[seethedeaduu]

I assume that your solution is having a professional diagnosis.

Sadly this doesn't really work due to the current state of psychiatry where many people with legitimate issues are being denied a diagnosis and treatment (see for example: trans healthcare and gatekeeping, adhd healthcare, etc). It is even more weird because often when you go to two different doctors you will get different results.

Not to mention that usually to even explore the idea of getting an official diagnosis you start with a self diagnosis.

> But the vast majority of self-diagnosed "gluten sensitives" do not have such conditions.

If you believe that you have celiac but for whatever reason you haven't been able to test it yet, then there is no harm to try going glutten free. The real issue is how many people deny the very existence of glutten sensitivity and put these people in danger. If you look at communities of people with the disease you will see what I am talking about.

[nradov]

No that's not how it usually works. People with a serious mental health condition don't usually start with self diagnosis. Instead they are referred to a mental health practitioner by another healthcare provider, a school administrator, or the criminal justice system because they are unable to function effectively in society. Many mental health conditions impair the type of objective metacognition needed to reliably self diagnose in the first place.

[csa]

> If you believe that you have celiac but for whatever reason you haven't been able to test it yet, then there is no harm to try going glutten free. The real issue is how many people deny the very existence of glutten sensitivity and put these people in danger. If you look at communities of people with the disease you will see what I am talking about.

You just made one hell of a strawman argument about what GP said.

He merely stated that “the vast majority of self-diagnosed ‘gluten sensitives’ do not have such conditions”, as you quoted. This comment jibes with my experience.

The two folks I know who have full-blown celiac end up projectile vomiting for hours if they consume even small amounts of gluten (e.g., gross contamination in a fryer or on a cutting board).

The two folks I know who have milder versions were able to figure out that they needed to be tested in fairly short order due to “digestion issues” when they ate gluten.

On the other hand, the dozens of other folks I know who claim to be “sensitive to gluten” have no real basis when saying so. When I mentioned to them that I have friends with celiac, and I empathize with them, and I suggest they get tested if they haven’t yet (undiagnosed celiac is real), the answer I get are nothing short of glib - “oh, I’m just on a keto diet, and this is an easy way to do it”, “oh, I just found that I feel bad after eating things like cake” (sugar crash? diabetic?), or “oh, I’m fine, I just want them to make a fresh one (of whatever) for me”.

Your defense of folks who claim a problem that they can (often) fairly easily determine that they don’t have is enabling those folks’ dysfunction — that is, lying to themselves and (per this thread) using labeling as a defensive tactic.

People who actually have celiac need very specific accommodations. But the multiples of people who claim “gluten sensitivity” when they don’t actually have it causes large swathes of the general population to disbelieve the folks who really do have it.

It’s ok to call out the poseurs for what they are while still looking out for folks who have celiac or might have celiac and don’t know it yet.