Do I Have Celiac Disease?

[laura77]

Hello everyone. Here's my story:

I've had headaches every day since I was about 14. I never ate in a healthy way, in fact I was probably borderline anorexic, and always figured my headaches would go away when I "grew up" and started eating better.

Well, a few years ago I fell in love with my husband and decided it was time to grow up. I started eating healthy--whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, no smoking or drinking. But my headaches never went away.

I asked my doctor about it about a year ago, and she suggested eliminating the common triggers: coffee, chocolate, red wine, etc. I did, but none of the exclusions really helped. Because of the stress all of this was causing me, and being a newlywed, I had gained about 25 pounds. I decided a few months ago to go on the Atkins diet to lose a few pounds.

Well, lo and behold, my headaches went away. Not better, or less severe. They were GONE. I figured I had been getting headaches from all the refined carbs I had always eaten.

Last week, after making my weight loss goal, I decided it was time to reintroduce some whole grains. I bought some organic whole grain hot cereal, made from rye, oats, barley, and wheat. Well, about 20 minutes after I ate it I got a horrible, debilitating headache. I was tired, nauseous, and irritable for hours. I drew a conclusion: My headaches (and a whole host of other maladies) went away when I was on Atkins because I had cut out all grains. When I began to reintroduce gluten, my headaches returned. Duh!

So, it's only been a couple of days that I've been gluten free, but I feel better than I did last week. I've been doing lots of research, and came across celiac disease, which I always assumed meant chronic diarrhea. I've always had problems with constipation, and it's gotten absolutely wretched in the past few months. In the past couple of years I've also struggled with memory loss (it was so bad I was getting reprimanded at work for forgetting things) and a general feeling of crappiness. I always figured it was just they way I was built, or that it was all in my head.

I've also had a couple of aggressive bouts of diarrhea in the past couple of years, usually after drinking a lot of beer at a party, or "cheating" on Atkins with bread or cookies.

I have a doctor's appointment in two weeks, so I plan on telling my doctor all about this discovery. The last time I saw her (about 6 months ago for a quick check-in), I told her the food elimination wasn't working, and neither were any of the prescription migraine meds she had given me. In fact, the only thing that ever helped was ibupfofen. She actually told me to just keep taking the ibuprofen. That's when I decided to try to figure out what the cause of my headaches was, instead of medicating them for the rest of my life.

So, that's what has brought me here. I honestly hope I have celiac disease, because it would end a long year of experiments and disappointments. I'm not sure why, but a medical diagnosis would actually make me feel like all of this is not just in my head.

Thanks for reading. I know this is a long one!

Laura

[laura77]

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I also have anemia and chronic dyshidrotic eczema on my fingers. I also remember being doubled-over with pain on the toilet after dinner every night when I was younger.

Thanks!

Laura

[Carriefaith]

If being on the atkins diet made you feel better, I would say that at the least that you have a gluten or wheat sensitivity or intolerance. I think you should definatley ask for the celiac blood test panel, specifically, the tissue transglutamase test. The pure fact that you have anemia should be enough for the doctor to test for celiac. I know someone whose only symptoms were anemia and some fatigue and lack of energy and they had celiac.

*And if you get the tests done, make sure that you are eating gluten up until the tests or will may get a fasle negative result.

[julie5914]

Print out some info on celiac if you can from a site like this one or another trusted site to bring to your doctor's visit. They may be one of those that still thinks it's really rare or doesn't know much about it.