To celebrate Celiac Awareness Month, I wanted to share my story on my diagnosis and journey to where I am today.
We are going back 7 years when I was a senior in high school. All my life I have been very active in sports, so physical activity was something I was used to. That changed my senior year. I started to become very unmotivated to work out and when I did, I would be out of breath, my heart would race and I just didn't feel right. On top of that, I was experiencing depression. I would do what I needed to get through the day, but once I came home, I would lock myself in my room and lay in bed the rest of the night. While there were other factors to my depression, my body just could not get up and function.
I was about to go off to college and play volleyball, so I had to get a physical done. I went to my normal pediatrician and told her what was going on. She did the routine check up and blood work as well. When my blood work came back, my iron level was dangerously low at -1. We figured this was what was causing my depression and low motivation. My doctor prescribed me some iron pills to see if that would help my levels go up.
My sister was about the get married and the day before her wedding I broke out in sores all over my body. We went back to the doctor and she thought it might have been a bacterial infections, so she prescribed me an ointment to help the sores go away. The next day at my sister's wedding, I felt awful. After the ceremony and before reception, I had to go in her private room to lay down for a while. I managed to get through it, but the next day when I went home, my body just crashed. I felt like I had the flu and was in bed for about a week straight.
I went back to the doctor to check on my iron levels, and while they did go up, it wasn't where it should have been so this caused some alarm in my doctor. She decided to run a celiac panel on my blood work and it did come back positive. You can't get a celiac diagnosis just based on bloodwork though, so she referred me to a specialist where I could get a solid diagnosis.
I went to that doctor and got an endoscopy (they put a camera down into your intestines too see if there is damage) done. It didn't take long for my doctor to see that my intestines were a mess and that I did in fact have celiac disease. He gave me my diagnosis and it kind of put all of the puzzle pieces together.
This was very difficult news to get because like I said, I was about to go off to college and had no idea what celiac was, what I couldn't eat, etc. I was very overwhelmed. When I got to school, my go to was to just each anything labeled gluten free, so I was eating GF bread, cookies, crackers, chips, etc. I began to gain weight because like we've talking about, just because something is gluten free doesn't mean it was healthy for you. At this point I just had no desire to be healthy.
The first two years of my diagnosis were rough because I didn't know what cross contamination was, I would still get sick, I didn't want to eat healthy and I just didn't care about this disease I had. Thankfully, my mom took the time to research and help guide me to healthier self. While I am still not perfect at this gluten free lifestyle, I have come a LONG way from when I was 18 years old.
This is why I started this platform. I want to be able to create a community that can help each other navigate this tricky disease and support one another. With that being said, if you or someone you know is experiencing similar symptoms to myself, feel free to reach out and we can talk it through together.
Check out this great resource that shares different facts about celiac disease: https://www.beyondceliac.org/celiac-disease/facts-and-figures/
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