Celiac Support

For those of you think you may have Coeliac Disease, if it is confirmed, please get any blood relatives checked as well eg. your children /siblings /parents.

I live in Australia - my daughter Alex who is now 21 was a stop/start growing child, mostly in the 98th percentile for height, but with long gaps of no growth. As soon as she could toddle she would squat down with tummy pain several times a day. Once she could talk we knew she got dreadful stomach aches. She had huge brown shadows under her eyes. Doctors investigated but we drew the line at invasive procedures.
When Alex was 14 we went to the GP for the 500th time but saw a locum doctor. He arranged a huge number of blood tests. One of these was the sensitivity for gluten test, and her results were off the scale.
In one week she was in the local hospital having an endoscopy to confirm coeliac disease. As she came back from theatre the nurse confirmed that Alex had the worst case of Coeliac Disease the Gastoenterologist had ever seen - her villi were completly attrophied (excuse the spelling lolz). There is a lot more I could say about her symptoms, but my point to you, the reader, is more about the genetic connection.

My husband of 35 years (we had Alex late ) had been stick thin all his life. He is 6ft2in and when I met him weighed less than 9st. He had suffered from several illnesses but had recently had a heart attack and later nearly died from undiagnosed anemia 2 years after Alex had her endoscopy. Once they had given him iron transfusions we suggested they tested him for Coeliac Disease. The off the planet blood test results were comfirmed by the endoscopy. It was explained to us that nearly all his illnesses, including the heart attack and anemia had been caused by the undiagnosed Coeliac Disease.

So when the medical people diagnose you or someone in your family with Coeliac Disease, remember the genetic link is not a myth. Get your family checked out too - you could save someone's life.

Poor Alex cried over never having wheat donuts again
(until they find a cure), but she agrees she would rather be alive than eat donuts.