Gluten Free

About a month or so ago we decided to have James tested for Gluten and Casein intolerance.  It has been suggested to us many times in the past few months that we should try this diet and so we decided to have him tested before we tried it to see if it would be worth it.  Here are his scores:
A) Gluten Sensitivity Stool and Gene Panel Complete *Best test/best value
Fecal Anti-gliadin IgA    91 Units   (Normal Range is less than 10 Units)

Fecal Anti-tissue Transglutaminase IgA    29 Units   (Normal Range is less than 10 Units)

Quantitative Microscopic Fecal Fat Score    Less than 300 Units   (Normal Range is less than 300 Units)

Fecal Anti-casein (cow’s milk) IgA    15 Units   (Normal Range is less than 10 Units)

HLA-DQB1 Molecular analysis, Allele 1    0301   

HLA-DQB1 Molecular analysis, Allele 2    0602   

Serologic equivalent: HLA-DQ   3,1  (Subtype 7,6)


We didn't really understand much of this...but it seems clear that he would probably benefit from a Gluten free diet.  So now I am just working on slowly eliminating gluten from our house so we can try this out.  Our plan is to be 100% Gluten free and casein free by the time James is out of school (May 24th) then try it for three months and decide if we feel like it is going to make a difference.  We are actually only going to try the casein free diet for 3-4 weeks and then reintroduce it to see if he reacts badly to it.  Casein doesn't take as long to leave the system.  
Today I made my first loaf of Gluten free bread.  I think it turned out quite well, although it looks funny and doesn't taste that great.  I think this is because I used a non-dairy substitute for the milk powder and it will taste a lot better when we use actual milk powder.  

Other things I am figuring out: 
GF Waffels, since that is what James eats for breakfast every morning
GF Crackers
and of course GF cookies and cakes since we still have to have our sweets!
I have tried some new GF snacks that James actually loves:
Rice Cakes (big surprise)
Popcorn 
Hopefully as we go along this list will get longer and longer!  We are hoping that because James' Casein score was so low that it won't be a problem for him to have milk and only get rid of Gluten, that opens up a lot more possibilities!