Food or disease: Discovering celiac

Rotavirus

A few weeks after I stopped nursing my first son, he began to get diarrhea. The doctor told me not to worry, he’d never been sick before and he just had bad case of rotavirus. This virus could last for two weeks or more.

But the kid came down with “rotavirus” once a month or so for years. I thought, hey, I barfed a lot as a kid, too.

By 4th grade, he was so skinny the bones in his back stuck out. The last time he came down with the stomach flu, he had terrible cramping and broke out in hives. It never occurred to me that he could have had a food allergy.

Severely underweight, the doctor decided to test him for celiac. Sure enough his blood work came back positive. I’d never heard of celiac. It meant he would never again be able to eat wheat, rye, or barley.

Bread. Birthday cake.  The comfort foods we’ve all been brought up eating. How can he not eat sandwiches or pizza? It’s like dropping out of your own culture.   Reading labels of processed foods, we soon discovered how many items were full of hidden gluten. 

Scientists have linked frequent rotavirus infection to celiac in genetically predisposed children. But for my son, it wasn’t clear when the rotovirus stopped and the celiac began. Apparently, the virus irritates the lining the intestine, resulting in diarrhea and vomiting. For people with HLA DR3-DQ2 haplotypes, most common in people descending from northern and western Europe, this irritation may set them up for a life-long autoimmune response to gluten.

According to the danger theory, this would explain why people could react to food. No one really digests the gluten molecule, and for most people, it passes through the gut silently. But for the person with celiac, the gluten molecule floating around is attacked, mucus mucks up the intestines, and eventually villi is flattened. This results in weight loss and serious nutritional deficiencies.

Perhaps the body recognizes a similarity between the gluten molecule and the rotavirus profile. Either way, forces combine, and the result is a dietary change for life.

It is a blessing this happened when he was so young, because he doesn’t crave brownies or cookies. But he does notice that when everyone else is enjoying the pizza party, there is nothing there for him to eat. It’s worth it though. He hasn’t thrown up in over a year.

For more info: www.celiac.com