Seems as though you are a little defensive, ok...a lot defensive. If you'd taken a moment to actually read what I wrote it was more a genuine question. I didn't realize that I had to be PC and censor my curiosity as to not offend someone who apparently is tired of defending her disease to a bunch of people who don't understand it...oh and I didn't, which is why I asked!

anyhoo, thanks for explaining your side of it.

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I did...you try it. I wanted the other side of it. I think it's a legitimate question and I welcome both sides of the argument, which is why I phrased my question the way I did. I don't think it's turning out to be a bad discussion actually :)

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Stacy - I'm not defensive in the slightest. To go on a board accusing people like me who have spent their lives battling a host of embarrassing, painful, once-unexplained symptoms of attention-seeking fakery is asking for a verbal lashing. Just saying. And comparing it to peanut allergies? You *know* people die from that, right? Is there no end to your ignorance?

I pray to *God* that you do not work in the food service industry if this is how you regard people with serious food allergies.

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Unfortunately, self-diagnosing yourself as gluten-intolerant is a new fad. People have done this forever with different diseases(think Epstein-Barr in the 80's, yeast allergies in the 90s). It doesn't mean the things people are self-diagnosing themselves with aren't real illnesses. There are just a lot of people who latch onto the disease of the moment as the answer to what is wrong with them. Even worse, there are tons of quack practitioners out there willing to prey on these people by offering them cleansing cures and other b.s. to "treat" them based solely on their self-diagnosis.

In the end, the people who actually suffer with the disease may find it harder to have people take their disease seriously, which sucks.

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People fake being paralyzed to get medical benefits, does that mean being paralyzed is made-up?

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If you read the original post as a remark on WASPy hypochondriacs, then the resulting comment beatdown starts to look -- well, insane.

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One thing that ends up getting my goat a bit is that if you really have a "fad" disease and the "fad" passes, you're left behind with your same old now sort of faded outmoded and uninteresting passe disease and nobody care anymore.

I actually knew someone with celiac disease over 20 years ago and something tells me that she's not enjoying the new popularity of her same old disease.

On the other hand, the concept of food restriction of any kind and in this case gluten often appeals to people with eating disorders and being "clean" can be used by people with legitimate celiac disease, but also is code for food restricting.

And lastly I can't understand why people who have or think they have a certain "fad" disease want to buttonhole you and convince you that you probably have it too. I would not wish my fibromyalgia-limited life on my worst enemy and trust me she deserves it!

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One of these days, one of those wheelie fakes is going to slip up and then *BAM* I'll have them!

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Seriously, usually I like the comment threads here, but this just got nasty and vindictive for no good reason. I get that some people who've got allergies or celiac have existing baggage about their illnesses being questioned by others, but it's a post on the internet, which means people often project their own tone onto the text. Stacy clarified, and the beatdown continued. She's not the one who comes out of this looking bad.

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This is totally not what the original post says. At all.

If anything, the original is accusing fad-seeking hypochondriacs of co-opting your embarrassing, painful disease and using it as an excuse to avoid starches.

You know what helps before delivering a verbal lashing? Just READING. Jesus.

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Myself nor anyone in my family has any known allergies, except my mom breaks out if she eats shellfish. I can eat whatever I want and I don't think I'm projecting anything. Possibly her thoughts were not translated well into words. With many writers around, that can get you piled-on here.

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Peanut allergies have been a fad illness over the past decade -- not psychosomatic, which is an actual manifestation of symptoms due to psychological conviction, but a conscious choice to co-opt an illness to either self-diagnose ("I saw on Oprah that PCOS makes you gain weight, and I've gained weight, therefore I think I've got PCOS") or to cover another purpose ("I am scared about peanut allergies, and so will claim Jimmy's got it already"). These co-opters have NOTHING to do with people who are actually allergic to peanuts or have PCOS, a very real, diagnosable thing.

Here's an example: in the 90s I worked at a children's camp where one of the kids was allergic to latex. We're talking heart-stopping, EpiPen-carrying, emergency number-toting, specialist doctor-having allergy. We had to scan children's lunches for bananas, because the skin could trigger him. There were also a few kids whose mothers pitched an almighty fit about peanut allergies. These women requested we ban all peanuts and peanut products. Did any of the kids have ANY of the stuff the latex kid had? Well, no, but Kyle's mouth feels itchy when he eats peanut butter and he says he's sick afterwards, and that's proof enough. Apparently actual diagnosis was a step too far for these ladies. (Kyle, on the other hand, was all too happy to sneak peanut butter cookies from a friend -- I suspect he just didn't like PB&J sandwiches.)

The discussion didn't start with any sort of question about illnesses. Stacy's post has nothing to do with celiac's actual diagnosis, it has EVERYTHING to do with attention-seeking /helicopter-parenting behaviour of WASPy segments of society.

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