celiac disease By Dr: Behrouz Hashim
What is celiac disease?
Celiac disease is a disorder that causes problems in your intestines when you eat gluten, which is in wheat, rye, barley and oats. Gluten is poison to people with celiac disease.
What are the symptoms
Symptoms of this disease vary from person to person. Symptoms may occur in the digestive system or in other parts of the body. Digestive symptoms are more common in infants and young children that may include:
- abdominal bloating and pain
- chronic diarrhea
- vomiting
- constipation
- pale, foul smelling or fatty stool
- weight loss
Adults are less likely to have digestive symptoms and may instead have one or more of the following:
- unexplained iron deficiency
- fatigue
- bone or joint pain
- arthritis
- bone loss or osteoporosis
- depression or anxiety
- tingling numbness in hands or feet
- seizures
- missed menstrual periods
- infertility or recurrent miscarriage
- canker sores inside the mouth
- an itchy skin rash called dermatitis herpetiformis
What does gluten do to people with celiac disease?
Gluten damages the intestine of people with celiac disease. The damage keeps your body from taking in many of the nutrients in the food you eat. These include vitamins, calcium,protein, carbohydrates, fats and other important nutrients. Your body cannot work well without these nutrients.
What happens to people with celiac disease?
Celiac disease can cause different problems at different times:
- An infant with celiac disease may have abdominal pain and diarrhea and may fail to grow and gain weight.
- A young child may have abdominal pain with nausea and lack of appetite, anemia, mouth sores and allergic dermatitis.
- A child could be irritable, fretful, emotionally withdrawn or excessively dependent.
- In later stages, a child may become malnourished, with or without vomiting and diarrhea. This would cause the child to have a large tummy, thin thigh muscles and flat buttocks.
- Teenagers may hit puberty late and be short. Celiac disease might cause some hair loss.
- Lactose intolerance is common in patients of all ages with celiac disease.
- An itchy, blistery skin problem is also a common problem in people who have celiac disease.