To expect my friends to understand that I am a Coeliac

[Reredos]

Basically these are two female friends that I have known for 20 years. We meet up with their husbands every month or so for dinner and we often go for weekends away. I have been recently diagnosed as having Coeliac disease through a gut biopsy but a mutual friend was diagnosed two years ago. I have heard what they say about the Coeliac friend, how she is attention seeking and is loving the drama of having a special diet. I am probably closest to this Coeliac friend and had researched the diet so that I could offer her safe food and also support. this actually meant that when I was diagnosed it wasn't such a big thing for me as it knew so much about it.
The first thing one of these friends said to me when I told her I was diagnosed was 'I hope you are not going to be all silly about it like xxx'
I have tried to explain the danger of contamination with them but they refuse to accept it. Everyone seems to know a coeliac person (probably a gluten-intolerant) who eats cake every now and then and 'just deals with the consequences'
We have one of these trips away booked for New Year and I am frankly dreading it. I will take my own food but they will see that as a slur or that I am trying to draw attention to myself. They couldn't be more wrong. I hate being different. I have no problems with following a gluten-free diet at home or when going out with my family. It is so easy to buy gf food in all of the supermarkets and I actually prefer to just take a sandwich in my handbag and not make a fuss.
I am getting unreasonably anxious about this and I need a coping strategy.
The weekend will involve at least one posh restaurant meal and fish and chips on the beach. I know they will say that I can have the chips because they are just potatoes but, if I then say that it's not recommended due to contamination of the oil by battered products, it will result in melodramatic eye-rolling and being told to get a grip.
The husbands of these women are lovely. I don't think that they really understand the contamination issue either but they are not judgemental. My husband gets on well with all of the group and his advice is to not worry about it until it happens and that I can take my own food and that there will always be something on the menu that I can eat.
It doesn't help that I am a vegetarian. I know that this is a self-imposed restriction but, after 40 years, I can't change. I can manage to eat some fish and I have tried to eat meat (by putting tiny pieces of chicken in rice) but I hate it and I shouldn't have to eat meat (or gluten) to keep everyone else happy.
Am I being unreasonable? Should I eat whatever is prepared for me at friends houses/restaurants and 'deal with the consequences' however detrimental to my health could be?

Wolfbasher well said.

I went gluten free for a while to see if it affected my IBS (it did not) and I'm incredibly thankful I can eat gluten!

The idea of making gluten free friends (or even total strangers) feel 'bad' about their condition is so bizarre that I can't quite get my head around it.

I've read bit of the thread Reredos, but not all, so hope my advice is not just repeating what others had said! It may well be!

I suggest, take your own food where you feel comfortable to, check out things in advance so that your friends are not in any way inconvenienced by your condition. This is for your benefit not theirs.

Eat only what is safe to do so. NEVER eat anything you do not want to in order to make others happy.

If/when friends make fun of you for your condition I would personally speak to them separately (divide and conquer) and privately and explain that:

a) This is a real condition which affects YOU not them
b) This is your body and you will put in it what you want and only that
c) As friends you expect their support and not their ridicule
d) You are not inconveniencing them in any way when you are eating out and to be honest even if they were inconvenienced in catering for you when you visit them this is what friends do for each other

Please stick up for your coeliac disease affected friend if they start on her, or remove yourself from any conversations where she or you, or your food allergy, is being made fun of

And finally personally I would mentally remove yourself from caring what these idiots think!

Of course they can be fun, you have known them years, your kids know each other etc and you do not want to lose their friendship, but really do you care what they think? I hope not.

They can keep their opinions to themselves and as long as you keep healthy ignore. Smile and ignore, walk off and ignore, whatever works.

Your gut needs you to protect it but I would also say you need to protect yourself esteem in realising you are more important to you than these friends, who seem very juvenile! Picture them in your head as Kevin and Perry as you calmly say "Lets' not talk about food allergies again."

Kevin and Perry

Best wishes for a healthy, happy, fun Christmas.

See I can eat wheat, I can eat anything. But BIL bought us a breadmaker for Christmas and we got into making our own bread. And amazingly some of the little niggles that I always assumed were just normal, completely disappeared. TMI but stuff like always needing the loo very quickly when I woke up in the morning, often having a grumbly tummy, having less than textbook consistency poos. All that has disappeared, although I had never really registered it as a problem, and we are only using Tesco bog standard bread flour, nothing special.

I think far more people have some degree of a problem with wheat than we realise.

I read that shop bought bread contains too much yeast which does not fully ferment, I wonder if this is what can cause some people's stomach problems when they eat it.

Windchime you should be ashamed of yourself. Call yourself a nurse?
Coz I don't. You are ignorant and probably harming people. I hope someone reports you for poor care.

It doesn't take long to educate yourself about gluten and wheat intolerances. I suggest you do and be a bit bloody nicer to your patients.

That's interesting LL12, because I am fine with wraps and pittas, and also while stuffing my face with baguettes in France.

I'm better when eating my own bread rather than shop bought, but I just assumed it was additives. Perhaps it was yeast.

Some of the problems may be due to the chorleywood breadmaking process, which reduces the proving time of the dough - and quite probably means that there is more in your loaf than just the wheat flour that could be causing problems anh-europe.org/news/the-chorleywood-process-and-the-rise-of-real-bread

It would explain why some people are able to eat, for e.g., French bread products and not suffer in the same way that they would if eating UK bread products (or indeed Aussie or NZ or Indian bread products, since they also adopted the CBP)

Wind chime plenty of people don't "get on" with certain foods. They don't need to have a diagnosis to know xx makes them Ill.

I react very badly to prawns - which I used to be able to eat - and am now violently sick with diarrhoea if I eat them. Why would it need to be on my medical records ?!

There are some other foods that I prefer to avoid due to less severe reactions. I just don't eat them - is it really so hard to believe ?

I am Coeliac. I eat wheat when it's offered/made for me etc because I don't see it as a real allergy, as an I am not going to die from it. Yes, I am uncomfortable afterwards but I really think it's picky to make a big fuss about something that won't kill you.

Chrome, you really need to get more information. You are doing your body serious damage.

I agree with Tinkly, coeliac disease is not an allergy anyway but it does have the potential to kill you.

Chrome maybe your symptoms are just not as sever as other suffers?

I know people with nut allergies, one just gets a hay fever like reaction if she accidentally eats one and the other has been hospitalized after his mother touched his father's hand before touching his hand. The father had been eating peanuts.

I'm also interested in what LL12 mentioned. I am in Chile and in our local health food shop the woman told me that their bread should be fine for gluten intolerants because it rises over a 10 hour period. I haven't tried it yet but I might.

That should say peanut allergy.

Chrome clearly your symptoms aren't as severe as other people's! My mum is a coeliac and if she so much as has a bite of something containing gluten she will have severe stomach cramps, often vomits and has severe diarrhea. Those symptoms can last for a couple of days -why on earth would she put herself through that?!

Chrome - You are absolutely right, it's not a real allergy. Coeliac disease is not an allergy it's an auto immune disease. You may be prepared to play Russian roulette with your health rather than make a fuss, but every time someone with coeliac disease consumes gluten they are compromising their immunity. You are increasing your risk of osteoporosis, stomach cancers and other auto immune conditions. I have 2 coeliac DCs one gets tummy pains if he has gluten, the other projectile vomits for 2 hours. It is actually my DC who has the milder reaction that has to be more careful about what he consumes as small amounts of gluten could creep in to his system undetected without him noticing.
Anyone with a diagnosis of coeliac disease should not be consuming any gluten.

Chrome - your external symptoms aren't the main issue. The main problem is the internal damage. You can't measure that by external symptoms. Some coeliacs have no external symptoms at diagnosis, but terrible internal damage.

As a coeliac, when you eat gluten, it triggers your autoimmune system to produce antibodies that attack your internal organs. The antibodies kill off the villi in your small intestine, preventing you from absorbing essential nutrients. There is ongoing research that they also attack other internal organs, including your brain.

It's really not worth eating gluten just for the sake of social politeness. Are those people you're taking care not to offend going to come round and take care of you when you have cancer, or osteoporosis, or any of the other long term results? I doubt it.