Became Celiac After Living In England

[goatmilkpower]

Hi I'm new to the board but have had Celiac for approximately the last 2 years. I first developed it when I moved to England from CA for university. I got very ill there losing approximately 20 lbs in four months, and constantly having horrible stomach pains all the time. I've since returned to the states and have been healthy for close to a year now. I was curious if anyone else has developed their Celiac when they went and lived in another country. A family friend has had the same experience as me- living in London for about a year and coming home just as sick as I was, only now discovering that she has it. I'm really interested to see if anyone else has had a similar experience or has any explanation or information about becoming Celiac abroad. Thanks!

[GFinDC]

Eee-gads, England! You didn't actually eat the food did you? Kidding!

I got nothing. We have some members from England though.

[GFtraingirl]

Hi I'm new to the board but have had Celiac for approximately the last 2 years. I first developed it when I moved to England from CA for university. I got very ill there losing approximately 20 lbs in four months, and constantly having horrible stomach pains all the time. I've since returned to the states and have been healthy for close to a year now. I was curious if anyone else has developed their Celiac when they went and lived in another country. A family friend has had the same experience as me- living in London for about a year and coming home just as sick as I was, only now discovering that she has it. I'm really interested to see if anyone else has had a similar experience or has any explanation or information about becoming Celiac abroad. Thanks!

Hi Goatmilkpowder,

I had a similar experience. I grew up in Norway where I was often sick after I ate - and I could never understand why. After I came to the United States the first time as a 17 year old, I got MUCH worse, although it would take another 30 + years for me to get diagnosed with Celiac.

An autoimmune disease like Celiac can become much worse or even start when you experience stress, even the good kind like going to a new country. If you truly have Celiac, the genes are already in your body - you were born with them, and at the proper time (or WRONG TIME!) those genes can spring into their wrong action and give you full blown autoimmune disease.

Doctors used to think that Celiac was only a childrens disease that was outgrown as the child reached adulthood. We know that is not true, and Celiac can show up at any time in a persons life.

Were you diagnosed with Celiac while in England? How do you know it was Celiac or gluten that caused your stomach problems? It could be other things like different additives in the foods, different kinds of food made from slightly different ingredients than you were used to. You have had no symptoms since you came back to the U.S.?

Hope this might help...

:-)

[JustCan]

Interesting post. My senior year of college I studied abroad in Spain for four months and became extremely sick while I was there. I had been somewhat sick my whole life with stomach aches, dizziness, brain fog, etc but nothing compared to how bad it got while I was in Spain and after I came home. After I got home, I went to several doctors and had lots of tests but no one could figure it out. I thought it was yeast so about a year later I started limiting how much bread I had which made a huge difference but didn't actually figure out it was gluten until about 5 years later when I was eating more cereal to be "healthy" and my mom said maybe it's not the yeast it bread, but the wheat itself. Wish someone had said that 10 years earlier.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. I think what the other poster said about a stressful situation is what happened to me. My symptoms were somewhat mild until I went to Spain. My group's first full day there was 9/11 so it was an extremely difficult time to be an American living abroad in addition to the normal stresses of studying abroad. Just glad I ultimately figured it out...it's been life-changing.