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Red Heads


ctenny

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sharilee Rookie

I was diagnosed with celiac disease a little over a week ago and I am a red head.

  • 2 weeks later...

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  • Replies 56
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ncteacher Newbie

I'm a redhead!

I heard from a fellow celiac (who is brunette, by the way) that celiac disease seems to be more common along the Irish/Scottish hereditary line. If that's true (I'm skeptical), maybe there is a link!

IrishHeart Veteran

New here...Hi all.......I have red orange hair, no freckles and light olive complected and the only one in the family with red hair......I can't find anyone in the family who knows any relatives with Celiac.......My heritage is French, Irish and German.

Trying to get a hang of the board.

Hi Hon! Welcome to the forum!

Ditto for me-- French, Irish, German ---and Armenian.

There's no one in my family with Celiac (that we know of anyway )--except me--but there are others (of this, I am quite sure) as the family is loaded with auotimmune diseases. My Dad certainly had it, we know now. And in our grandparents' time, no one kept records.

...and well, someone has to be diagnosed FIRST, right? :)

Guess that's us!

IrishHeart Veteran

I'm a redhead!

I heard from a fellow celiac (who is brunette, by the way) that celiac disease seems to be more common along the Irish/Scottish hereditary line. If that's true (I'm skeptical), maybe there is a link!

There is quite a bit written about the celtic association (some folks kiddingly calling this " Celtic Disease".) and the genetic markers that are prevalent in Ireland/the UK. Interesting stuff! :)

Ryniev Apprentice

My hair is brown but tends to have reddish highlights. I don't think that counts though because I look very Italian and I don't think there are many Italian redheads running amok.

PatSch Newbie

Redhead w/freckles here. But the rest of my large family with gluten issues are not.

xJalin Newbie

I'm a redhead too. :) Interestingly enough, my brother's friend is a celiac, and he's a redhead too.


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xJalin Newbie

Come to think of it, all the people I know who are celiacs or are of Irish descent. My aunt, myself, and 2 friends (all redheads), and another friend who isn't a redhead but is 100% Irish

  • 2 weeks later...
SugarBiscuit Newbie

Interesting...I am half Native American, half Irish. I was born with back hair, but turned brown with red tinting when I was a teenager.

  • 2 weeks later...
ctenny Rookie

Celiac is called the Celtic disease...

ChuGotItDood Newbie

I am blonde, my bf is a red head, and our friend is brunette. And we are all Celiacs. I'm new to this too( diagnosed this week ), but knew a bit about Celiacs from them before.

ctenny Rookie

Welcome to the club! I've been diagnosed for 2 and a half months now.

frieze Community Regular

My hair is brown but tends to have reddish highlights. I don't think that counts though because I look very Italian and I don't think there are many Italian redheads running amok.

virna lisi, natural blonde/blue eye italian actress....about 2% are red heads, so I just read.

  • 3 weeks later...
vickimini Newbie

First post for me! I have some Irish blood and some (unconfirmed) native blood. My hair is unremarkable brown but I used to get red highlights in the summer, when I was young. All highlights are gray now!

Glad to be here. You all know so much about this! I have no Dx but have had an explosion of symptoms, fierce anxiety and irritability being the worst, since quitting gluten about five months ago.

EJR Rookie

Another redhead here. My grandparents were from Norway so have the fair skin, freckles, etc.

Stubborn red head Apprentice

I have red in my hair. I have always been the red head of the family. We all have some in our hair but mine shows the most. Im strawberry blonde, I have pail skin and freckled from head to toe with all kinds of moles.

Takala Enthusiast

The only place that's left red is some of my thinning eyebrows and eyelashes. I was born light blonde that went to strawberry blonde and then it darkened to dark medium ashy mixed by high school, so it was very easy to bring it back up to lighter with mild highlighting solutions. It got very dark (the roots) by my forties, then started to go dull ashy mudd grey mixed with the red and blonde. After gluten free, it changed texture again (thank God, it got thicker) and came in curlier and lighter colored. That was the strange part, my hair changed color, too. But I kept highlighting, at least the roots blended nicely. I am pale skinned, why not.

Then, tragically, L'Oreal stopped making my color, :( so I had to switch. :lol: And we have real funky well water minerals around here, all my neighbors my age are sort of in need of a rainwater rinse and conditioning. My hair is currently not quite the right color, especially since skin tends to change with age (could I be any whiter than this ? not by much) but when I've tried others with the Garnier (no gluten) they are not coming out the way I wanted, yet. Grey is funky to dye over.

My mother, by this age, was much more light silver grey than I am, and her hair was much more brunette than mine ever has been. I let my hair grow all the way out natural color last year, looked at it, said, NOPE, I'm no silver fox, :blink: and went to the cabinet for the color.

I have very mild freckling, pale skin, pale blue eyes, and the whole Celt/Indigenous/Irish/English/German routine. Both parents were dark haired and all the kids were born blonde.

  • 2 months later...
FruitEnthusiast Enthusiast

I was just diagnosed a week ago, so as of today, I have not met a single other person with Celiac's in real life. I have no idea what they look like! I have heard, through the grapevine of the internet, that there seems to be a high frequency of red heads in the Celiac population.

Is this just because of the two gene's common European upbringing?

Who here is a red head? I am!

What do you think of this odd coincidence?

Hi, I'm a redhead too! I've also heard celiac is prevalent among redheads. Though I'm gluten intolerant and tested negative for celiac, my GI said to be extra careful "cause I'm a redhead. I've heard that redheads have one less layer of epidermis on the outer most layer of their skin and also on the inner most layer internally too. Food for thought.

RL2011 Rookie

You Gingers have all kinds of added issues (said laughingly).

FruitEnthusiast Enthusiast

You Gingers have all kinds of added issues (said laughingly).

Hmmm... perhaps... but it's soooo worth it! :)

Chad Sines Rising Star

I like redheads and I have celiac? Coincidence?? Who knows...

FruitEnthusiast Enthusiast

laughing...

RonSchon Explorer

I was married to a Redhead when I came down with celiac disease. Coincidence? I think not.

jerseyangel Proficient

I was married to a Redhead when I came down with celiac disease. Coincidence? I think not.

Celiac by association? :D

katt983 Newbie

Medium brown hair here, with some reddish highlights that have faded a bit with time.

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    • trents
      @BlessedinBoston, it is possible that in Canada the product in question is formulated differently than in the USA or at least processed in in a facility that precludes cross contamination. I assume from your user name that you are in the USA. And it is also possible that the product meets the FDA requirement of not more than 20ppm of gluten but you are a super sensitive celiac for whom that standard is insufficient. 
    • BlessedinBoston
      No,Lindt is not gluten free no matter what they say on their website. I found out the hard way when I was newly diagnosed in 2000. At that time the Lindt truffles were just becoming popular and were only sold in small specialty shops at the mall. You couldn't buy them in any stores like today and I was obsessed with them 😁. Took me a while to get around to checking them and was heartbroken when I saw they were absolutely not gluten free 😔. Felt the same when I realized Twizzlers weren't either. Took me a while to get my diet on order after being diagnosed. I was diagnosed with small bowel non Hodgkins lymphoma at the same time. So it was a very stressful time to say the least. Hope this helps 😁.
    • knitty kitty
      @Jmartes71, I understand your frustration and anger.  I've been in a similar situation where no doctor took me seriously, accused me of making things up, and eventually sent me home to suffer alone.   My doctors did not recognize nutritional deficiencies.  Doctors are trained in medical learning institutions that are funded by pharmaceutical companies.  They are taught which medications cover up which symptoms.  Doctors are required to take twenty  hours of nutritional education in seven years of medical training.  (They can earn nine hours in Nutrition by taking a three day weekend seminar.)  They are taught nutritional deficiencies are passe' and don't happen in our well fed Western society any more.  In Celiac Disease, the autoimmune response and inflammation affects the absorption of ALL the essential vitamins and minerals.  Correcting nutritional deficiencies caused by malabsorption is essential!  I begged my doctor to check my Vitamin D level, which he did only after making sure my insurance would cover it.  When my Vitamin D came back extremely low, my doctor was very surprised, but refused to test for further nutritional deficiencies because he "couldn't make money prescribing vitamins.". I believe it was beyond his knowledge, so he blamed me for making stuff up, and stormed out of the exam room.  I had studied Nutrition before earning a degree in Microbiology.  I switched because I was curious what vitamins from our food were doing in our bodies.  Vitamins are substances that our bodies cannot manufacture, so we must ingest them every day.  Without them, our bodies cannot manufacture life sustaining enzymes and we sicken and die.   At home alone, I could feel myself dying.  It's an unnerving feeling, to say the least, and, so, with nothing left to lose, I relied in my education in nutrition.  My symptoms of Thiamine deficiency were the worst, so I began taking high dose Thiamine.  I had health improvement within an hour.  It was magical.  I continued taking high dose thiamine with a B Complex, magnesium. and other essential nutrients.  The health improvements continued for months.  High doses of thiamine are required to correct a thiamine deficiency because thiamine affects every cell and mitochondria in our bodies.    A twenty percent increase in dietary thiamine causes an eighty percent increase in brain function.  The cerebellum of the brain is most affected.  The cerebellum controls things we don't have to consciously have to think about, like digestion, balance, breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, hormone regulation, and many more.  Thiamine is absorbed from the digestive tract and sent to the most important organs like the brain and the heart.  This leaves the digestive tract depleted of Thiamine and symptoms of Gastrointestinal Beriberi, a thiamine deficiency localized in the digestive system, begin to appear.  Symptoms of Gastrointestinal Beriberi include anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, headaches, Gerd, acid reflux, gas, slow stomach emptying, gastroparesis, bloating, diarrhea and/or constipation, incontinence, abdominal pain, IBS,  SIBO, POTS, high blood pressure, heart rate changes like tachycardia, difficulty swallowing, Barrett's Esophagus, peripheral neuropathy, and more. Doctors are only taught about thiamine deficiency in alcoholism and look for the classic triad of symptoms (changes in gait, mental function, and nystagmus) but fail to realize that gastrointestinal symptoms can precede these symptoms by months.  All three classic triad of symptoms only appear in fifteen percent of patients, with most patients being diagnosed with thiamine deficiency post mortem.  I had all three but swore I didn't drink, so I was dismissed as "crazy" and sent home to die basically.   Yes, I understand how frustrating no answers from doctors can be.  I took OTC Thiamine Hydrochloride, and later thiamine in the forms TTFD (tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide) and Benfotiamine to correct my thiamine deficiency.  I also took magnesium, needed by thiamine to make those life sustaining enzymes.  Thiamine interacts with each of the other B vitamins, so the other B vitamins must be supplemented as well.  Thiamine is safe and nontoxic even in high doses.   A doctor can administer high dose thiamine by IV along with the other B vitamins.  Again, Thiamine is safe and nontoxic even in high doses.  Thiamine should be given if only to rule Gastrointestinal Beriberi out as a cause of your symptoms.  If no improvement, no harm is done. Share the following link with your doctors.  Section Three is especially informative.  They need to be expand their knowledge about Thiamine and nutrition in Celiac Disease.  Ask for an Erythrocyte Transketolace Activity test for thiamine deficiency.  This test is more reliable than a blood test. Thiamine, gastrointestinal beriberi and acetylcholine signaling.  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12014454/ Best wishes!
    • Jmartes71
      I have been diagnosed with celiac in 1994, in remission not eating wheat and other foods not to consume  my household eats wheat.I have diagnosed sibo, hernia ibs, high blood pressure, menopause, chronic fatigue just to name a few oh yes and Barrett's esophagus which i forgot, I currently have bumps in back of my throat, one Dr stated we all have bumps in the back of our throat.Im in pain.Standford specialist really dismissed me and now im really in limbo and trying to get properly cared for.I found a new gi and new pcp but its still a mess and medical is making it look like im a disability chaser when Im actively not well I look and feel horrible and its adding anxiety and depression more so.Im angery my condition is affecting me and its being down played 
    • marion wheaton
      Wondering if anyone knows whether Lindt chocolate balls are gluten free. The Lindt Canadian website says yes but the Lindt USA website says no. The information is a bit confusing.
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