"So, he can't eat bread?"

Before Hulk's diagnosis, I did not know much about Celiac except it was like an allergy.
Which, before we move on - it is not an allergy. It is an autoimmune disease. He will not outgrow it, there is no treatment beyond a completely gluten free diet.

Instead of trying to a creative/different way to say it - I pulled the following information and image from  https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease/ :

Celiac disease is a serious autoimmune disease that occurs in genetically predisposed people where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. It is estimated to affect 1 in 100 people worldwide. Two and one-half million Americans are undiagnosed and are at risk for long-term health complications.

When people with celiac disease eat gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye and barley), their body mounts an immune response that attacks the small intestine. These attacks lead to damage on the villi, small fingerlike projections that line the small intestine, that promote nutrient absorption. When the villi get damaged, nutrients cannot be absorbed properly into the body.

Celiac disease is hereditary, meaning that it runs in families. People with a first-degree relative with celiac disease (parent, child, sibling) have a 1 in 10 risk of developing celiac disease.

Celiac disease can develop at any age after people start eating foods or medicines that contain gluten. Left untreated, celiac disease can lead to additional serious health problems.

So when someone asks if he can't eat bread ... they are both right and wrong. He can not eat 'normal' bread. He can eat gluten free bread (which, if I am being honest, it sucks and is very expensive). But he also can not eat anything that contains wheat, barley, rye ... or use things with those ingredients (shampoo, lotion, sunscreen, ect). He also needs to avoid things that may have come into contact with those ingredients along the way during processing/packaging/serving ... I will save that for another post about all the surprising things I have learned contain gluten that we will need to avoid or find substitutes for and about cross contamination.

This is just the start - I want to followup in posts along the way about symptoms from ingesting gluten, products (including medications!) and foods that contain it, what nutrition and warning labels mean and so forth.