After 8 Ivfs And 4 M/Cs- Finally Dx With Celiac!

[Sunshine24]

Hello! I am so excited to have found this board!

I have the classic celiac disease symptoms and saw my first GI at the age of 13; I am now 33. DH and I started trying to have a baby when I turned 30 and nothing happened. We've been to 6 fertility clinics, and have done a total of 11 IVF's, including 3 with donor eggs and 2 with a gestational carrier because we just assumed there was something wrong with me...

I got pregnant on IVF #8 using a donor egg. Then, at 20 weeks with no warning, his heartbeat just stopped and we lost him. No warning. After all the TONS of research I have done, I see this is a typical second term loss for a Celiac...

My endoscopy and biopsies all came back positive for C.D., and I have basically zero Vitamin D so the doctor gave me a strong once weekly med.

She said I should wait 6 months before trying another IVF- we are excited as we are going to try and use my eggs again! However, I am still traumatized from the 20 week loss so we will continue with the carrier. My question is- how long does it truly take for a person

[Sunshine24]

Testing! I hope someone on here can explain why a doctor recommends waiting 6 months and/or if healing starts as soon as you stop eating gluten or is there a specific, known time period that healing begins to start in the body?

Thanks everyone in advance!

[Wolicki]

Testing! I hope someone on here can explain why a doctor recommends waiting 6 months and/or if healing starts as soon as you stop eating gluten or is there a specific, known time period that healing begins to start in the body?

Thanks everyone in advance!

While I do not have experience with IVF, I can tell you about gluten effects. It varies from person to person, but it can take up to a full two years to heal. Most start to feel better within a few days, but it takes months (at least) to heal the damage to your intestines. The most important reason your intestines are important is because that is where Vitamins and minerals are absorbed. You were deficient in Vit D. I would not be surprised if you were deficient in others, too. Be sure to have your iron, including ferritin checked, along with B12, C, K, magnesium. These are very frequently deficient in celiac.

Celiac causes an autoimmune reaction in the body, not just the intestines. There are those that theorize that the antibodies in the bloodstream will attack a fetus as a foreign object, much like an infection.

6 months is probably a fair amount of time to wait. Let your body heal. Good luck to you!

[Coleslawcat]

While I do not have experience with IVF, I can tell you about gluten effects. It varies from person to person, but it can take up to a full two years to heal. Most start to feel better within a few days, but it takes months (at least) to heal the damage to your intestines. The most important reason your intestines are important is because that is where Vitamins and minerals are absorbed. You were deficient in Vit D. I would not be surprised if you were deficient in others, too. Be sure to have your iron, including ferritin checked, along with B12, C, K, magnesium. These are very frequently deficient in celiac.

Celiac causes an autoimmune reaction in the body, not just the intestines. There are those that theorize that the antibodies in the bloodstream will attack a fetus as a foreign object, much like an infection.

6 months is probably a fair amount of time to wait. Let your body heal. Good luck to you!

If you aren't going to be carrying the baby yourself I can't really understand why you would need to wait 6 months. I would definitely let the doctor know your plans to use a gestational carrier. Maybe the doctor thinks the strain of the hormones for the egg retrieval would be too much to put your body through while it's still healing? That's all I can think of.

[brigala]

If you aren't going to be carrying the baby yourself I can't really understand why you would need to wait 6 months. I would definitely let the doctor know your plans to use a gestational carrier. Maybe the doctor thinks the strain of the hormones for the egg retrieval would be too much to put your body through while it's still healing? That's all I can think of.

Ditto.

If you were going to be the carrier, I would definitely wait at least 6 months. Make sure your doctor knows about the surrogate and see if that changes the recommendation.

Best of luck. I don't think our infertility was caused at all by my Celiac (my husband had severe sperm problems) but it took us seven years and now I'm finally pregnant with our first baby together.

I am especially sorry about your 20week loss. I have never been through that and I won't even pretend to know what it's like, but I imagine it must have been devastating.