Celiac Disease Trigger

[Dewilda]

Has anyone else been involved in a car accident resulting in the triggering of celiac? My husband was hit by a semi in 2003 and he has had numerous health issues since being diagnose with celiac 5 months later. He had no symptoms before the accident. Our lawyer is "afraid" to go this route in court. He says nobody knows about celiac, so the jury would go against us. I am at my wits end as I know I am right. He became malnurished, lost 40 pounds, had some TIA's, mini strokes; became anemic; kidneys are failing;........ Does anyone have anything similar?? He does have Type II diabetes, but Type I is connected to celiac. His diabetes, I am sure didn't help the kidneys, but no doctors mentioned a kidney problem until after the accident. Looking forward to hearing from someone. Thanks!!

[Guest nini]

any kind of traumatic event can technically trigger full blown Celiac, but the truth of the matter is it was in his genetics. Eventually he was going to develop Celiac regardless of WHAT the trigger was. All the trigger is, is something to make you hyper aware of what is going on with your body. The signals were there before his accident, he just didn't know what to look for, and probably didn't think anything was wrong. The accident MAY have caused his system to go into overdrive and therefore made the dx of Celiac possible, but I would be extremely careful to try to place the blame solely on this accident.

[MySuicidalTurtle]

The car accident didn't cause his Celiacs but only alerted you guys to him having this disease.

It wouldn't be fair to blame that on the other driver. Your husband could have been showing different symptoms before it. Symptoms are so vast for Celiac Disease that it is hard to tell.

[Guest CD_Surviver]

somebody with celiac does not always show signs until something traumatic. like for my mom she did not show signs until she gave birth to me. many paople dont have onste until something happens to them.

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

Yes, that's true. I also had a traumatic experience at the dentist with a tooth surgery. I'm terrified of dentists. After the anasthetic was gone, the symptoms appeared for the first time.

Stef

[bknutson]

Do any of you know when your celiac disease kicked in for sure? I mean can you kinda say exactly when your symptoms really started? I have had stomach aches for years, but just had the rapid weight loss this past spring and the real sever proplems. So I dont know if something just triggered it like you are talking about or if I have had it for years and it just got worse.

Thanks for being here

Barbara

[Dewilda]

Do any of you know when your celiac disease kicked in for sure? I mean can you kinda say exactly when your symptoms really started? I have had stomach aches for years, but just had the rapid weight loss this past spring and the real sever proplems. So I dont know if something just triggered it like you are talking about or if I have had it for years and it just got worse.

Thanks for being here

Barbara

Have you had some sort of trauma or major stress?

[Guest nini]

considering that there are so many symptoms of celiac (over 200) that you can't possibly say that he never had a symptom at all before the accident. Honestly, he just doesn't know that whatever even apparently slightly trivial non symptom may have in fact have been a symptom that just wasn't recognized as such. The gastrointestinal symptoms are such a small piece of the gluten intolerance puzzle that you cannot make a judgement based on that alone.

personally, I've had symptoms all my life, sometimes more obvious than others, although it wasn't until I had several miscarriages and then a life threatening pregnancy that my health really began to decline.

one of my less obvious symptoms was my repeated bouts of upper respiratory infections. for my entire life I had at least 4 per year. Since I have been gluten free I have not had a single one. Another weird symptom that is just about gone was nosebleeds. I mean there are just so many symptoms and most of us just chalk it up to just another virus or other trivial thing. It's not until we become healthy again that we can look back and see with clearer eyes those things that we thought were nothing but are really something.

you cannot blame something that is genetic on an outside source... it's not right.

[Rachel--24]

Do any of you know when your celiac disease kicked in for sure? I mean can you kinda say exactly when your symptoms really started? I have had stomach aches for years, but just had the rapid weight loss this past spring and the real sever proplems. So I dont know if something just triggered it like you are talking about or if I have had it for years and it just got worse.

Thanks for being here

Barbara

I dont really know if I had any symptoms previously. If I did...they were insignificant to me. I did develop autoimmune thyroid disease 4 years earlier though. My symptoms started right when I quit smoking...I was also going through a very stressful time.

[ravenwoodglass]

Our lawyer is "afraid" to go this route in court.

And he should be. Your husband has always had the gene for celiac, he was born with it. Severe mental or physical stress can take us from gluten intolerant to full blown celiac. With women alot of times it is pregnancy. Should we blame our husbands? My symptoms first showed in childhood when I had a tooth pulled without novacaine but were not serious till after my last live birth. If you really want to sue someone sue his past doctors who never looked for celiac.

[nettiebeads]

Has anyone else been involved in a car accident resulting in the triggering of celiac? My husband was hit by a semi in 2003 and he has had numerous health issues since being diagnose with celiac 5 months later. He had no symptoms before the accident. Our lawyer is "afraid" to go this route in court. He says nobody knows about celiac, so the jury would go against us. I am at my wits end as I know I am right. He became malnurished, lost 40 pounds, had some TIA's, mini strokes; became anemic; kidneys are failing;........ Does anyone have anything similar?? He does have Type II diabetes, but Type I is connected to celiac. His diabetes, I am sure didn't help the kidneys, but no doctors mentioned a kidney problem until after the accident. Looking forward to hearing from someone. Thanks!!

I think your lawyer is right. And all the defense would have to do is tell the jury that your husband may not have had celiac disease at the moment of the accident, but he could have developed it later on in life even if the accident hadn't happened. I know in civil court you don't need 100% agreement from the jury to win, but getting a majority probably would be hard and may cost you way too much money for nothing. Has you dh had the gene testing? All tests would have to be admitted in court. Is he following the gluten-free diet? If so, when did he start? The defense could use everything against you. And seeing that so many drs don't understand or even recognize celiac disease, it would be hard to get a jury of lay people to get their minds around it. It's not that I don't believe one catastrophic event could trigger such a myriad of health problems (I really do believe you ), but getting a jury of rational people to see it your way is probably not going to happen.

Read how many people with celiac disease is this forum have posted problems with their own family, family-in-laws and people that they are in contact with daily not understanding the severity of celiac disease. Sorry to be such a downer, I really am. I do hope your husband gets his health back, having your health ruined from something that wasn't your fault would be very hard.

Annette

[Guest CD_Surviver]

i had it from birth.

Lauren

[Ursa Major]

I am afraid I have to agree with the others. I also had obvious (just not to the doctors) symptoms of gluten intolerance all my life. Then, this past May, I somehow thought that a liver cleanse would be a good idea (and it is), but you have to start with your bowels. Within a week of starting the bowel cleanse, I went into full blown Celiac disease, and was severely ill until October (which is when I figured it out and went off gluten). The bowel cleanse was the trigger for me, a blessing in disguise, because otherwise I might never have figured it out.

And now I am getting healthier every day. I am sorry that your husband is so ill now, it's hard not to blame somebody. And yes, the accident likely did trigger full blown celiac. But he was undoubtedly gluten intolerant all his life, and had the symptoms. They were just not severe enough for the clueless doctors to diagnose him properly.

I hope he is off gluten now, which should ensure that his health will improve. All the best.

Ursula

[mightymorg]

I agree with the lawyer-remember, he knows how jury members think, and it would only cost y'all more money and time to go that route, and the only thing you would get from it is added stress, which would not be benefitial for your husband. The majority of my symptoms also surfaced after trauma (I had been in recovery for an eating disorder and I relapsed slightly...then my symptoms got much worse). There's no point to go the route you want to, IMO...I don't mean to sound harsh. Keep your husband in mind...it would take a lot of struggling to win that case, and it sounds like your husband would not benefit from that added stress.

[jerseyangel]

I have to agree with the others, also. The accident sounds like the trigger, but it didn't cause the Celiac. Mine was triggered, ironicly, by surgery that was being done to treat my heavy bleeding. My GYN felt that my worsening anemia (BC went fron 12 to 8.5 in 2 months) was due to the bleeding so I had an endometrial ablation w/ D&C under general anesthesia in Mar. of 04. Right after that is when the celiac disease kicked in. I had stomach problems for 20 years and some anxiety, but nothing like what happened after the surgery--I was scared because all the symptoms came on quickly.

[bluelotus]

abut the truth of the matter is it was in his genetics. Eventually he was going to develop Celiac regardless of WHAT the trigger was.

This quote brings up a couple of ideas to mind:

What is interesting is that even if you have the gene, you may never get celiac disease. According to the University of Chicago, about 1/3 of the US pop has the genes for celiac, but only about 1-4% of those people will develop celiac disease in their lifetime. I would think that many more than 1-4% of those with the appropriate genes experience potential "triggers", so there's a lot more to the story than just the marker genes normally picked up with genetic testing (other genes not even considered, lots of environmental influence, etc). This would be a really hard court case - not only would you have to show his genetic makeup (which even then, he'd have a small chance of getting celiac disease), you'd have to show that the accident was the trigger to set off the celiac disease. celiac disease, like almost all genetic based illness, is a combination of genetics, environment, and probablilties (i.e. chance), so this would leave a lot of open ends for the defense to throw back at you all. If your husband lost in court, this may affect the rest of us and any potential litagation that we can persue. Please take care and caution if you do decide to go forward with this.

[Dewilda]

I really do appreciate all of your comments, even though I may sound like I don't. My husband was not a sick man before this, other than his diabetes which never brought him "down". He very rarely went to the doctor, years would go by between visits, (not that that was right). If he never had trauma or stress, and the disease was there, then there would be no trigger. He was 53 at the time of the accident, he had plenty of time to develop celiac, if he "was going to anyway". Just so you know, this is not an individual we are sueing. It is a trucking company. No, I am not a person who runs around sueing people. We want our life back and lost income. I really do see both sides of this issue, but you would have had to have lived our last 2 1/2 years to fully understand my position. The strokes and vision issues alone make a case. Again, I appreciate all of you and yes, my husband is gluten-free and has been for some time. He has gained back all of his weight and is doing fairly well at this time, other than vision. Thank you all for your concern and comments. It helps.

[Guest nini]

you can always go after the trucking company for the loss of income, decreased productions, lifestyle etc, but be ever so careful about using the Celiac diagnosis as part of your case. I work for a chiropractor and we deal with people that have been in accidents all the time, and I see what they go through with the lawyers and insurance companies. There is still so little known about Celiac among the general public that to go this route may end up causing you guys much more stress and heartache than it is worth. As far as him being a healthy man before the accident, this may be so, and the Celiac very well could have been triggered by it, but it also could have been triggered by anything else along the way too... If you have CONCRETE PROOF that this is what caused it to be triggered, good luck with it. I just think you would be making it worse.

Go after the trucking company by all means, just keep the Celiac out of it if you can. Mention all the "symptoms" but do not use the dx Celiac... you stand a better chance of winning your case that way.

[pokerprincess]

Has anyone else been involved in a car accident resulting in the triggering of celiac? My husband was hit by a semi in 2003 and he has had numerous health issues since being diagnose with celiac 5 months later. He had no symptoms before the accident. Our lawyer is "afraid" to go this route in court. He says nobody knows about celiac, so the jury would go against us. I am at my wits end as I know I am right. He became malnurished, lost 40 pounds, had some TIA's, mini strokes; became anemic; kidneys are failing;........ Does anyone have anything similar?? He does have Type II diabetes, but Type I is connected to celiac. His diabetes, I am sure didn't help the kidneys, but no doctors mentioned a kidney problem until after the accident. Looking forward to hearing from someone. Thanks!!

Celiac can lay dormant until something traumatic occurs.

I didn't start getting sick until I went thru my divorce.

Can't your Dr. go to bat for you? I would think that

was your right. And if the jurors don't know about it

they will now and they need to know.

Good Luck!

[CMCM]

I have to agree with the others, also. The accident sounds like the trigger, but it didn't cause the Celiac. Mine was triggered, ironicly, by surgery that was being done to treat my heavy bleeding. My GYN felt that my worsening anemia (BC went fron 12 to 8.5 in 2 months) was due to the bleeding so I had an endometrial ablation w/ D&C under general anesthesia in Mar. of 04. Right after that is when the celiac disease kicked in. I had stomach problems for 20 years and some anxiety, but nothing like what happened after the surgery--I was scared because all the symptoms came on quickly.

WOW, I could have written this...exact same circumstances for me. I've had stomach problems since birth, but I think my main trigger event was the same thing you describe above--to the letter. This happened 5 years ago, but the worst reactions have actually been the last few months, for no particular reason. My mom's celiac trigger was a hysterectomy, and she went rapidly downhill after that.