After nearly 10 years of wondering, we finally have a clinical diagnosis of celiac disease for our middle child, Noah. As a nursing baby, Noah, was extremely reactive to meals that I ate that were high in gluten. We would later realize that it was not just the gluten in some of these meals, but a tricky combination of gluten, dairy, eggs and soy — all foods that would ultimately prove to be a problem for him. Over the years, people would often say to me, "How did you ever figure it out?"
I have to say I had a few things going for me that really helped including the fact that I had food allergies to tree nuts since my childhood and that I was a stay-at-home mom with only one other child at the time. As a newborn, Noah would cry inconsolably for six hours straight when I ate a meal high in gluten and other allergens. He would also develop a dry skin rash that was distinct from eczema and these meals (that I was eating) also dramatically impacted his bowel movements.
The first time I asked our then pediatrician if Noah might have celiac disease, he practically laughed me out of the office stating emphatically that Noah’s chances for having celiac disease was one in 500 million!! According to the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Program the actual prevalence of celiac disease is one in 133 Americans. At six months, the pediatrician told me that I should start giving Noah baby oats mixed in with his baby rice cereal. I followed this advice and the first meal that Noah had the baby oats he also had projectile vomiting immediately after I took him out of the high chair. Missing the “new food” and vomiting connection, I chalked it off to the fact that I must have jostled him when getting him out of the high chair.
Once a day I gave him baby oats and each time he had projectile vomit. After the fourth time (four days in a row), a light bulb finally went off in my head. He had no fever, no cough, no runny nose, no rashes, and no sign of any cold whatsoever except once time over the last four days he had projectile vomit. Could it be the new food? Could it be the baby oats making him vomit? I had to admit it was hard to imagine, but clearly he was not sick, and the possibility of it being the baby oats seemed plausible. Eventually we would figure out that wheat, oats, barley and rye (the gluten connection), all dairy, eggs, peanuts and tree-nuts all bothered Noah sufficiently to produce a visible physical symptom or behavior that no one could miss.
Article comments
1 - Anna Wrafter
A very heartening article! And an experience shared by too many.