|
|
What is Celiac Disease?
I'm going to tell you in my own words what celiac disease is. Just remember that I am 11 years old ;) I'm gonna keep it simple. For more complicated stuff you can check out "Our Favorite Resources" page. When you have Celiac Disease you can't eat gluten. Ready for some reading? To learn about this we have to read alot. I hope you like to read ;) Well, what is gluten? The answer to that question is W.R.O.B. (think of the name Rob with a "W" before it...good way to remember that one).
Pretty kewl, huh? Wheat is what is used to make bread, noodles, cookies, cakes and all kinds of other things. Sometimes it's used to thicken gravy and fruit fillings and it's in some soy sauce. Barley malt can be used to sweeten things like rice crispies. So, when you have Celiac Disease you can't eat gluten. If you eat gluten it can make you sick. For some people it makes you sick very quickly. You can get bellyaches, it can make you puke or get the trots (yah know, diarrhea). Before I learned I had Celiac I had these things sometimes, but I mostly had problems that took a bit to show up. I wasn't going #2 enough and when I did it was like ghost busters slime with coconut and burned real bad. I know, T.M.I.! Sorry about that, but we have to be kinda open with this disease to learn from each other. I also had LOTS of ear infections and sore throats. I even had some pretty bad motor tics (I'd clear my throat alot and make funny noises for no reason). I had to see an allergist that had me on all kinds of medicine in a nebulizer and allergy pills. I had to take this stuff called, prednisone too. My mom said it made me a crazy, crabby little girl. My belly was swollen all the time and my hair didn't grow good at all. It would break really easy, too. Even though my belly was really big the rest of my body was really skinny. I talked about a few symptoms, but this page tells about over 300 symptoms: Click Me. 300!! Isn't that crazy!? So, yeah. My mom made them test me for a bunch of things and we found out I had Celiac Disease. After I started eating gluten-free, every single one of my problems went away except the motor tics; those got MUCH better though. Why does gluten make us Celiacs get sick? 
Well, you know how when you get germs on your hands and you touch your mouth and face you can get colds, flu and tummy-flu? Your immune system can see these germs like a microscope and starts attacking the germs. This attack can make you get the trots and have lots of mucous...thats how the body gets rid of the sick bugs fast so they can't harm you. You are sick for a while but eventually your body kills and gets rid of the microscopic germs and you get better. Some scientists say that gluten looks really close to those germs under a microscope. When people evolved some of them got a gene, the celiac gene, that helped their immune system find more sick bugs than most people. It's kinda like our immune systems are just too smart for thier own good. Since gluten looks like a sick bug, when we eat gluten, your body thinks its a germ and it attacks it to kill it. Only its really wheat, rye or barley and you keep eating those all the time. Your body keeps attacking it and trying to get rid of it with the trots and mucous. Fun times! NOT! My friends ask me why I can't just eat a little gluten. Why not? That's because our immune system is really smart. It can see microscopic germs so even a little gluten is bad for us, even a crumb. My mom always asks people that wonder this question, "The last stomach-flu virus you had, was it the size of a chocolate chip cookie? Nope. It was so small you couldn't even see it. If you could you wouldn't have ate it or put it up your nose." She is funny, right??! If you cheat and eat gluten, you might not feel sick right away...then again you might. Even if you don't "feel" sick, your body is dealing with a crisis inside. It's still bad news. If you keep eating gluten, it's going to start making you sick again like before you went gluten-free. |