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Our son was dx with Guillain Barre when he was 5, which is an autoimmune
illness.  He had 3 episodes during a two year span and was upgraded to
having chronic Guillain Barre but his episodes of leg weakness were varied
and not typical of what a guillain barre patient should look like.  The
first, he could not walk at all for a week, lost reflexes in his legs, and
took a month to walk well again.  A year later, he had his second attack
which lasted about 24 hours of not being able to walk.  The third attack
happened 3 months later, and only one leg was affected for about 8 hours.  A
few months following that, he was dx with juv. diabetes and this past summer
at 7 years, he was dx with celiac disease.

We have always wondered if his guillain barre was actually because he was
struggling through undiagnosed diabetes and celiac..and thought we were
right because he did not have anymore episodes since we got those in
line...until this week.  He had leg weakness, numbness, and pain for 24
hours that varied from being able to walk, then not, then walking wobbly for
awhile.  We took him to his neurologist and he said he did not think it was
guillain barre because his strength appeared normal and his reflexes were
good (in the past episodes, they were not) but he did not know why my son
could not walk.  My son complained of some numbness in his feet plus a lot
of pain in his legs causing him to not be able to walk.

I'm trying to briefly describe things here so it may not be enough info, but
my question is...do celiacs have issues with muscle weakness, neuropathy,
numbness?  And if so, is it only after eating gluten?  Usually, my son is
pretty sensitive to gluten and I would have thought if he had ingested some,
we would have seen some symptoms but he doesn't appear to have eaten any
recently...just the leg problems for the past 48 hours and for the past 24
hours very high blood glucose numbers...so obviously something is going on
but we don't know what...and neither do the doctors.  If anybody has any
suggestions or familiar stories, I would love to know about it as we are
very puzzled as to what is going on with our little boy's body!  Thanks,
Carla

* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *