Friday, May 24, 2013

Celiac Disease

I've recently been diagnosed with celiac disease, so I'm on a huge learning curve trying to convert to a gluten free diet.

For the past 6 months, I've been having weird esophageal and peripheral neuropathy symptoms. My doctors have been wonderful about trying to find the diagnosis.

Originally we thought it might be a wheat allergy but my allergy tests were negative for that. We tried GERD medications that helped somewhat, but I still had the strange "full esophagus" feeling that caused me difficulty swallowing.  Anxiety medications didn't help much, either.

An upper GI showed no physical restrictions, so we decided to have an endoscopy (since I needed my 50-year-old colonoscopy screening anyway). That way I could have them both at the same time.

A tissue sample from the intestine showed "marked villous atrophy" suggestive of celiac, but non-diagnostic.  So we followed up with the blood testing, and it was positive.

Now I'm trying to learn as much as I can. Thank heavens for so many online resources, and thank heavens for so many gluten-free products!!



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