Community: Real Life

My gluten allergy

Ruby Panesar was diagnosed with coeliac disease five years ago. She is highly allergic to gluten, a substance found in wheat. Here's her story.

I had a bad pregnancy, and after the birth of my first child it triggered the symptoms. After the baby was delivered, I had 10 weeks of diarrhoea. I was told not to take any drugs because I was breastfeeding. After I finished breastfeeding I tried all the tablets: diarrhoea tablets, iron tablets, but they didn't work. My GP sent me off to be seen quickly by a consultant gastroenterologist (bowel specialist) because my feet and ankles were swelling up.

I saw the doctor on a Thursday and he told me I was very sick and needed to be hospitalised. I had to arrange childcare, and went in to hospital the following Monday. By this time the swelling had reached over my knees. I had a sigmoidoscopy, where they put a tube up into your colon, but there was no sign of the cause of the problem. Then I had an endoscopy and a biopsy, where I had to swallow a camera. After all this, they told me I had coeliac disease.

They put me straight onto a gluten-free diet and I had to take steroids. I had malnutrition, and the steroids increased my appetite. I already felt a little better by the next day but I have to avoid wheat, rye, oats, and barley for the rest of my life. I feel fine now, and I'm well enough to look after my kids. The restrictions do make me feel frustrated and angry sometimes, and I have to think twice about going out for a meal. Now I get special gluten-free products on prescription like bread, flour and biscuits, and I eat a lot of rice.

Two years before I had my baby I had been thin and always poorly. I was anaemic, always tired, and had wind and sometimes diarrhoea. I had a sore tongue from the anaemia, and poor hair, nails, and teeth.

Celebrities on wheat-free diets don't annoy me. Too much white flour is not good for you, that is the gluten, the sticky stuff. There are other illnesses where a wheat-free diet can be helpful. It's amazing: wheat is in everything from soy sauce to sausages, it's hidden in things.

Updated: 26/10/2006


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