At 06:10 PM 30/04/2004 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi, all.
>I just joined and look forward to browsing and/or supplying recipes.
>However, I have a question.
>
>My teenage daughter has for months (since last summer) been
>experiencing recurrent bouts of nausea, dizziness, fatigue, weakness,
>and paleness. Her doctor just kept saying "She's dehydrated."
>or "She's hypoglycemic. (Even though her blood sugars have never been
>documented low.)" He advised us to up her fluids and to follow a
>high protein, low carb diet. So, we started following Atkins and
>things got better - for a while - but then returned.

I'm not a doctor, but you might want to dig further.

One question: has she had her blood hemoglobin, hematocrit and ferritin
levels checked? Those symptoms can be related to a lot of conditions, but
one of the most common (and the most treatable) is iron-deficiency anemia.
It's very common in teenaged girls. Although only a physician can diagnose
iron-deficiency anemia, sometimes they do miss it.

Luckily, it's easy to treat once you know you have it; lots of iron,
vitamin C, and folic acid taken together (and not within a few hours of
anything containing significant amounts of calcium or oxalic acid) will
help. If her doctor hasn't mentioned it, you might ask him to do the
relevant tests.

> She
>has advised us to continue to follow the high protein, low carb
>regime AND to eliminate all gluten because gluten (especially wheat)
>can cause many people difficulties.

It sounds like the neurologists suspects that your daughter has celiac
disease (CD). CD isn't a true allergy but it is caused by a problem in the
immune system. There are specific blood tests to diagnose CD; has your
daughter had them? In the US, they're called the transglutaminase (tTG)
antibody test and the endomysial (EMA) antibody test. One interesting
point: CD can actually cause iron-deficiency anemia.

Since there are specific tests for CD, she might want to have them so she
knows for sure; since untreated CD can lead to other more serious diseases,
it's important to know. A family physician can order these tests, as can a
specialist such as an internist or allergist. The neurologist's diagnosis
might be correct, but if I were you I'd want a definitive test (and
confirmation from a specialist in the field) before I started on major
dietary restrictions.

>I am about at my wits end. First I need recipes! Secondly, I am so
>frustrated...if all of this is related to food allergies, would they
>have not shown up YEARS ago?!?!

Absolutely not. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about allergies.
All but one of my food allergies began in my late 20s - early 30s; the
allergist says this is very common. Celiac disease often becomes apparent
only in the teen years, and in women sometimes decades later. My doctor
said that about 5% of all women develop celiac disease in adulthood -
that's 750,000 women in Canada alone! These findings are apparently rather
new, and many doctors haven't yet had the CME (continuing medical
education) that discusses this.

>Anyway, I have already been experimenting with converting traditional
>recipes; when I get a recipe converted into something that works AND
>that Tasha likes (the true test), I will post them.
>
>I would love any advice or suggestions that anyone has.

Have you seen this website, containing recipes for gluten-free foods?
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~coeliac/

I don't know whether you live near a good whole foods store (or in which
part of the world you live in), but there are tons of gluten-free foods
available in these stores. Rice pasta tastes almost exactly like wheat
pasta; rice-corn pasta is actually tastier. The rice spaghetti , rotini,
and lasagna noodles keep their shape better than the shells. You have to
be really careful when buying rice cereals, since some of them contain
traces of wheat. A trace is often enough to cause problems.

Quinoa is high-protein (and a complete protein) and gluten-free; I use it
as a substitute for couscous or for pasta in soup. (It also tastes great.)

Oats themselves aren't a problem for celiacs; the problem is that any given
quantity of oats will usually contain quite a bit of wheat. The grains look
alike and are often stored in the same facilities, and there's a lot of
cross-contamination. If you can find oats guaranteed to be free from
cross-contamination, you can use them.

I found that kosher groceries are an excellent source of wheat-free food
just before or just after Passover. Observant Jews do not eat wheat, spelt,
and other grains (other than correctly baked matzoh) during Passover, so
all Passover foods not containing matzoh must be wheat-free. Look for
Star-K or OU Kosher for Passover certification - some traditions allow for
tiny amounts of wheat to remain in foods, but these certification agencies
are far stricter and do not allow even the smallest trace to be in the
certified food.

As I'm sure you've already found, you have to learn to read labels like a
hawk. Who would have thought that prepared mustard or chicken patties would
have wheat in them?

Good luck!

--

Charlene Vickers watsondog@...

I do think there should be a moratorium on jazzed-up Wagner. If
you're going to spend large amounts of money and lose several hours of
your life waiting for the odd memorable tune between long periods of
gods shouting at each other, then it should at least have plenty of big
women with spikey helmets.

-- Nick Fitch, from Usenet