We are a family of 4 living in Manitoba trying to live well on a gluten free, casein free diet. I have been recently diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder called Dermatomyositis. It is rare and there is no cure. In the year since I began treatment, I have made a small amount of progress but the drugs are as bad as the disorder. I have recently begun the Wahls Protocol in the hopes that it will help my body heal itself.
We have previous experience, as you’ll note on older entries, with the GFCF diet. I have two children, one on the Autism spectrum and one neuro-typical. We did GFCF for several years, successfully, until it wasn’t enough intervention. We accepted that medication was the best intervention for our child and moved him back to a more typical diet. The GFCF diet benefit was no longer enough to justify the additional cost or social isolation he was feeling. Having said that, I believe the work we did in his younger years to heal his gut made a world of difference for him. If you are on the fence about trying GFCF, I urge you to try it. The benefits were immediate and life changing.
We don’t live anywhere near a major centre (like Winnipeg) so sourcing food and supplements requires lots of research, planning and shopping online. It is my hope that you will find valuable information on my blog that will help you in your journey too.
Gluten & Dairy Free in Canada 
I’m so happy to have found another GF/CF Canadian blogger! Just want to say hello!
Fellow gluten free blogger,
I’m staring a carnival blog as a one-stop shopping place for gluten free information. A blog carnival is like a magazine of articles that gets published on a schedule. Every 3 months (I hope it catches on so that we can do this more often – at least monthly), bloggers submit an article related to the GF lifestyle from their blog. The submission will be combined with all others onto 1 carnival page, which will include links to each participant’s article on their own blog (so you retain the rights to the post, and your trademarks stay intact). We can all take turns being the host blogger (if you are interested in hosting, let me know!). We hope that we can all learn from each other and introduce our readers to other gluten free sites out there.
If you’d like to see a sample carnival, check out http://allergickid.blogspot.com/2009/06/living-with-food-allergies-blog.html.
Joining the community of contributors is a great way to get more readers to your blog. It’s easy to do. Just follow the below link and fill in the quick form linking one of your best blog posts to the carnival page. Topic areas will include recipes, tips, research, advice/support, etc. Your post will be posted along with contributions from other GF bloggers.
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_7356.html
The deadline for the next carnival is July 25, 2009. Be sure to let your readers know about the first carnival. It’ll be posted on August 1st at http://thefoodallergycoach.blogspot.com/.
Looking forward to reading your post,
Kim
How wonderful to have found another Canadian living the GFCF life. Our eating is a little more restricted…maybe??? I call it Free Eating as our family is GFCF, sugar, dye, aspartame and preservative free. Makes it interesting!
Thanks for sharing your journey!
Hi,
We’re in Toronto doing the diet too.
I’m in Edmonton and we have just been informed about the essential need of being on this diet for my 3 year old just diagnosed with ASD and a 4 year old neuro-typical with asthma.
Pediatrician told me we had to go on this as of now, so yesterday was the first day on this diet and I am looking for any positive advise and recipes I can. We did our first grocery shop last night and I am amazed at how expensive this is compared to what we are normally used to. Thank you for blogging about this and sharing your journey. It makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay. It’s nice to know the journey of others and to learn from them even though it’s only on-line.
is the gfcf diet also soy free?
I was diagnosed with dermatomyositis a month ago and started the Wahls protocol a week and a half ago. Happy to see it has helped you. The specialist for this disease at Stanford doesn’t seem to think that diet helps much with this disease. I am hoping to prove him WRONG!