Gastritis or Celiac Disease? Misdiagnosis of a Serious Autoimmune Disease

When my son was eating his first foods, I had taken notice that egg, peanut butter and fresh strawberry gave him a rash around his mouth. I soon realized that he had a reaction to those foods and stopped giving them to him, I didn't realize that the peanuts could be fatal until one day when Alex was 18 months old; a friend gave him peanut butter M&M's, which resulted in a ambulance ride to the ER. Fortunately, it ended well and we made sure never to give him nut products ever again, what we didn't realize was that over the course of time, there was a hidden disease that most people didn't know existed. This also caused skin problems such as eczema.

When Alex was 11, he became very fatigued, had severe stomach pains off and on, vomited with no other symptoms such as a fever, and he began to lose weight. Alex was only 70 pounds to start with, so the fact that he was losing weight really concerned me. He was also very irritable!

My husbands cousin mentioned to me that she was unable to eat wheat or gluten. When she would attend family functions, she was unable to eat most of the food as most foods that we eat now days, are full of those products. Her symptoms were similar to what Alex had been experiencing, so I made an appointment and took him to the doctor.

Our family physician gave Alex Prevacid and said it sounded like Gastritis. I mentioned to him that I would like to have him tested for wheat. He gave us a blood order for Celiac Sprue and off to the lab we went.

Two weeks later, we received a call that Alex was indeed allergic to wheat, but that wasn't all. The nut allergy we knew he had came back as the lowest level of allergen. He was also allergic to whole egg, wheat, barley, rye, gluten, oats, cocoa and the worst allergy was corn! The corn test came back at 95%! These were all the ingredients we eat everyday! our doctor gave us a referral to the Gastroentorologist on the referral he wrote down possible celiac.

I began research on this disease. It is incurable. What happens is that because of the food allergies and intolerance to those ingredients, the finger like things in the intestine called Villi, are destroyed. Villi are the part of the intestine that absorbs the nutrients from the food that we eat. Without it, the human body can't absorb the important parts of the food we eat. Alex was being malnourished. This was also the reason for the horrible rashes on his skin. His elbows looked as if he had warts all over them!

Our next step was to provide Alex with the proper food. That meant not only wheat and gluten free food, but no egg, barley, oats nuts and all of the things he was allergic to, especially corn! Well, everything made has corn starch or corn syrup in the ingredients. Most people with celiac can eat corn and it is easier to shop, but Alex could not have it at all! We were very limited to what he could eat.

My mother and I started to try and bake without using all those products that seem to be in everything we eat. After much trial and error, we have found some things that are easy to buy, Organic Rice cereal, Rice Bread, Tapioca Bread, all fresh meats, cheeses and vegetables; but tell an 11 year old child he will never again eat chocolate, marshmallows, cookies all the things kids love like hamburgers, unless they are 100% pure beef and lettuce wrapped instead of a bun and with no mayonnaise because of the egg allergies.

We are still adapting to the changes, it is a struggle, but now Alex is feeling much better and has gained 4 pounds. After a year his weight is stable at 74 pounds. Falling of the diet and getting back on also puts you at risk for other diseases and will destroy any progress or healing that your body has done to repair itself. Once you discover that you have it and change your diet, it is important to stick with the right foods.

If you think that you may have similar symptoms to those that were mentioned in this article, ask you doctor about Celiac Disease and getting a blood test done. Most people have it and are unaware. For more information go to www.celiac.com.