It isn't all in your guts

So, after a conversation with a gastroenterological intern in which I'm pretty sure I taught him more than my doctor does, I decided to dedicate today's post to discussing the possible symptoms of celiac. It is estimated that one in every hundred people in the US has celiac, but that nearly 97% of those are undiagnosed. A big reason for this is that most US doctors are trained to see it as a purely digestive disease, when it is an autoimmune disease that affects the whole body.

When my celiac was discovered, I was displaying the classic symptoms: nausea, diarrhea, constipation, gas, stomach pain, and pronounced weight loss. However, as I look back, I can spot other symptoms that I can recognize going back ten years or more. These are symptoms I see return when I slip up, and now I have a reason for them. Some of them, for your edification:

• stunted growth. Ok, so I'm done growing now and can't grow anymore, but when I was a toddler, my pediatrician estimated that I would grow to nearly 6' tall. I'm 5'3" on a good day.



• migraine headaches. I mean the kind that make you wish you were dead. After one week of bad choices, I had one that literally made me pass out on my cousin's couch.



• anemia. I take enough iron supplement to make me magnetic, but I still get anemic "that time of the month". When I was a teen, I passed out on stage from it.



• joint pain and easily broken bones. I've broken toes, fingers, my nose, and most impressively, my ocular orbit, from rather minor accidents. I now get microfractures in my feet, shins, and wrists that are the result of my poor absorbtion of calcium.



• ADHD. There is a reason why they now suggest a gluten free diet for children and adults with ADHD. When I fall off the wagon, I struggle to focus and to gain impulse control, which affects my work, my studies, and my relations with others.



• A whole host of other mental issues. When I've been cheating, I'm more prone to depression, to anxiety attacks, and, according to my little brother, being a total jerk.



• Skin problems. The textbook celiac-related skin disease is herpetitis dermaformis, but I've also noticed that gluten aggravates my usually mild exzema.



• Reproductive issues. While I'm not here yet, it's one of my big fears. Many women are not diagnosed with celiac until they try and try to conceive and can't. Have you seen the episode of House about the woman with celiac and her baby? Scary stuff.

So hopefully you've stuck with me, and maybe learned a little more about how celiac can present itself. What kind of symptoms do you have, or do your family or friends have?