Good morning! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! Mine was nice and relaxing. I may have overindulged a little bit, but still managed to squeeze 9 miles in!
Since May is Celiac Disease awareness month and all, I wanted to go ahead and share my story with you. Hopefully I can help someone get the diagnosis they have been looking for!
I have struggled with stomach issues for as long as I can remember. I would be bloated and uncomfortable from the time I woke up in the morning, until the time I went to bed at night. I went to the doctor one time in college about it and she said it sounded like IBS. She wrote me a prescription for it and on my way I went. I gave the meds a try, but they didn’t help. I just came to terms with the fact that this was just the norm for me.
Shortly after that trip to the doctor, I noticed that my fingernails were not looking quite right and were becoming painful. The part at the tip of the nails, where they connect to the skin underneath, was starting to detach and recede! So, I went back to the doctor. I was told that it was a nail fungus (eww!) She wrote me a prescription for an anti-fungal. After finishing a few courses of different anti-fungal meds and seeing absolutely no improvement, I gave up. I have been wearing nail polish every day since trying to hide my embarrassing fingernails. Mind you, this was over 6 years ago!
Next (yes the list of symptoms keep on coming) I started having pain in my right hip. It would come and go and at first it wasn’t really bad, just a bit uncomfortable. Then it got so bad I could barely put any weight on the leg and would walk with a terrible limp. Once again, I went back to the doctor. They did x-rays and ran tests and everything came back normal. I was given a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and sent on my way. I didn’t even bother filling the rx, because I knew that it would not help. Here I was, in my twenties, and falling apart!
The most recent issue was swollen lymph nodes under my right arm pit. This scared the crap out of me because breast cancer runs in my family. I went back to the doctor (mind you I was seeing different doctors, so this wasn’t just one idiot!) I ended up having blood work done, a mammogram, an ultrasound and an MRI done. And of course, yes, you guessed it, they all came back normal! How could this be!?
I decided to do some research myself, since no doctors were willing to get to the bottom of this. I kept coming across Celiac Disease and Gluten Intolerance. The more I read about it, the more symptoms matched mine. But wait, wasn’t gluten intolerance that made up disease? What does it even mean anyways? I used to wait tables and I would come across the dreaded gluten intolerant person every so often. They were the biggest pain in my ass! Could I possibly be one of them?! Those thoughts aside, I decided to go gluten free to see if any of my symptoms improved. Low and behold, I started to feel a million times better! My stomach was no longer crampy and bloated and my hip pain stopped flaring up! It was amazing! I had no idea I could feel so good! I have a friend who is gluten intolerant, so I talked to her about it. She encouraged me to go get tested. So, that’s what I did. I went in and said that I wanted to be tested for Celiac and any other food allergies or intolerances. I felt I would finally have answers!
Well, the call came from the doctor…everything came back normal once again! How could this be!? I felt a part of me die right then and there. I thought for sure I had figured out why I was so miserable all of the time. I was beyond frustrated! I hung up the phone and cried. Not because I wanted something to be wrong with me, but because I just wanted to feel good for once! Then I started to wonder if I was going crazy. Was I just imagining all of this? But then I remembered my fingernails! No, I was NOT imagining it!
Later that day I got a call back from my doctor. He realized that my tests would not be accurate if I was gluten free, and I had been for quite some time! He referred me to a GI specialist who told me to get back on gluten for a month and then we would retest. So I did, and once again felt like crap. It was worth it though, because I ended up getting the results that I knew would come back! I have Celiac Disease. Finally I have answers!
I have been gluten free, with only a couple of slip ups (and oh man did I feel those slip ups) for about 2 months. I feel fantastic! No more stomach aches, hip pain or swollen lymph nodes! My fingernails have even started to heal!!!!!
Here they are on their way to recovery. Gross, I know!
I feel ashamed that I was one of those people who thought this was some made up fad diet. Especially when I see the eye rolls directed at me. When people make comments like “how do you know you have it?”, or “who says?” or “so you just get a stomach ache?” No, it’s much more than that. These comments are hurtful, but can I really blame these people? I had the same outlook on the disease. It makes me realize that there needs to be more awareness about it! Awareness is coming, slowly but surely.
Hopefully this can help change someone’s outlook on Celiac and gluten intolerance or help someone get to the bottom of their “mystery symptoms”. No you’re not crazy!
If anyone has any questions, please ask me!
XOXO
Halie
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