Fibromyalgia and Gluten Intolerance

My husband became very ill in early 2010. His health and body began deteriorating quickly. He went to many specialists and finally submitted paperwork to be accepted into Mayo Clinic. The result was a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.

IgG and IgE Food Testing for Intolerances and Allergies

He knew he didn’t want to take a medication for the rest of his life, with a ton of side effects, that in some cases were worse than some of the original symptoms. We searched high and low and found a Naturopathic doctor that tested him for food intolerance which is an IgG test, as opposed to IgE (which is what my son was tested for in regard to life-threatening (anaphylactic) food allergies). With the knowledge of several foods my husband was intolerant too (originally: gluten, milk, egg, almonds, beef), it coincided with knowing that his immune system was out of whack with the auto immune diagnosis of fibromyalgia. He cut out all the foods that were listed as an intolerance, for several years. He finally healed much of his body and felt much relief.

About 8 1/2 years later he still has times where he will go into what is referred to as a “cycle” with severe pain, fatigue, and other symptoms. He was eventually able to reintroduce all the foods back into his diet that he originally showed intolerant too, except gluten. If he has even the smallest bit of gluten, his body begins to trigger pain and other symptoms.

When we first went gluten-free as a family it was super hard. Several years later we now have main meal options that are gluten free, but things that are just for the kids or individual snacking, are only peanut and shellfish free.

Life is Already Difficult with Health Problems, Box Mixes Help Make it Easier

We love having cookies, brownies, pancakes and waffles. After many trials and errors with not only pre-packaged goods, as well as recipes, we finally struck gold!

King Arthur brand gluten-free product line is ah-maze-ing!!!! The common comment from my kids and husband was that they tasted “like the real thing”, meaning made the traditional way with traditional ingredients. What really popped out to me as I was perusing my favorite health food store was that in the old packaging in big bold font it was labeled as NUT FREE in addition to other top 8 ingredients and allergens. Because I was navigating multiple food allergies this was HUGE!

Allergy Friendly Pancake & Waffle Mix

We have been making these King Arthur gluten-free pancakes and waffles every Sunday before church, for years now! What I love about this box mix is that it tastes so close to a treasured from scratch family recipe, and it’s versatile. If you can’t have dairy OR run out of milk, you can easily sub water and there’s no noticeable difference! In the early days when he was cutting out milk, we would sub with almond or rice milk with no problem, as well. We also have some Team Pancake and Team Waffle members of our family and I love that we can easily pull out the griddle and the waffle iron using this same batter to achieve both results.

Allergy Friendly Cookie Mix

My husband LOVES chocolate chip cookies and brownies. He’s a pretty simple guy and doesn’t ooooh and aaaaah over fancy desserts or the like. He just loves these two simple American dessert staples. These King Arthur chocolate chip cookies are seriously delicious and don’t last more than a day in our home. Over the years we have noticed three things with the cookies: 1-they are better with shortening instead of butter, like this one by Spectrum which only has palm oil as an ingredient or classic Crisco; 2-underbaked to be a slightly doughy is our preference; 3-they set-up best with these Enjoy Life mini chips which are also Top 8 free.

Allergy Friendly Brownie Mix

The brownies…. ooooooooohhh the BROWNIES! These King Arthur brownies are literally my favorite brownies in all the world! I have no food allergies to limit the brownies I can have. I’ve had many a brownie in my day, and bar none, these are MY favorite!!! We like ours baked to the lower end of the time scale, per the box instructions, and like the cookies, these little gems never last more than a day!