And I would like to add here--Celiacs is not an allergy, it is an intolerance to gluten. Gluten is wheat, rye, barley, and usually oats. Which would explain cakes, cookies, muffins, spaghetti--anything made with flours, etc. They all contain gluten. The sites Brian gave you to check out are all very good ones. As Mrsd says, many gluten sensitive or intolerant people will have a lactose intolerance in the beginning. Many people can return to lactose after several months of gluten free. This is a lifetime diet, cheating is something that should NEVER be done. A gluten intolerant person has a 60% higher chance of stomach cancers. This is a very serious disease.

And yes, celiacs is an autoimmune disease. When a celiac is still eating gluten, their system does not absorb vitamins and minerals. When you are malabsorbing, then a chemical imbalance sets in. A vitamin B12 deficiency does cause neuropathy. My neuropathy was discovered before I went gluten free. Sometimes neuropathy will reverse itself in some gluten intolerant people, it didn't reverse in me, but the progression did greatly slow down when I went gluten free. My first symptoms were carpal tunnel, in which in a very short time, my toes started going numb, one at a time until all of them would be numb at once. That was over 8 yrs ago.

The research in regard to gluten sensitivity and neurological disease has really been booming~ I have just a few more short references...

"But the two things which are relevant to CD are nutrition and immunity. People with CD have nutritional deficits because of malabsorption; common causes of neuropathy are B12 deficiency, B1 deficiency, B6 deficiency, and Vitamin E deficiency. Neuropathies are also commonly caused by the immune system through autoimmune mechanisims."..."Latov commented that 20-25% of people with CD might have neuropathy."
Celiac Disease and Peripheral Neuropathy, Norman Latov, MD, PHD 2002

While neurological disease has long been a known, although lesser known, complication of celiac disease, newer research is suggesting that gluten sensitivity even without celiac disease can also cause neurological disease. Celiac disease is defined by biopsy evidence of damaged intestinal villi.

One of the researchers leading this area of study is Marios Hadjivassiliou.

From:
The Neurology of Gluten Sensitivity: Science vs. Conviction Hadjivassiliou and Grunewald
The term 'coeliac disease' should now be restricted to describe gluten sensitive enteropathy. The term gluten sensitivity describes a spectrum of disease that have in common an immune response to the ingestion of gluten, but with diverse manifestations such as an enteropathy (coeliac disease), dermatopathy (dermatitis herpetiformis) and neurological disorders (e.g. Gluten ataxia). Not suprisingly, the common aetiological trigger (gluten) means that these diseases overlap considerably. For example, the vast majority of patients with dermatitits herpetiformis also have an enteropathy, as do a third of patients with gluten ataxia (Hadjivassiliou et al. 2003b).

Here is a compiliation of his work...
http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/...23&postcount=2

You need to be consuming gluten for blood tests to be accurate, so be sure to have blood drawn (if you are interested in testing) before you remove gluten from your diet. Seems this is worth exploring given your symptoms.

Cara