Hospitals – are they good for you?

As a newly diagnosed Coeliac I was directed to follow a gluten free diet a couplw month ago while waiting for my hospital appointment to come through. Three weeks ago (on a Sunday!) I went to the hospital to see the consultant. Apparently all the indications are indeed that I have Coeliac Disease – but he wants to know for sure, which means a little biopsy and so I need to be in a suitable state of reaction against the gluten. It all sounded quite reasonable at the time but the result was that I needed to have a normal (gluten) diet for about six weeks and on reflection that is a bit like being instructed to eat a little bit of poison every day! It also means that rather than being 1 month into the likely 2-3 month recovery time I am looking at about 5 months before I can feel I am that stage.

So not too happy about that – oh well!

(Update) In the end the biopsy appointment came through more quickly and happened last week. Not a lot of fun. But I do now feel much happier to be back on my Gluten free diet. Another eight week wait now for the consultant to tell me the result. In the meantime the GP says that he would recommend Gluten free in any case if I do feel better but I will withhold judgement on that.

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It isn’t contagious!

I discovered today that I have got Coeliac disease. This is the more extreme version of Gluten intolerance and means that for the rest of my life I should avoid wheat products and be careful with what I eat. The disorder effects how well I can absorb nutrients from food and among its classic symptoms are weight-loss and fatigue. In my case I had lost about a stone for no apparent reason and had gone from always needing to go to bed to fall asleep to nodding off whenever I close my eyes in the evening. I thought this was just getting on a bit and it may still be. Anyway from now on it is no more wheat for me – just as well we had managed to get in our holiday in Brittany with baguettes, croissants and crepes!

So to those people who said I was looking a bit tired then they had got a point. Now I am hoping for a rapid recovery on no more gluten and will probably avoid the work refectory for a while.