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Dear List: 
I haven't written a summary since college. The hour is late, and I have to go 
to work in the morning, so I hope this is okay..
I want to thank everyone for the many responses to my email asking if Sprue 
was the same thing as Celiac.   I was confused because I had once met a lady 
with Celiac, and she was making oatmeal cookies and she was going to eat some. I 
ask her about it and she said that she could have it..  I could only have 
rice, corn, potato, and soy flours.

 At the time that I was finally diagnosed, in Dec. 1965, there were only 
about 10-12 known cases of "Sprue," in all of the Western United States…. It was 
years before I met anyone with Celiac, or anything close to the Sprue.. I asked 
a Dr. (way back in the early 70's) about the difference, and he told me Sprue 
must be the adult onset, and Celiac must be when you are born with it, but I 
was the only case that he had ever experienced, and I was told that my diet 
was made especially just for me, due to the testing that they did on the 
specimen, and blood samples.   Can any of you eat oatmeal?

I was in USC Medical Center, in the Metabolic Unit, on the 18th floor, for 
almost a month. That place was were all of the Drs. who had "weird" cases that 
they couldn't figure out sent their patients. After they ruled out a lot of 
other diseases, they wanted to do a biopsy. Back then, the biopsy was a pretty 
crude ordeal. We started on one floor, then we had to go to another floor in the 
elevator to see with the fluoroscopy machine if the "line" was positioned 
correctly, then I think we had to go to another floor for the actual "nip" - we 
did this 5 times in two days before they got a good enough piece. 

I remember one time, the Dr. thought that we should take a short cut, because 
I was so embarrassed (I kept gagging) and we would encounter other people 
coming and going -- we went through the temporary morgue….The bodies were 
covered, but I learned real quick what those tags at the end of our beds were for…. 
They were toe tags….For a 17 year old girl, the ordeal of having the line 
placed up my nose, and down my throat - going all the way down to my intestinal 
area - while going up and down the elevator, almost made me feel that I would 
have welcomed having the "toe tag" on my toe. 



I would hope that the procedure is a lot less traumatic now.  I feel like I 
am really in the "dark" about this.   What did some of you experience?

I am so glad that I found this site, I am so appreciative of all of your 
responses. I'm being educated about something that I've just lived with for 
years..  Sprue is the same thing as Celiac!!  I didn't know!

Thank you once again.

:), Jerri

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