May is National Celiac Disease Awareness Month, so it seems appropriate to share some medical facts about this autoimmune disease that just might shock you.
These facts come from Dr. Tom O’Bryan who is is a nationally recognized speaker and workshop leader specializing in gluten sensitivity and celiac disease. Dr. O’Bryan’s specialty is in teaching the many manifestations of gluten sensitivity and celiac disease as they occur inside and outside of the (more…)
On December 13, I posted a question on the Glutenfreeworks Facebook page to ask people who had adopted a gluten-free diet if they no longer needed medications they had been taking. The response was incredible. Dozens of people described how they no longer needed drugs, some of which they had been taking for years or decades.
Here is my post and their responses…
“I gave a presentation to a group and mentioned a friend who had been on Zantac for 20 years. I went on to say that once she went gluten-free the acid reflux disappeared. A woman in the audience stood up and said the same thing happened to her – she had been on it since she was 10 (I’m guessing she was in her mid to late 30s.).
My question for you is what medication (of any kind) were you on, before you went gluten-free, that you no longer need to take and how long did it take before you did not need it anymore?”
We asked people on on the Glutenfreeworks Twitter account how they felt about whether finding out earlier about their gluten sensitivity or celiac disease would have affected their lives.
Here is what they said.
Do you think your life would have been different if you had known about gluten at an early age???
@Glutenfreeworks incredibly. My senior year of high school probably wouldn’t be going so poorly if I had…. (more…)
It is well documented that only a small minority of those with celiac disease are successfully diagnosed in a medical setting.
Gluten sensitivity, which we based on medical research and proposed in Recognizing Celiac Disease in 2007, has only recently been accepted as a true medical condition. So we decided to hold an informal survey to see just how people are becoming gluten-free? How are they finding out that gluten sensitivity or celiac disease are the cause of their health problems and are doctors diagnosing them or are they figuring it out on their own?
We posted this question to our GlutenFreeWorks Facebook friends and here are their answers. Were YOU diagnosed by a doctor? Leave your comments below!(more…)
Know the Symptoms of Nutrient Deficiencies so You Can Be Healthy!
The impact of nutritional deficiencies on health should be common knowledge among the medical professional community. All doctors, nurses and other medical professionals should be able to quickly and accurately identify and diagnose functional nutritional deficiencies in patients and correct those deficiencies. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Medical teaching institutions do not focus on nutrition, so many medical professionals are not equipped to recognize the signs of nutritional deficiencies until the patient is extremely sick. In most cases, the patient is able to function, just not at his or her potential. He or she may have weight issues, skin, hair or (more…)
Living 100% Gluten-Free is a challenge. Most of us, even after we’ve learned about hidden sources of gluten and done our best to stay away from them….are going to get “glutened” from time to time. This happens most often with:
1-Cross contamination 2-Eating out at a new restaurant 3-Eating products that don’t have any “gluten” ingredients…but still aren’t 100% GF.
We have to be extremely careful with cross contamination in our own homes. Most of us are living with non-GF people. So make sure everyone knows which toaster is the GF one….and when your grandma is baking glutenous pies, cakes, and bread….stay far away from the kitchen. Trust me, I know. Even a TINY bit of gluten will do THIS to me:
Of course, I often get the same reaction when eating out at a new place I’m unsure about. Many restaurants offer “gluten-free” items, but they (more…)
Every morning my freshman year in high school, I felt sick. I would miss a lot of first period class & summer swim workouts as a consequence. My mother and I could not figure out what was wrong.
Bob’s Red Mill chocolate chip cookie mix using soy free Earth Balance
Every day shortly after breakfast, I would get nauseous and have to lie down. One morning, I told my swim coach, who was frustrated with me missing so many workouts, I had “morning sickness.” At the time I was 14 and clueless to the usual context in which that phrase in used. Mom was mortified. I had to clarify to coach that I was not actually with child, and then it was off to the doctor, who confirmed I was likely lactose intolerant, so I stayed off dairy.
Down the road in college, I started getting sick after many meals, and after a few years of searching, I finally got a diagnosis of gluten sensitivity. First milk, now (more…)
Saving a life means more than just keeping a person from dying. It means helping them get well.
While practicing medicine as a registered nurse, Cleo Libonati regularly saved people’s lives. Now her book “Recognizing Celiac Disease” is doing the same for people across the country and around the world.
Here is a letter telling how one family credits the book with saving their lives…
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Dear Cleo,
I have been “sick” most of my life (I turn 40 in July) with random things, too many to list here. I have been really sick the last 10 years, but started feeling as though I was “dying by the inch” in 2004. I finally broke down and went to my primary when premature ventricular contractions were occurring every 5-10 seconds that felt as though my heart was going to jump right out of my throat. I had many other random multiple sclerosis type symptoms, but the severity of the PVC’s were what scared me the most, that is until 2006. I began to have many gastro symptoms that kept me in the bathroom several times a day with alternating elimination problems, I couldn’t keep food down, and pain in the left side of my swollen, hard, tender abdomen every time I ate. I had an EGD and colonoscopy on 2/15/07. The three days before the test were the best I had felt in 4 years. Since I worked in Oncology and was used to seeing patients doing prep for them, I put myself on clear liquids 2 days before the Go-Lytely. So, I was gluten-free without knowing it for 3 days prior to testing. (more…)
If you or someone you know has a child with a mental illness, behavioral problem or unexplained neurological issue, you must watch these videos. They vividly illustrate how gluten and celiac disease can cause neurological illnesses and how removing gluten and casein from the diet can improve or cure the child.
Eamon Murphy started exhibiting mental aberrations and problems eating at three months of age. By the time he was three, his parents were frantically trying to understand what had caused his developmental delay in walking and talking, and now his trances, seizure-like episodes and regression. After a determined effort by his mother and a series of extraordinarily lucky events, he was finally diagnosed with celiac disease…and FULLY RECOVERED.
Watch these videos NOW and then forward this message to everyone you know with a child with a similar mental illness and their healthcare providers…because it is unacceptable that any child should be unnecessarily consigned to a life of suffering and diminished potential when a simple change in diet may cure them.
Eamon is totally normal now. If he had not been diagnosed, it is easy to see how he could have become incapacitated within a few years as his body and mind became sicker and sicker. Eventually, he may have been labeled autistic or schizophrenic. He may just have been called odd and slow.
Was it a miracle that Eamon recovered? No. It was a miracle that Eamon was diagnosed…
Here are some facts:
Autism affects 1 in 150 children. Medical experts recommend behavioral management and specialized speech, physical and occupational therapies (costing an estimated $70,000 per year per child), medications, community support and parental training.
Medical experts recommend AGAINST dietary intervention, yet the gluten-free/casein-free diet that helped Eamon has been demonstrated in thousands of cases to improve or resolve symptoms.
Celiac disease is still considered a rare gastrointestinal disorder that affects children by the majority of health professionals. In reality, celiac disease affects 1 in 100 people of any age, classifying it an epidemic by NIH standards. More people have celiac disease than Type 1 diabetes, breast cancer or autism. Diagnosis of celiac disease is estimated to take up to 11 years from first presentation of symptoms. Only 5% of people with celiac disease are estimated to be diagnosed.
Gastrointestinal problems occur in about 20% of people with celiac disease whereas neurological problems have been seen in as high as 51% at time of diagnosis.
The treatment for celiac disease is removing gluten from the diet and correcting nutrient deficiencies and any complications that have developed.
Unless you have symptoms that doctors expect to see – chronic diarrhea, failure to thrive, abdominal bloating and pain, and anemia – your likelihood of being diagnosed is extremely low.
For a complete list of symptoms related to celiac disease including dozens of neurological issues and problems in childhood, visit Gluten Free Works.
It is well documented that only a small minority of those with celiac disease are successfully diagnosed in a medical setting.
