CELIACTODAY

The Celiac Listserv forum is by far the most thoughtful and useful forum for exchanging meaningful information related to celiac disease. Very little "chit-chat" takes place there.

Instead, users pose questions, and other users post answers. When the subject is big or complicated, the original poster usually summarizes the answers. That makes it easier for future visitors to get lots of useful info.

It takes some computer savvy to use the site, but it's worth the effort. It operates as an opt-in mailing list, rather than an open-posting bulletin board.

One negative is that the exchanges—and, thus, the archives—are not grouped by subject. So, the only way to find items on a particular subject is to search or browse the archives. 

The celiac forum is one of hundreds of health- and family-related forums hosted by the Information Center for Online Resources and Services, Inc., a non-profit charity in Somerset, NJ. (St. John's University in New York used to host this service.)

A strong sense of community prevails at CeliacForums.com, where friendly banter between posters and the moderator is not unusual.

The forum is nicely organized and well-prioritized. The first discussion categories are devoted to Newly Diagnosed, Not Yet Diagnosed, and then Health, Wellbeing & Diet. Then come discussions devoted to Foods & Cooking and Recipes.

Each of those categories is broken down further, making it easy to both post and find information. The fact that the site emphasizes healthy living, and that it is so closely managed, are signs of the care and thoughtfulness behind it.

Recipes get particularly good treatment. Rather than lumping them together, for example, this forum organizes them nicely into 11 categories, from appetizers, to entrees, to several types of desserts.

The sponsor of CeliacForums.com is GlutenFree.com, an online GF food vendor. (GlutenFree.com is based in Laval, Quebec, not far from Montreal, and has a U.S. headquarters in Glastonbury, CT, near Hartford.)

The Delphi Celiac Forum is a well-organized and well-run community that typically receives 400 to 500 visits a day.

The site is well-moderated, and a set of posting rules is aimed at keeping the conversations helpful and respectful.

As a result, a cooperative spirit prevails on the site, and it has had concrete results. Group members have taken it upon themselves to assemble a gluten-free product list, which gets updated periodically.

The front page contains a number of helpful links to other celiac-related sites.

Begun by two neurologists at Massachusetts General Hospital, BrainTalk Communities hosts forums for a large number of neurological disorders. One of those forums focuses on celiac disease because the condition, when untreated, may be associated with neurological damage.

Many of the postings do indeed deal with neurological issues, though some stray into more general CD topics. The site also offers links to a variety of medical research papers, as well as a fairly exhaustive links to other CD-related sites.

The Gluten-Free Forum is one of the oldest, largest and most heavily used forums related to celiac disease. As of this writing, it has more than 16,000 members.

The forum is well-organized by topic into nearly 30 sub-sections.

People use the site to find support groups; swap information on GF foods, cooking and restaurants; seek and provide advice, and sometimes just to let off steam.

The forum is hosted by Celiac.com, one of the oldest and most comprehensive sites related to celiac disease.