When Did You Start To Notice?

[radgirl]

When did you all start to notice something was wrong with your body regarding gluten? Aside from the GI symptoms that most of us experiences, I know some don't. What symptoms were you experiencing that keyed you into knowing something was very wrong with your body?

[lovegrov]

My signs were DH (although I didn't know the connection) and then anemia.

richard

[spunky]

Looking back, it's hard to say.

I had constant ear infections growing up and terrible teeth. Enamel erosion since my permanent teeth started coming in. But I think I was healthy other than that... I often had diarrhea bouts in college and beyond, but figured everybody just did... do they????? They weren't terrible, they'd just come and go sometimes.

Anyway, then when I was turning 40 I decided to begin putting a program into place to guard my health as I aged... workout, find a good diet...stumbled onto low-fat veganism. BAM! Within the first month I was having lots of weird intestinal stuff. Other low-fat vegans, even the doctors who wrote the books, said this is normal, detox, change in diet, etc., you were "constipated" before and didn't know it and now you're normal (really? So it felt good to be constipated and terrible to be normal??? But I listened to them).

Over the years it eventually got worse and worse and began interrupting daily activities and so bad I thought I might be dying of some dreaded thing... fortunately I discovered that gluten may be the culprit, considering my heavy-gluten, vegan diet and my symptoms, and finally got better and still am getting better.

So, whether the tendancy was there with the ear infections, bad teeth and occasional diarrhea bouts all along, or whether the vegan diet itself triggered some celiac tendancy... I don't know. Just glad now to be feeling like I do today at 2 years, 2 months gluten free, age 54.

[jerseyangel]

I've thought about this so many times. I've had symptoms that could point to Celiac just about all of my life but learned to live with the "sensitive stomach", anxiety and mild anemia.

It wasn't until about 5 years ago that all my symptoms got much more severe and were accompianied by tingling, numbness, brusing, severe anemia, depression, urgent D after eating anything, and weight loss.

Even at that point, it two more years to be diagnosed.

[MelliDuff]

I had always blamed my symptoms on my thyroid, when I had been on my thyroid medicine for over a year I started to realize most things where not getting better in fact some were worse.

My endocrinologist told me that it was not my thyroid or my thyroid medicine.

These are the symptoms I experienced before everything decided to break that I blamed on my thyroid=

Low basal temp. 96.5

Chronic constipation

Mild anxiety and depression

Fatigue that was not relived by rest

Getting sick relatively easy

Hair loss

Lots of kidney infections/bladder infections

Intestinal infection that landed me in hospital for 5 days

mouth sores ( i was told i was deficient in vitamin c)

bruising easily (deficiency in vitamin K)

anemia (no iron)

weird skin rashes

Thyroid disorder

I ate very healthy and didn't understand why I had all these vitamin deficiencies. My doctor tossed around the word "malabsorption" which was foreign to me. I felt well enough not to care. After about a year like this .....

Everything "broke" all at once and my life became pretty much unlivable by any "normal" standards, overnight. This is what tipped me off - the doctors could not find anything wrong (even though they agreed i was ill) with me but i was horribly sick. I had to start to looking elsewhere for a solution. I could not live my life this way I was only 32.

When everything broke I experienced:

At first various sickness; colds, bronchitis, flu (whatever) I was sick 3 weeks out of every month

Vomiting -I started throwing up everything I ate for days at a time. (no one else in my family was sick)

Chronic constipation no laxative would work at any amount

More Hair Loss i was noticeably balding in the front

Major depression and suicidal thoughts (I'm not one to think of killing myself id rather kill the person that made me angry)

Fever a nearly constant temperature of 99.5 to 100 all day everyday for months. (without cause)

My back went out; bulging and degenerative Disks

Extreme exhaustion to the point of bed ridden

Stomach pains and cramping - nothing serious

Loss of weight I got down to 120 pounds I look emaciated at that weight, I was a size 0, had no appetite and had to force myself to eat most days.

Sore Throat every day

My symptoms were not the "typical celiac symptoms".

After going gluten free 2 months back pain is gone constipation is better - i'm gaining weight back which is ok -the depression is incredibly better. The vomiting stopped. I no longer feel nauseated when I eat or sick.

Sad to say that about 3 weeks ago my lymph nodes in my throat swelled up so bad i looked like i had the mumps. I went back to the doctor he tested me for mono and Epstein Barr virus. No mono but positive for EBV. I still get fever randomly and the exhaustion is pretty bad. I attribute this to the virus, it's supposed to last for 6 more months.