Symptoms, diagnosis and how a dietitian can help you
Coeliac disease is an immune disease exacerbated by gluten, which is a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats. It affects roughly 1 in 100 people.
Coeliac sufferers are afflicted with inflammation and damage to the small intestine when they consume gluten. This can result in nutritional deficiencies in addition to physical discomfort.
When left untreated, coeliac disease can cause considerable bowel damage and lead other health problems such as osteoporosis and iron deficiency anaemia.
Symptoms can vary considerably in suffers, but the only way to treat the disease and minimise bowel damage is to maintain a strict gluten-free diet.
There are many, many misconceptions around coeliac disease.
A number of people may report being ‘allergic to gluten’ when it may be a case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome – in which case it’s not the gluten that the problem.
Avoiding gluten when you’re not a sufferer of coeliac disease leads to unnecessarily restricting your diet of certain foods that may otherwise be suitable for you to consume!
What are the symptoms of coeliac disease?
Coeliac disease can cause one or more of the following symptoms:
- Gastrointestinal symptoms (such as diarrhoea, constipation, nausea, flatulence, vomiting, cramping, bloating, abdominal pain)
- Fatigue / lethargy / weakness
- Anaemia and/or other vitamin and mineral deficiencies
- Weight loss (although some people may in fact gain weight)
- Bone/ joint pains
- Recurrent mouth ulcers and/or swelling of mouth or tongue
- Decreased mental alertness / increased irritability
- Skin rashes such as dermatitis herpetiformis
- Easy skin bruising
- Failure to thrive / delayed puberty in children
People with early a family history of coeliac disease, onset osteoporosis or unexplained fertility may also benefit from being screened.
As you can see, this is a long list and many of these symptoms could also be attributed to other causes. Therefore it’s essential that you actually receive a diagnosis of coeliac disease before potentially jumping to conclusions and omitting gluten from your diet.
How can I get diagnosed for coeliac disease?
Getting screened for coeliac disease generally involves three steps:
- Continuation eating gluten (so that testing can give accurate results on how it is affecting your body – don’t stop eating gluten if you want to get tested)
- A series of blood tests to measure antibody levels which may indicate the presence of coeliac disease
- Depending on the blood test results, a small bowel biopsy to investigate the presence of bowel damage (a very brief and safe surgical procedure) may be required
How a dietitian can help you
Once a diagnosis of coeliac disease has been obtained, a dietitian can help you put together a food plan to make sure that you get all the right nutrients that have been lost by having to omit foods which contain gluten.
A dietitian will also teach you to identify gluten-laden culprits on food labels, which is essential as gluten is in many products and can be known by a number of different names.
This may involve replacing wheat, rye, barley and oats with gluten free grains such as buckwheat, rice and millet, for example.
Cutting out gluten free foods from your diet forever may seem really daunting, but with professional help it can be easy to see how to make healthy changes and maintain a well-balanced diet.
Not to mention how much better you will be feeling after going on a gluten free diet -IF you have been diagnosed with coeliac disease.
If you’re concerned that you may have coeliac disease, or have been recently diagnosed and need some help in switching to a new, gluten-free diet, why not book in for a consultation with me?
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