The last six months seem to be a whirl of doctors visits.  I went from going once a year for myself to once a week and why you ask well it all started with a sore throat that just wouldn’t go away. 

 At the beginning of September I noticed that it was painful swallowing foods in particular breads and meats (denser items).  At the time I figured it was my allergies acting up and decided to change allergy medications.  Two weeks past and no real changes and so my parents suggested Flonase so I thought I would try that.  It definitely seemed to help my allergies but not my throat.  At that point I decided I better see a doctor as it was not going away.  

First doctor visit;  I started with my family doctor who proceeded to give me a strep test to cover the bases.  Came back negative which I knew it would so she sent me to an ENT.  The ENT did a scope and told me that my vocal cords were inflamed and that even though I wasn’t have symptoms of reflux I was most likely having LPR (silent reflux) so he prescribed me omeprazole and said he would see me in three months.  A week into seeing him I had to call as the omeprazole was causing me to have major headaches so I got switched to Lansoprazole.  He also said I needed to cut back on coffee and alcohol (not that I had much to begin with).  

In the meantime, I also started having menstrual issues (a different blog post to come) and started seeing an OB/GYN.  She after discussing and doing tests found out my iron was extremely low, I was severely anemic.  She said normal is 12, low is 8-11 and any lower is extreme; I was at 6.2.  She later informed me, after it had come up a bit, that I was in heart attack range, thank goodness she didn’t tell me that initially.

A month into taking the pills my throat was a little better but not resolved so I reached out to him and he sent me to a GI Doctor.  The GI doctor listened to everything going on and said we need to do an endoscopy to confirm there isn’t anything else going on and so scheduled it the day before Thanksgiving.  Got up that morning and noticed a rash forming all over my body and so after talking to my GI doctor I got to postpone my endoscopy a week and go to another family doctor to be diagnosed with tinnea versicolor and given a medication that is hard on the liver but should resolve the rash.  

A week later I go in for my endoscopy and mention all the new problems, low iron, rash, etc and ask if its possible (after doing research online) that I have celiac.  He agrees its a very real possibility and says he will check for that while he’s doing the endoscopy.  A week later I get the results and he tells me from the looks of my intestine, the blood work, and the sample that it all confirms that yes I have celiac.  So he tells me start a gluten free diet and we will discuss more after the new year.  So now I’m starting down the path of teaching myself what all celiac entails, relearn to cook/bake, and converting my family to a gluten free lifestyle!