Published 19 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b380
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b380

Practice

A Patient’s Journey

Coeliac disease and a gluten-free diet

¹ Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3N 1B2,, ² Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3K 6R8

doi:10.1136/bmj.a3066doi:10.1136/bmj.b491doi:10.1136/bmj.a3058

A woman who had symptoms of coeliac disease from childhood describes how her life improved markedly once the disease was diagnosed­ in her 20s

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The day my physician gave me the most powerful tool that doctors have—a diagnosis—marked the point when my journey living with coeliac disease began. For years I had had chronic abdominal pain and vague gastrointestinal symptoms. As a child, I never slept on my stomach because it was always sore. When I was a teenager, my symptoms worsened (possibly related to an increasing reliance on pizzas). I was generally unwell and developed a chronic iron deficiency anaemia that was refractory to oral iron supplements. My physicians—general practitioners and gastroenterologists—would take a history then prescribe a therapeutic dose of barium (to both ends) to reassure themselves that they had not missed a diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease.

As the barium cycle was repeated, I realised that medicine is the art not of making a diagnosis but of ruling one out, with special attention to the rare and deadly (I was once . . . [Full text of this article]

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