My Story

[mike]

Hello everyone this is my first post on this forum and I hope it's in the right place if not then I do apologize in advance. Anyway I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to share my story with you all in hopes of meeting others like myself as well as possibly receiving some advise form those of you that have been through all of this before.

I want to start out by apologizing in advance for the length of this message but I will try to keep it as short as possible while still being as descriptive as I can, and with that being said this is my story.

I am a 33yr old male currently living in Knoxville TN and up until mid 2005 was a fairly healthy person who's only real concern was from my psoriasis which I pretty much had learned to live with, but all of this seemed to change in the summer of 2005 where I first noticed my intermittent stomach problems which took a turn for the worse in December of last year when I contacted a mild form of the flu which for some unknown reason set off in me what could only be explained as a "sever panic attack" where I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

Anyway, ever since that time I have constantly been having the symptoms listed below and went to various doctors who have all said pretty much the same thing which is that I suffer from anxiety and depression disorder and if I just learned to cope with stress better and took depression medication I could eventually get better, but I did not really accept that diagnosis so I finally took it upon myself to go and see a gastrologist who listened to my symptoms and decided I need to have a fiber sigmoidoscopy and upper endoscopy performed which was done on the 11th of this month and these are my results.

Fiber Sigmoidoscopy: Normal sigmoidoscopy to the splenic flexure.

Upper Endoscopy: Erythema in the antrum (biopsy) , Atrophy in the 2nd and 3rd part of the duodenum (biopsy)

Recommendation: Await pathology results

Anyway after the test were done and the results were viewed the Dr. came out to me in the recovery area and said even though the results for the biopsies have not come back he thought I had what was called celiac sprue disease (which ofcourse I had never heard of before) and so here I am waiting the results of my biopsies and reading all I can about this disease and trying to find some new friends who seem to share the same symptoms that have been plaguing me for the past 2 1/2 years and this is the first site I found on this journey and hoping it might be somewhere I can call home for awhile and that my friends is my story.


Thanks for reading,
Mike


For the sake of completeness here is a list my current symptoms and approximately the length I have had them:

- Psoriasis (10+ years)

- excessive stomach pain/bloating/gas (past 2 1/2 years but noticeably worse since last Dec)
- stomach always growling (past 2 1/2 years but noticeably worse since last Dec)
- constipation (past 2 1/2 years but noticeably worse since last Dec)
- diarrhea (past 2 1/2 years but noticeably worse since last Dec)
- nausea (past 2 1/2 years but noticeably worse since last Dec)

- a pinkish / reddish sore on the inside of my mouth (off and on again over the past 2 years)

- vision impairment (past 7 months)

- unexplained weight loss (past 5 months)
- insomnia (past 5 months)
- dry mouth / throat (past 5 months)

- fatigue (past 4 months)
- anxiety (past 4 months)
- tachycardia (past 4 months)
- L5/S1 disc herniation (4 months ago)

- constant nasal congestion (past 3 months)

- unexplained bruising (yellow to light green in color) (first noticed about 2 months ago)

[aklap]

Hi Mike,

Welcome to the board!

No worries on which place to put this post, it's kind of hard to tell some times. However, you might consider adding it to Our Path's to Gluten Free-dom Thread. It's a place where others have shared their stories about their journey to gluten free-dom. I think it'd fit perfectly Thanks for sharing your nicely detailed and well explained story. I find that our stories can be quite helpful to others in their own Knowledge Quests.

Sorry to hear you had to suffer so long with these issues. Depression, anxiety, depression med - it's all too familiar in our world - sadly. The medical community has a lot to learn when it comes to CD. They tend to treat the symptoms and not find the root of the problem.

Kudos to the doc that thought to check for Celiac Disease!!

Do you know, did they run a series of blood work on you? It's often called a Celiac Panel.

Glad you stopped to hang out for awhile. I think you'll find lots of caring, compassion & community here. Please don't be afraid to ask questions. There's many years of experience here I'm glad that you are being proactive about this and willing to expand your knowledge. When it comes to CD, Knowledge means health. The more you know about yourself, this disease, your food, the better you'll feel

Please keep us updated on your test results!!
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[mrsppmrxky]

Mike, welcome to our little family. You will find lots of practical advice and support for getting aquainted with your new way of life.
_________________

[mike]

Thanks everyone for the replies and aklap they did not do any bloodwork yet but I am still ingesting gluten just in case they want to do so and I should get my biopsy results back within a week. I will let you all know the results and thanks again for reading this.

Cheers,
Mike

[mike]

Hello again everyone I just got my results back from my biopsy and thought I might share them with you so here is a quote from my results.

[WestWalker]

[quote="mike"]Hello again everyone I just got my results back from my biopsy and thought I might share them with you so here is a quote from my results.