm doing everything I can to prevent cross contamination. I never bring gluten home. We never eat out so these things are very much treats for me.

Am I being unreasonable?

Let me preface by saying that I know cross-contamination is dangerous and I need to eliminate it in order to fully heal. That's a risk I'm very aware of and trying to balance against other important factors.

The nature of my work is very social and requires dining out with clients several times a week and lots of international travel. I know that despite my best precautions, cross-contamination is going to happen and probably fairly often. I would rather have a little "tolerance" in my system so that I'm not getting horrendously sick everytime it happens. Getting sick on a work trip means I lose the income.

Has anyone else made a similar decision to not try to eliminate cross-contamination? If so, how has it worked out for you?

EDIT: I'm looking for genuinely constructive feedback, not just to be told that I'm harming myself. I know that already.

EDIT 2: I should explain what I mean by "tolerance" here. The stricter I am with the diet, the more symptoms I experience if I do eat gluten. I know that's likely because my gut is more healed and that makes the reaction more noticeable.

Preface: this is long and covers a bunch. I start with one point..but have many so if you don't like Point one please stick with me...i need your help.

Point one: I have had celiac guests correct me and tell me it isn't an allergen. I know that. I am 44 years old and remember when no one had ever heard of celiac. But when you tell my 20-year-old server that it's not an allergy it's an intolerance it confuses them. They need to treat Celiac just like an allergy. So please stop trying to correct them when they say it's an allergy and you tell them that actually it's an intolerance or an autoimmune thing or whatever, it confuses the hell out of them and they don't know if you're just a person that doesn't like tomatoes or is allergic to tomatoes.

Point two is for context about above so you understand our world....today I had a person tell their server at brunch that they were allergic to eggs. Can you imagine the gears that I have to turn in the machine in the back during a brunch service to make sure that someone that is allergic to eggs doesn't get hurt. During brunch we serve little donut holes that are complimentary almost like free bread at an Italian restaurant because we are an Italian restaurant. The chef and the server work so hard to make sure no cross contamination/ nothing happened for these people that are allergic to eggs during brunch. When they were served their carefully prepared meals and the donuts the server said they were sorry but you cannot have these they contain eggs. The guest then said oh no I'm not allergic to eggs like that I'm only allergic to scrambled eggs. Like, that's not a thing.

I don't mean to diminish the problems that you experience because you are exposed to it but we need to look at it as an allergy as a whole as a unit as a restaurant. Please remember you are allergic in the best sense of the word to a food. And what we do is serve food. I hope you know that it's people that care about this we are terrified of poisoning you. That's the way I've started wording it... please don't poison someone.

Point three: the restaurant..We made a reputation for delicious gluten free pizza made from Italian 00 Caputo flour about 12 years ago. And it is delicious. But the pizza is cooked in the same oven as other pizzas there's a different paddle we use cellophane on top of the paddle we do as much as we can, but it's literally a Pizza kitchen with flour everywhere it is not a dedicated kitchen. I guess what I want to know from this community is if you are truly celiac and truly could get very sick, would you eat in a pizza place with a non-dedicated kitchen just because their dough is delicious?

Point four- the warning..We have a warning on our menu. It literally states that the station is not dedicated and there's flour at the station and flour can be airborne. I just need to understand where my responsibility lies cuz I'm terrified of making somebody sick. After 11 years of no incidents I watched a woman break out in hives while we talked one day after she ate one of our pizzas and it has affected me. It wasn't our error we did everything right but the kitchen wasn't dedicated and and her sensitivity was at that level. They still come every week, she orders different stuff from a different kitchen. I love her and I love her kids and they will never blame us for what happened, but I do never want to ever go through looking someone in the face while hives form as we speak on their skin. And of course we updated every menu with a warning after that day

Today a pizza cook with a table full of non gluten people and one Celiac had the ticket for the pizzas tucked under the crust (which is how we don't lose tickets) of a normal Pizza and she needed to review something so she picked it up and looked at the ticket and then made the error of putting the ticket underneath the gluten free pizza for the Celiac guest. Thank God the server saw this action that is just wrote ..they changed their gloves they did everything for the Celiac I said they're supposed to do but they made one wrong move. Our gluten free pizzas are about $36. We import every single ingredient from Italy and if it isn't imported it's from a local farm and so it's expensive. And we recognize we made the mistake and we remade it. Of course. But I need to know as an exhausted person serving 300 people at a turn...would you as a true celiac order a pizza from my Pizza kitchen? No dedicated oven, flour everywhere but a whole staff that kills themselves to try despite that?

Hi:)

I am in the process of being diagnosed with celiac every doctor involved is 1000% positive i am but i have a problem.

I live in the uk and im disabled and a full time young carer for my mum and brother we live exclusively on benefits becausemy wage from beinga TA is not enough, im also an athlete so i need to eat more then the average person.

I in no way what so ever can afford to actually eat safely but i am in agony every single day what am i actually meant to do every cheap item of food is not safe, you can't get gluten free food on the NHS anymore and the food bank can't give me more then a weeks worth to cover 3 months and thats for someone who Isnt actively competing every other weekend.

Am i supposed to just be in pain 24/7?

looking for some good smart a$$ responses for the next time I hear this. Just heard it from my neighbor, and had to explain that most doctors didn’t know about It in “your day”. Now realizing I’m probably going to hear this a lot for the rest of my weird life. any suggestions?

I keep seeing subs where it’s like my “daughter and I have celiac” or “my sister and I are celiac” is it common for there to be more than one celiac in the family? Im in a family of 8 I’m the only one that has gotten diagnosed, three other family members (mom, brother, and sister) got tested bc they had symptoms and were negative and the other four don’t want to get tested. I was just wondering how likely it is that there’s someone else in my family who will also have it? If you have a family member who also has it how were you both diagnosed?

recently, i found out that it is common for irish people to have celiac disease due to complications with the famine, so i was wondering how common it was and if there were other ethnicities that had a common thread of celiac disease and other autoimmune diseases due to something similar. i know this isn’t what the thread is for, but if you guys feel comfortable sharing, i’m interested in finding out what people here know about this topic and if there’s common ethnicities!

edit: i have found it is very common in groups persecuted and discriminated against around the world. eg; [catholic] irish, italian, african, caribbean, jewish, and native american people. also, thank you guys for all the responses! this is very insightful, as i’m super interested in history and genealogy.

hello! i’m just wondering cuz i am seeing this girl i like and i know that there’s discourse on kissing but im just curious if i can eat her out if she eats gluten and in celiac? thank you

This may be a super dumb hypothetical but I find myself thinking about what I would do if civilization fell and there was no longer access to safe food. In the fallout we’d likely have to eat gluten as food would become scarce. But is that going to be worth knowing we have to deal with the symptoms while also fighting for our survival? Do we try to abstain from gluten with the hope that we will make it out the other side?? This is all assuming that we are actively trying to survive this scenario.

I know people will make the annoying “survival of the fittest” comments, but it is a scenario I ponder more often than I’d like, and I’d like to know if there any other morbid celiacs that think this way.

I’ve attached photos of my pantry and fridge for the elders to investigate. I’ve checked all the labels so no need to google them all.

Everything looks gluten free on the labels but I’m experiencing cramps like I do from gluten. I have been experiencing them now for the past couple days.

If you see anything off the top of your head that you personally had a reaction to, or maybe you have insider information that it may have hidden gluten please let me know!

Thanks ❤️

For me it would be the gluten free white cheddar Horizon mac and cheese and the Lance gf cheese and peanut butter sandwich crackers

What is the symptom you get that lets you know you’ve had gluten? Mine is the hand hives, specifically the spot between my thumb and pointer finger. It takes FOREVER to heal!

for those of you who don’t remember, what’s something you wish you could try?

i miss super fluffy and doughy pizza from delivery pizza places. i’ve been craving it since i got diagnosed 😭. what do you guys miss the most?

I never liked bread much myself, nor really anything that was wheat-based for that matter. I would often gag on regular porridge and rye bread (could barely stand the stuff) but not gluten free rice porridge and certainly never with gluten free bread despite others saying it tastes like cardboard. I also noticed the same thing with cake. I would happily eat the icing but would typically leave the cake behind and would be very slow to eat meals that contained large amounts of gluten such as regular pasta.

Any of you had a similar experience?

Recently diagnosed. I hate cooking as it is. And also if you work full time how do you even have time and energy to cook and do dishes 😭😭😭 anyone got some life hacks??

Meal tonight- I’m getting tested for Celiac after eating a super strict gf diet (basically nothing that I haven’t made myself) for the past 10 years. 2 more weeks to go. My pants don’t fit anymore due to bloating 😂

Anything else I should eat?

Mine is oh this relative just can't eat bread. Lol

1 year gluten free

Gallbladder?

Diagnosed with Celiac by a Dermatologist after severe case of dermatitis herpeteforis improvement on gluten free food and corticosteroids.