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Dear List,

I thought people might be interested in hearing the array of symptoms
that showed up in about 30 case histories people offered in response
to my call for info. for a magazine article. With a couple of
exceptions, all of the following will be familiar to you, but i think
it's interesting to see the wide array. Certainly bears out
everything we have been told about no two cases being alike!

Reported symptoms, besides diarrhea (which was not a consistent
theme, by the way):

Distended belly in children (the familiar bloating, I'm guessing),
constipation, stomach pains and aches, in one case so bad that as a
child, she resisted food. By the same token, several people reported
never having stomach pain. Also: depression, vomiting, excessive gas,
excess weight, underweight, canker sores, joint pains, fevers,
fatigue ("felt like being drugged"), scalp and skin rashes, poor
tooth enamel, rosacea, thinning hair, Celiac kids with constant
bloody noses. Periods of hot-then-cold-then-hot-then-cold, "never
feeling well", weak, not always clear-thinking, "sickly", allergies,
constant upper respiratory infections, osteopenia and osteoporosis,
neuropathy so extreme that the person cannot type, slow reflexes,
night blindness (Vitamin A deficiency), bone pain, easy bruising,
memory problems so severe the person could not hold a job, brain
atrophy (an MRI result).

Several women reported a lifetime of bothersome symptoms that turned
really bad about the time they hit menopause. I wonder if that's a
pattern others have experienced.

Two people reported heart attacks, which was a new one to me. One of
those, whom I queried, said  Dr. Peter Green at Columbia Presbyterian
told her that calcium-binding drugs, used to stem bone loss in cases
of osteoporosis, can be dangerous for Celiacs with severe damage
because the drugs also reduce the heart's access to serum calcium.
The heart, of course, is a muscle that needs calcium. I intend to
interview Green for this article, so I shall follow up on this issue.

Lastly, a couple of people were diagnosed because of anemia or
because the were tested after first-degree relatives were diagnosed
with Celiac. In those cases, the people were asymptomatic.

People also talked about misdiagnoses:

IBS was most frequently mentioned. Also: heartburn, stress,
appendicitis (!), ulcerative colitis, lupus, and scleroderma. One
person reported being tested for narcolepsy and ADD.

Very interesting. Again, thanks to all who so generously offered their stories.

best regards,
Mary Brown





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