Celiac disease to be taken seriously

When I was about 10 I was diagnosed with a disease called celiac, a hereditary disease that makes it so I am not able to eat gluten.

There are some people I meet who say, “I’m allergic to gluten.” I felt sorry for them, I understood how they felt. But the next day I would watch them eat gluten and I know that they aren’t like me, they just prefer the life of no gluten.

When I eat gluten my immune system starts attacking itself. For some people you don’t experience anything but mild intestinal pains, but for others — like my cousin and aunt and my mom —they experience migraines, fever and just get violently ill. These symptoms may last days. But it takes much longer for your intestines to heal. In the long run, your intestines may take months or even years to heal. If it happens too often this may lead to cancer and other serious diseases.

It is estimated that 1 out of 100 people in the world have celiac disease and they don’t even know it. It could change. Since the disease is hereditary I got tested when I was little and I didn’t have it. My mom got tested for it later in life and she had it despite the past test, so we tested our whole family a second time. I just want people to be aware that there is a difference between gluten intolerance and celiac. We need to take this seriously.

This story was originally published January 4, 2017 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Celiac disease to be taken seriously."