Celiac Disease Center of Columbia 12th Anniversary Gala on October 17, 2013

 

The Celiac Disease Center’s Gala is the one dinner where I can actually eat the food which is 100% gluten free.  The dinner at the Mandarin Oriental is always memorable but this year’s gala is going to be especially fun because Jon Stewart is hosting. And, Free Bread Inc. is donating their amazing whole grain rolls. (I am equally excited about both–which would only make sense to someone who hadn’t eaten real bread in 7 years who recently sampled Free Bread Inc’s dairy free Moxy rolls.) 

There are a few tickets left if you want to join us in raising money for the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia–a non-profit that  does research on celiac disease,  provides medical care to patients and gives nutritional support to families and individuals affected by celiac. It’s a pricey ticket but it is an amazing evening and a great cause.

Research on celiac and support for individuals with celiac is lacking because there is no drug treatment for this disease. In our family, despite years of symptoms, symptoms of celiac were overlooked by many doctors including gastrointestinal doctors, neurologists, several pediatricians as well as a few internal medical doctors. A patient of Dr. Peter Green’s had given me Dr. Green’s book on  celiac disease which I had on my shelf when the fourth pediatric GI doctor we had seen called to say they had discovered my son had two genes for celiac. When I read the book it was a crazy listing of all the symptoms our family had been dealing with for years. And it was the former nutritionist at the Celiac Disease Center, Anne Lee, who finally told me a month later, “Your done–your kids have celiac.” Years of running to doctors and hearing “everything was fine” FINALLY made sense when I read Dr. Green’s book that explained that Celiac Disease goes undiagnosed for years in many case because it is such a complicated disease.