Celiac Awareness Day

Today is National Celiac Awareness Day. I happen to have Celiac Disease.

People often think of Celiac as something minor, just 'a sensitivity'. I've heard time and again that, "it really can't be that bad" or "how can a food allergy be a disease?" and even "celiac and gluten allergies are just a fad diet."

Well, I'm here to set the record straight: Celiac Disease is no fad.

We are lucky that Celiac is as well known as it is. When I was a kid, Celiac wasn't even an option. It was rare. This mentality caused me a vast array of problems all throughout my childhood. I had a stomach ache every single day. My parents lectured me about lying and being sick because, "one day, when you are really sick, no one is going to believe you." (How could they have known that I wasn't pretending?). I threw up two+ times a month and was skinny, pale and lethargic.

Isn't that a perfect picture of what childhood should be? No. Of course not. Doctors thought I was being abused, my parents thought I was being bullied, my school nurses and teachers weren't sure what to think! I didn't even understand. I just resigned myself to living a life of constant illness.

I fought my health all the way through highschool, and into my first year of college. It was one day, after days of throwing up (and ultimately passing out at work) that I ended up in the ER with a doctor waving a diagnosis in front of me.

Celiac. That was the problem. He sat down next to me and told me that my organs were, essentially, trying to give up after 18 years of abuse. That is why I couldn't eat or even keep water down, that is why I passed out at work, that is why my head was full of fog. I was so full of gluten contamination that my body was trying to die.

That's right: my body was shutting down all because of a little protein found in grains.

Now, for the most part, I live a perfectly active, healthy life. My body has, of course, suffered permanent damage from the internal war I waged against it. I can't absorb vitamins in a proper way, I can't eat replacement grains (corn, potato starch, tapioca starch) without getting mildly ill. I can't eat raw vegetables because my stomach and intestines can't deal with the harshness of them. Sometimes I throw up for absolutely no reason at all.

Now, when I get glutened (as I like to call it) it is very much like having a bi-polar version of the stomach flu. The gluten in my body keeps me from absorbing vitamins, so I'm chronically hungry until it's filtered out of my system. But, when I eat, the gluten lingering in my system gets re-digested and makes me throw up, etc. It's not fun.

But the worst thing about it is the internal damage being caused:

The villi in the small intestine become damaged, leading to poor absorption of essential nutrients from your food, but at the same time, the body absorbs partially digested food, polluting the blood stream.

Poor absorption of nutrients leads to deficiencies in key vitamins and minerals. Anaemia is common amongst celiacs who continue to eat gluten-containing foods.

Eventually, extensive long-term damage can effect all the internal organs, and can be fatal.

There is also a higher incidence of bowel cancer among celiacs who have ingested gluten for a long period of time.

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As I mentioned above, I struggle with digestion on a daily basis. I have permanently damaged parts of my colon and other areas of my digestive tract. There has even been talk about having to remove damaged or diseased parts of my digestive tract if improvements aren't made - all because of the damage that gluten has done to my body.

Celiac awareness is important. If we can diagnose and treat people from an early age, they can avoid the trials that are sure to follow.

I'm happy, I'm getting healthier every day, I'm lucky to be alive - and I'm a Celiac.

ps: I do not in any way, shape or form blame my parents for any of this. They did their best and there was no way they could have known what was wrong.