Celiac Disease: A Serious, Life-Changing Condition

I met Paul Graham courtesy of one of his essays.  Then, we talked by phone and I read – no devoured – his book, In Memory of Bread: A Memoir. Pardon the pun. Paul is a professor of English Department at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY and on July 1 becomes Department Chair. He focuses on fiction and non-fiction creative writing and lives with his wife, Bec and their German shepherds.
Paul, your book is the best description I’ve read about the challenges of being diagnosed with celiac. Can you summarize what happened? Given your experience, what recommendations would you have for clinicians? Should celiac be suspected more than it is? 
My experience was unusual for people with celiac disease. There’s typically a long path to a diagnosis—as long as six years in the US, which is a long time to be suffering and wondering what’s wrong. My onset was actually pretty sudden. Over the holidays in 2012, I came down with what I thought was a stomach bug. My doctor put me on Cipro, and I took that for a week and still felt awful. Then he put me on another antibiotic, Bactrim, and when that didn’t work, Flagyl.
I was allergic to Flagyl and wound up in the ER, where bloodwork showed that I was severely anemic, though they didn’t know why. They sent me home with iron supplements and basically said, “Good luck, buddy.” No one suspected celiac yet, so I kept eating gluten in the form of things I thought would be gentle on my gut, like toast and pasta. I had...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - June 5, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs