Tuesday, June 30, 2009

My Gluten Free Boy Craves Food

When I wake up to some noises in my kitchen in the middle of the night, I never fear that it is a burglar. I never get nervous and wake my husband to get the baseball bat and go see what is out there. I just roll my eyes and go out to my kitchen. Every single time it is my Adrian.
He's on a strict gluten free diet because of his Celiac Disease. We had tried at one time to make the entire house gluten free, but that didn't work well. So I'm pretty anal about having gluten and gluten free food in the house and making sure Adrian has very similar meals and snacks to us that are gluten free. I make him hot pockets. I make him cookies. I make him breads. I buy him crackers. I buy him granola bars. I buy him rice krispie treats. All of these things I do or buy for him are gluten free so that he can get something very similar to what we eat. I'm not sure if the things he eats get digested quicker and make him hungry quicker or if he is just craving gluten foods.
He wakes up in the middle of the night and starts scrounging through the cupboards. I've come out before and found him eating blueberry muffins, flour tortillas and dry bread. All of these are NOT gluten free. Then we deal with rashes, stomach issues and major whinies the next day.
Last night I went out and found him in the cupboard. He had a can of vanilla frosting (gluten free, thankfully), strawberry syrup (gluten free) and was dipping whole strawberries into it while he munched on a flour tortilla in the other hand. *sigh* It wouldn't have been so bad if it was just the frosting, syrup and strawberries, but the flour tortilla was the big bad one. :(
And, to make it even more frustrating he had poured the syrup all over the table. This, of course, wasn't as bad as the one time he got the maple syrup out and decided to share it with the dog and poured maple syrup all over the dog's kennel and my livingroom carpet.

Not only is this frustrating ... but it is also very dangerous for him. I'm not sure exactly what to do. Should I put locks on all my cupboards? Should I put an alarm on his door? (He shares a bedroom with his brother, though, that does get up in the night to go potty).

I've stressed to him the dangers of eating this food. I've punished him for doing it. I honestly think that he is half asleep as he does this.

2 comments:

  1. oh Cat, what a little sweetheart. Perhaps locks on the cupboard doors, particularly where the non-gluten free food are kept, is in order

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  2. I have a friend who is in her forties and was deathly ill prior to he Dr. finally dx-ing her with Celliac. Mind you this is a grown woman who is well aware of what eating gluten does to her body--and she still willfully falls off the wagon. I think it sounds like you are doing the all the right things to help. What about individually wrapping his treats and having a special box in a certain cabinet that has his "safe" foods. You may have done this already-- and if so I agree w/ shoefairyknits that locking the cabinets with the unsafe foods in them. I know that just seems "wrong" as a mom, but it is for his health.

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