Coeliac Disease

Hi everyone! I thought I’d use this post to explain a little bit about what coeliac disease actually is. When I came home from the hospital I did a bit of research to see what it was all about and if it could be a valid explanation. 

Coeliac disease is defined as a disease in which the small intestines is hypersensitive to gluten, leading to difficulty digesting food and absorbing vital nutrients. The reaction is caused by a protein found in wheat, barely, rye and oats and affects so much more than just your digestive system.

Before I started the gluten free diet, I actually had no idea how much food contained gluten, I still get people asking me what I can and can’t have and they’re usually shocked at the different types of things I can’t have. It’s easy to forget about things like gravy or other sauces but the reality is you have to check every single thing you put into your body as the ingredients may surprise you.

Things containing gluten include; pasta, bread, sauces, cereals, cakes, biscuits and some types of alcohol too. So it’s definitely hard to get used to but once you do it’s so easy, once you get the hang of that, you then have to remember that even non gluten containing foods can be contaminated with the way they have been cooked so you have to be very careful with that too but I’ll go more in detail with that in another post.

This picture shows all the symptoms of coeliac disease. Some people may get all of them, or just a few and some people don’t suffer any symptoms at all. This is when all the damage is just internal. I ticked off a lot of the symptoms and a lot of them I didn’t even know I had untill I did this research.  That might sound confusing but what I mean by that is that when I googled the symptoms of coeliac disease I was actually shocked to find that I suffered from quite a lot of symptoms and I didn’t even realize they weren’t normal.

I got so used to feeling so rubbish that it became normal.  When I really thought about it, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had a day where I didn’t have a headache, stomach ache, issues going to the toilet, (sorry for tmi) or even just feeling generally exhausted. That’s the scary thing because I probably would have never gone to the doctors about it if it wasn’t for the throat infections and ulcers when in actual fact I should have because it definitely wasn’t normal to feel that way and I know that now.

I have so much more information to share about coeliac disease but I don’t want to bore you with a very long post so I’ll update you in my next one.

Feedback will always be welcome, I would love to know what you all think so far and if there’s anything you would like to see me write about then please let me know 😊

Thank you for reading, wishing you all positive vibes x