Diagnosis: Celiac Disease

Wouldn't you know it... I spent 45 minutes typing up a post before my computer ate it. :-(

Several months ago I took Beth in to the doctor for chronic tummy aches. One nasty stool sample later, the results came back normal and we confirmed Beth didn't have any parasites or other nasty bugs living in her tummy. This was in March, and at this time she'd already been experiencing the pain (that I'm aware of) for a couple of months. We had been very busy at that time, getting our old house ready to sell and getting ready to move into this house. It was easy to blame her tummy aches and "bathroom issues" on stress! Well, the tummy aches continued and over labor day weekend, Beth experienced some horrible pain. She was keeled over nearly the entire weekend with what I thought was very bad gas pains. That was enough, I called the pediatrician on Tuesday to make an appointment for Wednesday.

The pediatrician suggested her stomach produced too much acid and gave her a prescription for Prevacid. My hunch was that she had a lactose allergy so I requested they test her for that, and to do so required them to draw a vial of blood. Beth was a champ, she hardly flinched at all! She laid there for several minutes, while I tried to distract her by talking to her and the nurse about all the wildlife in our yard, but she didn't make a peep. The ped told me they would test the blood for 14 different problems, and that we'd get the results back in a few days.

Monday they called, and the lab tech told me she tested positive for celiac disease. I was stunned, this was not what I was expecting at all. I vaguely knew what celiac disease was, as my brother's roommate has it and I remember them talking about buying gluten-free beer! I asked her what I should do and she said don't let Beth eat wheat.

Of course that day was pretty busy, but I tried to get online during nap time to research celiac disease. As it turns out, it's a fairly common autoimmune disease, but it's pretty uncommon to have a diagnosis at such a young age. The good thing is that since we've caught it so early, Beth most likely won't have any lingering effects and will probably never remember her gluten-filled days.

What this means for her is that she won't be able to eat gluten-containing products for the rest of her life. There's no medication to take- it's completely handled by diet. This will be a challenge for us initially, but I hear that it becomes second nature after about a year or so. Thing that contain gluten go beyond just food products with wheat; a lot of foods are contaminated since they're processed in plants with wheat. I'm going to have to do so major label reading until I determine what products I normally buy are "safe" and figure out the correct (and more expensive) substitutes I have to buy. I'm going to have to change most of my recipes, if not completely toss out most of my cookbooks. I haven't decided yet if we're all going to go gluten-free during the initial transition, it seems like a lot of work.

We plan to have a biopsy done to confirm her diagnosis. We also plan to have Luke tested with a blood sample at his next well-baby visit in October, since it's hereditary and most likely brought out by a "trigger," and he's really too young to tell me if he's in pain or not.

We haven't gone completely gluten free yet because she has to continue her normal diet until the biopsy is done. Once we get the confirmation, she will not be able to eat anything containing gluten anymore. This means pizza parties... birthday parties...eating out...eating at a friend's house... It's all going to change. It's sad to me, but I know life is not all about food and that she won't likely even realize that anything is different. So many big events include food though, so it means I will have to be prepared ahead of time to make sure that she has a gluten-free equivalent for all occasions.

Please pray us through this initial transition, and keep Beth's health in your prayers as her body heals itself from the damage and inflammation she's experiencing now!

Here's her first gluten-free substitute, rice spaghetti noodles. She liked them a lot!