My Coeliac Story
- lauralu8
- Jun 13, 2016
- 3 min read
Following a gluten free diet for myself is due to being diagnosed with Coeliac's Disease. I was diagnosed when I was 1 year old, so I have grown up with a gluten free diet basically my whole life. Now as I was just a baby when I was diagnosed it's not really a story I can tell so here is what my dear old Mum said about it;
"As a mother of four children it soon became clear to me that Laura was not well. She wasn't thriving & healthy the way she should be. From the moment Laura started to be weaned off baby milk at 3 months old she started to be sick. Laura would constantly vomit. We would be out in the car and she would bring up her breakfast, lunch or dinner. She would be in bed and I would awake with the sound of her vomit. It was a heartbreaking & worrying time. I took Laura to see our Doctor often & felt like a neurotic mother; but I knew something was wrong. Her vomiting was put down to begin with as tummy bug, colds, then reflux. But it was none of these & over the months she started to look like one of the starving children that we saw in famine pictures from Africa. I was very worried & eventually our Health visitor stepped in & through the Doctor we arranged for a specialist hospital appointment. But there was a waiting list! I hounded the secretary every day to see if there were cancellations that we could take. Laura got sicker & was very lifeless & weak. We were very worried about what was wrong. Eventually we got the call that there was a cancellation & could we come. This was two weeks before Laura's first birthday. At the hospital the consultant examined Laura and then asked if we could take her home & bring her back. I started to cry thinking how much longer was this going to take to try and discover what was wrong? But he quickly assured me that he only meant to pack what was necessary for me to come back with her & be admitted to a ward. Laura returned to be admitted & for the next two weeks under went all sorts of blood tests, scans & X-rays. Her tiny veins collapsed & it was heartbreaking. One of the worst tests was a barium meal bottle that I had to feed her & then hold her head as the X-ray was carried out. The doctor present had to call it off due to the distress we witnessed in Laura. We were all crying over it. However she didn't have any of the life threatening diseases that she was tested for. After two weeks it was shown by blood tests that she looked to be coeliac & a biopsy of her small intestine was quickly carried out to verify this. What relief! My grandmother had been diagnosed as coeliac in her later life & we knew that on the right diet Laura would soon thrive. Within two weeks of cutting out all gluten from her diet Laura was a much brighter child & strengthened before our eyes. She soon was walking & able to run & lost her hollow lifeless look & was a happy smiling child."
Let me know what you think please, either by commenting below or catching me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!
Comments