adelajoy

I've only been gluten-free for almost a month now, and the Celiac probably only kicked in 6-12 months before that, so I don't have a lot of experience but...

 

As a child, if my siblings got a fever, I got a fever, chills, vomitting, and it lasted longer. If my boyfriend in highschool got a sore throat, I had a sore throat, runny nose, sneezes, and coughing for twice as long. I missed a lot of school with fevers and vomitting, and I promise it wasn't gluten-related! I had the worst immune system, and everybody knew it.

 

Over Christmas, before I was dx'ed, my husband got the flu, and it took him down for three days (He's usually a high-immune person), so I was terrified. I knew I stood no chance. I was sick for a day.

 

The last two weeks, while I've been gluten-free, every person in my office has gone around taking turns being sick for 3+ days. Like, fever, vomitting, chills, coughing, the whole works of a flu. After the third person called in sick, I spent an afternoon on my couch coughing and unable to breath well. By dinner, I felt better.

 

So, in my very short-lived experience, I've noticed that since the Celiacs kicked in, my immune system has been way way stronger and things everyone else gets don't touch me. However, I've been three times as sick as them for non-contagious reasons...

Well... I feel like this is almost off-topic now, but I'm gonna go back to original topic, if that's okay with everybody here.

 

I'm gluten-free for two weeks today. So super newbie. Thankfully, I have a really chill job where I text my boss at 8am if I'm not feeling good enough to come in. He doesn't care if I'm there or not, my work does not effect anyone else directly. The only thing that changes if I show up or not is how soon a massive (never going to be done) project gets done, and how big my paycheck is.

 

Pre-diagnosis, I hated calling in sick. I hated myself. I had no idea why I felt so bloody awful, and no one around me was ever sick either. I felt guilty and like a wuss. I told myself I was making it all up. For months, I was missing about one day every week or two. The last two months, it got way worse. I missed five days in a row in January. I hated myself.

 

Finally, I got my diagnosis and had an answer. I told my boss what was up, and even though he was really understanding before, he's even more so now. I can go home early if I suddenly don't feel good anymore, he sometimes catches me just blankly staring at my screen, and tells me to go home; he's just really awesome. I miss mornings more often, and when I wander in at 1pm, my co-workers will tease and say, "Good morning!" but they don't care either. Two of them think I only work parttime anyways, and the others either don't notice that I wasn't there, or don't care I'm not.

 

So I guess I'm really lucky, job-wise, because I can just be a wuss and miss time, and not risk anything. Well, maybe a reccomendation when this temp job is over, but I'll deal with that in a few months.

 

I still feel like a bit of a wuss calling in sick or missing work, but I know there's a reason for it, and it will be a slow recovery. I'm actually more worried about May, when this job ends. I'm crossing my fingers that almost three months will be enough recovery to function at a normal job that isn't as chill.

You did find Access Clinical information? There is some travel expense coverage.

As a side note, I can't find the easy tab button to edit spelling on my last post. (Horrible sentence structure and spelling!)

Yeah, I found them. But their pre-screening form only has an option for a zip code, and then just asks for city, so there wasn't an easy way to say I'm Canadian. Which usually means its only open to Americans. And if there was a way for me to do it, it might not even be worth the bother.

Did you know that newly diagnosed Celiacs can sell their blood plasma?  The use as the control for some of the tests.  You can only be a donator early on in your diagnoses.

 

Some of those symptoms may be caused by vitamin and nutrient defiencies. 

Sad... I can't find anything similar in Canada.

To answer the endoscopy quesiton, it can often be "negative" in people with positive blood results because a large majority of gastroentorologists do NOT take enough samples, there have been studies showing most are surprisingly unaware how many samples they really need to be taking.  In someone who may have only had celiac for 2 or 3 years its entirely possible a biopsy with only 3 or 4 samples all from a narrow region of the small bowel may come back negaitve.  Remember, sometimes celiac panel bloodwork can be negative for a few years after the disease technicallly onsets, its as likely or even more likely large sections of the small bowel can remain normal that long as well.  Based on what your doc said that everything was normal but it clearly shows celiac its entirely possible that if she ran the recommended celiac panel everything was on the "high end" of normal.  In general most healthy people test strongly negative on all celiac panel tests, that means IgA and IgG numbers well into the single numbers, sometimes even between 1 and 3 (20 or higher is positive at most labs) and TtG numbers around 0 or 1, alot of gastro doctors become concerned when they start seeing numbers creep over 10 on either Iga/IgG test that you're at least dealing with a gluten sensitivity. 

Okay, so what you're saying is that I might not need to bother with the endoscopy?