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Heard Of Celiac Crisis?


sandsurfgirl

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sandsurfgirl Collaborator

There have been some threads about cheating lately and I feel the need to share this. I have a new GI doc who is really informed about celiac and all the little particulars of the diet. He urges his celiac patients to be really vigilant about everything and avoid CC as much as we can.

He has been treating a patient who had a celiac crisis and almost died. Her whole house was gluten free but she was using some sauce or bouillon that had a hidden source of gluten in it. Not sure if it was a yeast or what.

She went into a crisis where her immune system went crazy. She was hospitalized for an entire month while they kept her stable. Now she is on massive steroids and immunosuppressants to stay alive.

The doc said he tells his celiac patients about this to impress on them the seriousness of what can happen if you aren't 100% gluten free.

You cannot cheat on this diet or you could end up really sick!! Like life and death sick.

We have a poster on this board who has been in a wheelchair because of damage to her brain and severe gluten induced ataxia.

We have a poster on this board whose colon exploded and she nearly died. Last I heard she still had an ostomy bag.

You have an autoimmune disease. When you eat gluten it reacts as if it's poison. I think some may take offense as if I'm lecturing you, but I am sharing this because I don't want you to hurt yourself. I don't want you to end up like that lady in the hospital and on immunosuppressants who has very little quality of life right now.

If you have gluten intolerance or sensitivity I think the same rules apply. The tests are not that accurate. There are lot of false negatives. So I think you don't really know if you have celiac or not and now that you're gluten free you never will. But don't take the chance that it's "just" intolerance and cheat.

Take this as you will. If you get offended I'm sorry, but I don't want to read your posts from the hospital and I feel like I have to share that story that the doctor told me.


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Monklady123 Collaborator

Good points, all of them. :)

Lori2 Contributor

Appreciate the warning. When you're feeling good, its easy to forget.

Marilyn R Community Regular

Thanks for the reinforcer.

I'm never tempted to cheat. I just try to dream up ways to bring my own foods in a seamless fashion, where nobody notices or gets upset. That's my goal.

dws Contributor

There have been some threads about cheating lately and I feel the need to share this. I have a new GI doc who is really informed about celiac and all the little particulars of the diet. He urges his celiac patients to be really vigilant about everything and avoid CC as much as we can.

He has been treating a patient who had a celiac crisis and almost died. Her whole house was gluten free but she was using some sauce or bouillon that had a hidden source of gluten in it. Not sure if it was a yeast or what.

She went into a crisis where her immune system went crazy. She was hospitalized for an entire month while they kept her stable. Now she is on massive steroids and immunosuppressants to stay alive.

The doc said he tells his celiac patients about this to impress on them the seriousness of what can happen if you aren't 100% gluten free.

You cannot cheat on this diet or you could end up really sick!! Like life and death sick.

We have a poster on this board who has been in a wheelchair because of damage to her brain and severe gluten induced ataxia.

We have a poster on this board whose colon exploded and she nearly died. Last I heard she still had an ostomy bag.

You have an autoimmune disease. When you eat gluten it reacts as if it's poison. I think some may take offense as if I'm lecturing you, but I am sharing this because I don't want you to hurt yourself. I don't want you to end up like that lady in the hospital and on immunosuppressants who has very little quality of life right now.

If you have gluten intolerance or sensitivity I think the same rules apply. The tests are not that accurate. There are lot of false negatives. So I think you don't really know if you have celiac or not and now that you're gluten free you never will. But don't take the chance that it's "just" intolerance and cheat.

Take this as you will. If you get offended I'm sorry, but I don't want to read your posts from the hospital and I feel like I have to share that story that the doctor told me.

Makes me think about my visit to a very famous celiac specialist. He was pretty good, though I did not really learn anything from my visit since he, like other MD's had no idea how to help someone like me who was having difficulties despite what I thought was a gluten free diet. He had a nutritionist who worked with him. When she told me I could eat up to an eighth of a teaspoon a day of wheat and be safe, my eyes kind of glazed over and I stopped listening to her. My general practitioner who did my initial diagnosis as non-celiac gluten intolerant told me I could eat moderate amounts of gluten like a sandwich a day, but just to avoid things like large plates of spagetti. Well, here I am now still really struggling with sensitivity that has increased exponentially. I now have to avoid all processed food including gluten free products. I often wonder if this would have happened if I had been advised to be totally gluten free from the start.

sandsurfgirl Collaborator

Makes me think about my visit to a very famous celiac specialist. He was pretty good, though I did not really learn anything from my visit since he, like other MD's had no idea how to help someone like me who was having difficulties despite what I thought was a gluten free diet. He had a nutritionist who worked with him. When she told me I could eat up to an eighth of a teaspoon a day of wheat and be safe, my eyes kind of glazed over and I stopped listening to her. My general practitioner who did my initial diagnosis as non-celiac gluten intolerant told me I could eat moderate amounts of gluten like a sandwich a day, but just to avoid things like large plates of spagetti. Well, here I am now still really struggling with sensitivity that has increased exponentially. I now have to avoid all processed food including gluten free products. I often wonder if this would have happened if I had been advised to be totally gluten free from the start.

I wonder if that famous specialist is named after the color of grass. I won't even get started on him and his refusal to accept anything but endoscopy as valid diagnosis. And other things. Grr..

I am so sorry that happened to you. The beautiful thing is that now you can be totally gluten free and get healed. It is totally normal to be unable to eat complex processed foods when you are healing! We all go through that stage and most come out of it and are able to enjoy a nice Kinnikinnick donut eventually.

If you're really craving something sweet, try the Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookies. They have simple ingredients and are mostly rice flour based. Or you can make a flour blend of 2 parts white rice flour to 2 parts potato starch and sub it in a recipe. Just use a little more flour than the Tollhouse recipe calls for so they aren't so thin. They turn out really good.

Another go to cookie for me during healing time, if you can eat peanut butter is this recipe.

1 cup natural peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking powder

Mix it all up, put little balls of it on a cookie sheet and press down with a fork. Bake about 10 minutes at 350. They are amazing!

Hang in there. It gets better!

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    • trents
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    • catnapt
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    • trents
      Welcome, @catnapt! The most recent guidelines are the daily consumption of a minimum of 10g of gluten (about the amount found in 4-6 slices of wheat bread) for a minimum of two weeks. But if possible stretching that out even more would enhance the chances of getting valid test results. These guidelines are for those who have been eating gluten free for a significant amount of time. It's called the "gluten challenge".  Yes, you can develop celiac disease at any stage of life. There is a genetic component but also a stress trigger that is needed to activate the celiac genes. About 30-40% of the general population possesses the genetic potential to develop celiac disease but only about 1% of the general population actually develop celiac disease. For most with the potential, the triggering stress event doesn't happen. It can be many things but often it is a viral infection. Having said that, it is also the case that many, many people who eventually are diagnosed with celiac disease probably experienced the actual onset years before. Many celiacs are of the "silent" type, meaning that symptoms are largely missing or very minor and get overlooked until damage to the small bowel lining becomes advanced or they develop iron deficiency anemia or some other medical problem associated with celiac disease. Many, many are never diagnosed or are diagnosed later in life because they did not experience classic symptoms. And many physicians are only looking for classic symptoms. We now know that there are over 200 symptoms/medical problems associated with celiac disease but many docs are only looking for things like boating, gas, diarrhea. I certainly understand your concerns about not wanting to damage your body by taking on a gluten challenge. Your other option is to totally commit to gluten free eating and see if your symptoms improve. It can take two years or more for complete healing of the small bowel lining once going gluten free but usually people experience significant improvement well before then. If their is significant improvement in your symptoms when going seriously gluten free, then you likely have your answer. You would either have celiac disease or NCGS (Non Celiac Gluten Sensitivity).
    • catnapt
      after several years of issues with a para-gland issue, my endo has decided it's a good idea for me to be tested for celiac disease. I am 70 yrs old and stunned to learn that you can get celiac this late in life. I have just gradually stopped eating most foods that contain gluten over the past several years- they just make me feel ill- although I attributed it to other things like bread spiking blood sugar- or to the things I ate *with* the bread or crackers etc   I went to a party in Nov and ate a LOT of a vegan roast made with vital wheat gluten- as well as stuffing, rolls and pie crust... and OMG I was so sick! the pain, the bloating, the gas, the nausea... I didn't think it would ever end (but it did) and I was ready to go the ER but it finally subsided.   I mentioned this to my endo and now she wants me to be tested for celiac after 2 weeks of being on gluten foods. She has kind of flip flopped on how much gluten I should eat, telling me that if the symptoms are severe I can stop. I am eating 2-3 thin slices of bread per day (or english muffins) and wow- it does make me feel awful. But not as bad as when I ate that massive amnt of vital wheat gluten. so I will continue on if I have to... but what bothers me is - if it IS celiac, it seems stupid for lack of a better word, to intentionally cause more damage to my body... but I am also worried, on the other hand, that this is not a long enough challenge to make the blood work results valid.   can you give me any insight into this please?   thank you
    • trents
      The biopsy looks for damage to the mucosal lining of the small bowel from the inflammation caused by celiac disease when gluten is ingested. Once you remove gluten from the diet, inflammation subsides and the mucosal lining begins to heal. 
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