right my daughter is 4 she has had diabetes for two years now if that wasn't enough we have just found out that she has celiac disease.
do you have these problems? any advice? good web sites to look up ?

Coeliac Society is a good place to start.

gf is a coeliac (and this mail is re coeliac only)

http://www.coeliac.org.uk/

not being funny but I'd make sure she is a good cook asap – this will let her eat well, be sure of food content and allow her to control her diet, it can be pretty limiting for eating out. Genius bread is the best (IMgfO) but it's pretty expensive, all supermakes do 'free from' ranges.

I just make sure I always carry a few powerbars she can eat etc to deal with emergencies etc.

It's a total pain in the balls frankly. But there seems to be medical links between coeliac and diabetes so there's a fair amount of decent information out there on the subject at least. Coeliac Society are very good, if nothing else you'll want the little book. I don't really have much advice to give- I have no idea how to handle it with kids- but good luck with it all.

Hmm, OK, actually here's some basic advice. The golden rule is "can you tell it's gluten free". Quite often you'll find yourself settling for "Oh, that's not bad for gluten free" but there are some things that genuinely pass muster, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. Most tescos cakes and biscuits are fairly poor frinstnace but their bakewell tarts are near perfect. Biscuits are just a case of trying loads of stuff but the trufree brownies in the plastic tub are very nice.

IMO Genius bread is the only premade loaf that's any damn use at all, full stop, some of the others feel like bread and can be used like bread, and some taste a bit like bread but there's not one of them that can do both. Don't waste time there. The absolute best gluten free cake there is, is the marks and spencers chocolate thing, it's fantastic. Bread and cakes are all you really need 😉

Glutafin's select white mix makes a pretty good loaf which you can modify a bit for different reasons, the bread holds together well for sandwiches and doesn't go instantly stale. It's also useful for other stuff. In fact I'd say that Glutafin have the flour substitute thing absolutely sewn up. The only possible downer here is that Select isn't wheat free, it meets the gluten free standard but it's not 100% wheat free so that may or may not be OK, for most coeliacs it's fine. If you want to use bread, definately consider getting a bread machine and trying some mixes but I think you'll find the same.

Oh, this isn't always well advertised but if she likes pasta, all the GF pasta I've found looks absolutely manky when you cook it, covered in evil mucus. Boil a full kettle of water and rinse it in a colander, and suddenly it's pasta. Doesn't work with them all but does work with most.

If you can convince her she likes curries and baked potatoes, this will be useful, these are pretty much my 2 fallback options for grabbing food while out and about.

Oh, and watch out for sugar and salt- an awful lot of gluten free stuff is absolutely rammed with sugar, and some of the bread has a lot of salt. My own white bread I make is ridiculously salty, it gives it a much better flavour but I'm not sure it'd be suitable for kids.

Wife is pharmacist with two siblings that are celiacs and is suggesting the following:

Patient UK – very reliable Pharmaceutical Society backed site for reliable info. All gluten free breads, pastas etc are prescribable on the NHS and can be obtained FOC on the NHS if you're GP writes the prescription. If the GP is not helpful you're local pharmacist should be, try an independent pharmacy as opposed to a chain e.g Alliance/Lloyds as they will have more time to go through the issues with you nd will have more patience.

She says it is a totally manageable condition but it can take up to 3 months to see the benefit of sticking to the strict diet of no gluten. If you need anymore info or have more detailed questions please email me (addy in profile) and my wife will answer them.

Cheers
Roddy

thanks for the feed back. just now we are waiting for the biopsy of her gut to find out the extent of whats happened and comfirm that she it a coeliac (blood level was 100 max is 12).as for the staff at the sick kids in edinburgh have been great with there support.
Albanach you have a good point about the local pharmacy who at a complete pain in the tits sometimes (loyds) ,we have been informed about the prescription foods but its still early days at the moment so i might get back to you in the near future

I've got a diabetic friend who also suffers from celiac. She seems to be ok now but when it first happened it was a bog change (probably bigger than when she was diagnosed with Diabetes as she was just getting her head round the diabetes then something else got thrown into the mix).

If you email me your contact details, I'll get in touch with her and see if she can contact you to discuss things (if it helps)…saying that I've only got her mobile number and not spoken to her for a good wee while but I'm sure she'd be more than happy to chat…