Need Help!

[Guest wanaenjoylife]

Hello everybody,

I just found this site a few days ago. I have suffered from stomach pain my whole life. I am now 16 and am so frustrated with all of my health issues. I have had such bad anemia I had to have iron IV trasfusions a few weeks ago. I have lost about 5 lbs in the past week or two (i now wight 109 lbs, so 5 lbs is a lot for me.) I had tests done for celiac because my grandma has it (doesn't really stick to a gluten free diet though) and they came back engative. But i was gluten-free at the time and my General Practictioner took them, so I dont think theyre accurate. I have EVERYYYYYY symptom: dirrhea, anemia, irrdegular menses, EXCRUCIATING stomach pains (like doubled over crying pain ) jiont pain, stomach bloating, nausea after i eat/drikn ANYTHING!!!! I think (im almost positive) i have celiac. I am so frustrated and i dont know what to do. Oh, also im hypoglycemic. I cant take this anymore. I have been STRICTLY gluten-free for about a week, and dairy free fora bout 1 month, with no results. Recently its anything that i eat bothers my stomach. How much longer will it take to feel better, and does enterolab work and is it easy? THANK YOU ahead of time for your responses! (THanks for letting me vent!)

[ArtGirl]

Welcome to the forum. I see that you have, indeed, been through a lot with your health.

I don't have any constructive advice for you, but there are several on this board who have been where you are now and have come through it and are feeling so much better. I'm sure they will chime in soon (weekends can be kind of slow, so if you don't get some responses by Monday, add a "reply" to bump the thread up to the top).

My first thought was that it should be easy on your stomach to eat soft-cooked vegetables and home-made chicken soup with lots of broth. Celery juice (made in a juicer) is soothing to the stomach, too.

I used Enterolab for diagnosis since I didn't have insurance at the time and, frankly, just didn't want to bother with doctors. Most people who use this lab are very happy with the results, and Dr. Fine explains everything in detail - you can email with questions if you don't understand anything (or post here and others will explain it to you).

[Guest wanaenjoylife]

Welcome to the forum. I see that you have, indeed, been through a lot with your health.

I don't have any constructive advice for you, but there are several on this board who have been where you are now and have come through it and are feeling so much better. I'm sure they will chime in soon (weekends can be kind of slow, so if you don't get some responses by Monday, add a "reply" to bump the thread up to the top).

My first thought was that it should be easy on your stomach to eat soft-cooked vegetables and home-made chicken soup with lots of broth. Celery juice (made in a juicer) is soothing to the stomach, too.

I used Enterolab for diagnosis since I didn't have insurance at the time and, frankly, just didn't want to bother with doctors. Most people who use this lab are very happy with the results, and Dr. Fine explains everything in detail - you can email with questions if you don't understand anything (or post here and others will explain it to you).

does anybody have any advice?

[dionnek]

Stick with it. If you weren't eating gluten when you had the blood tests then they would be negative, so that doesn't tell you anything. It took me 6 months gluten free before I noticed a difference (some things like the muscle cramps and dizzy spells went away in a few weeks though). Make sure all your medicines and lipgloss/lipstick/lotions, etc. are gluten free - lipstick is such an easy way to gluten yourself, and lotion on your hands, then eating with your hands or preparing food, can gluten you. It takes time to make sure you are totally gluten-free. I did the Enterolab genetic testing on my 2 yr old daughter after I was dx (myself was a blood test and endoscopy, so I didn't need Enterolab for me) just to see if she had the gene, and she does have one of them. It was less than $150 (cheaper than the stool test which would show you gluten intollerance), so that might be something to consider. Good luck!