Stories

As a young child I often felt sick, often had diarrhoea, had eczema and a lot of time off school for which no reason could be found.  Breakfast was toast or weetbix, lunch sandwiches and Mum is a great baker.

I married and had three children – the third when I was 29 years.  She had severe GORD and other health issues, but also blistered infected nappy rash from soon after she started solids.  At the age of one year, she was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance after I noticed that her first weetbix REALLY aggravated the rash.  She had blood tests for Coeliac Disease but this was negative and later on had a small bowel biopsy which was also negative after being on a gluten containing diet for six months.  My first and second children were also diagnosed as gluten intolerant but with very different symptoms I won’t go into here to keep my story shortish. My blood screening for Coeliac Disease was negative also and in fact even my IgG Gliadin levels were not raised.

At the age of  around 31 years, I began having migraines which were very difficult to control.  We eventually sort of managed them with medication but I was always headachy.  I still had my ongoing gut symptoms from childhood with needing to spend the odd very painful long time in the small room!  Someone who had Coeliac Disease suggested I should try the gluten free diet to see if it helped my migraines.  I had read Fed Up with Food Additives which also explores allergies when I first had migraines but had decided it couldn’t possibly be foods because I didn’t eat for about a week at my sickest!  Eventually the suggestion of the gluten free diet as a trial niggled at me enough that I gave in and tried it, with the headaches slowly improving.  When I ate occasional gluten it made me unwell again.  There is nothing quite like being well, to let you know how bad being ill is!

My GP supported my diet.  Suddenly I didn’t have to see him at least once a month, and instead could go just once every three months and then only for my scripts to keep those headaches at bay – slowly reducing the dosage of medication as well.

I did have a flare-up in symptoms ending in becoming dehydated and needing IV fluids on a couple of occasions, before finding out that I was reacting to a few other foods just as severely as gluten.  As it was becoming difficult to work out the problem foods, I needed help from a specialist and underwent a double-blind capsule challenge with wheat to prove that all of this wasn’t “just in my mind”.   The timing of my symptoms, fitted the timing of the wheat challenges exactly!

A change in preventer type allergy medications and continuing to avoid my known problem foods has resulted in a much better quality of life.  Accidents do happen though, and I can say that gluten is by far the worst offendor.  It will give me a severe migraine type headache and cause violent vomiting which takes days to recover from.

I’m glad to have had a paediatrician for my youngest daughter who supported the family in removing gluten from her diet, and so improved the health of all of my family.