What is it?
What is Celiac Sprue Disease? Well, simply put it is an autoimmune disease that causes damage to your small intestine. In the big picture it is so much more than just that. I’ll start off by telling you what is happening to your body when you’re an undiagnosed celiac. As I stated, Celiac Disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder. This means your immune system is just a bit off and gets really confused about alot of stuff. Gluten is a binding protein found in the grains of wheat, rye, barley and oats. The immune system mistakenly views gluten as an attacking foreign body. It’s job is to protect you so that’s exactly what it does…. acting on the misinformation it sends out antibodies to attack and destroy the gluten molecules thus saving you and doing a magnificent job in it’s opinion. Sadly, your immune system is working with bad intel and the antibodies truly end up stripping the villi that line your small intestine. The villi are small finger like projectiles that are attached to the lining of your small intestine. Ingenious little things they are, too. Every tiny little bit of surface space is set up to absorb nutrients and since there are so many they offer your body the ability to absorb many times more nutrients then could be accomplished with just a flat tissue lining the small intestine. However, if anything ever happens to these precious villi you can no longer absorb the nutrients from your food and malabsorption will set in if enough time passes and enough villi are destroyed. This is bad news for you. Without proper nutrition the body begins to falter…. every organ is affected. Symptoms can vary with the wind with Celiac and this is what makes it so difficult to diagnose. Each person will react in a different way because each person’s body is different. Some people may show gastric symptoms with chronic diarrhea, bloating and nausea. Others may show nerve damage or intense joint pain. Others may develop intensely itchy rashes and blisters on the skin. Others may have little to no symptoms at all. The combination of symptoms is seemingly endless. In the early stages of the disease when the majority of the villi are still healthy and intact it is normal to not suffer from a large amount of symptoms. Celiac Disease is the most commonly misdiagnosed disease. The reason is because of what I just stated. With so many varying symptoms, which very easily fall under other diseases, it is common for a person to actually have Celiac but to get diagnosed with another disease all together. Sadly, the person will not get better but only worse. IBS and Chron’s Disease are commonly diagnosed when a Celiac seeks help while the Celiac Disease remains invisible. The tragic part of this is that the longer one has Celiac Disease and is not treating it with the gluten free diet the more diseases will appear thus further complicating the diagnosis problem. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disease. Your immune system is enraged and looking for fights to satisfy it’s need to protect you. It gets put into overdrive. As time passes, it will find ways to “protect” you. Typically, going after neighbors on the same gene. It is common for Type 1 Diabetics to, also, have Celiac Disease. This is because the Celiac Disease has thrown the immune system into overdrive and it went looking for a fight. Sadly, it found the Islet of Langerhaus cells housed within the pancreas. It finds them to be a tad bit too suspicious and goes about ridding the body of these cells. These are the cells that produce the hormone known as insulin which controls and stabilizes the body’s blood sugar level. The insulin acts as a key to open the cells of the body to allow the carbs and sugars to be taken into the cells and converted for energy. If there is no insulin to open the doors to these cells then the sugars build up in the blood and the cells are forced to find other things to convert for energy. They go after fat and muscle which in the end can be fatal. A diabetic is born and the Celiac Disease is still lying in wait poking the immune system with a stick. As more time passes, more fights will be picked and more cells, tissues and organs will fall prey to the enraged immune system and more diseases will develop. This process will not stop until you are eating a gluten free diet and the immune system can finally sit back, kick it’s feet up and relax for the first time in years. What is really tragic and heartbreaking is that the diseases that follow are always worse then the Celiac itself. I will continue this at a later date so please check back soon.