Celiac Update

The nurse finally called me back with my CD bloodwork panel results.  Unfortunately, she did not seem exceptionally knowledgeable on the subject, so I'm not exactly sure what it means.  She said that the pathology came back fine (meaning I don't have any parasites or anything???), but the "Celiac Sprue" came back positive.  So there it is.  I guess I do have CD. 

I did a little research today, and I found that fatigue and anemia are the two most common symptoms in people who don't get sick from it.  I am always fatigued and need lots of sleep, and I also always border on anemia, and in fact, i was VERY anemic when I was pregnant.

The other symptoms I have are:

(1) Infertility (duh);

(2) Hypotension (low blood pressure)- I had no idea this is related to CD, and it's pretty amazing because I've always had exceptionally low blood pressure, and when she took my bp before my colonoscopy, she said, "do you work out a lot?"...uh no..."oh because you have really low bp like that of someone who works out all the time".

(3) Dermatitis and skin lesions (again, duh).

A lot of people have asked me what CD is, what it means, what it does, etc. so I thought I'd post a little blurb from Wikipedia in case you are interested...

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine.  CD is caused by a reaction to gliadin, a prolamin (gluten protein) found in wheat, and similar proteins found in the crops of the tribe Triticeae (which includes other common grains such as barley and rye).  Upon exposure to gliadin, and specifically to three peptides found in prolamins, the enzyme tissue transglutaminase modifies the reaction.  That leads to a truncating of the villi lining the small intestine (called villous atrophy).  This interferes with the absorption of nutrients, because the intestinal villi are responsible for absorption.  The only known effective treatment is a lifelong gluten free diet.  While the disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not the same as a wheat allergy.