Celiac disease and sports injuries?

[doron]

Hi everyone,

Is there documented link between celiac disease and gym/sport-related injuries? I'm a recently diagnosed celiac and I'm wondering if the reason I have so many injuries (which won't go away even after months of rehab) is the celiac disease.

Basically, I have ongoing pain in a number of areas in my body (left shoulder, right hamstring, left Achilles). The specialist and physio I've seen both think it is tendinitis, but I've been doing the recommended rehab and stretches for it for about 10 months and it's not going away.

1. The injuries started around August 2016. 
2. Around March 2017 (so, well after the injuries), I started getting really sick and I was diagnosed with celiac disease. I've been gluten free since April (4 months) and the 'sickness' symptoms are gone but my injuries are still here.
3. It kind of feels like every time I do exercise, something new goes off in my body. And I'm not training like an idiot or anything - before this I was training for 10 years without any injuries.

At this point I am kindof hoping to god it's because of the celiac disease and that the injuries will sort themselves out once I finish healing (which I understand takes over 6 months?). Otherwise I have no idea what to do because I've been to the sports-doctor and physio a trillion times, I've spent a million hours doing rehab and there's basically no improvement. 

I just wanted to know whether anyone else has experienced the same thing and if you have any advice

[kareng]

1 hour ago, doron said:

Hi everyone,

Is there documented link between celiac disease and gym/sport-related injuries? I'm a recently diagnosed celiac and I'm wondering if the reason I have so many injuries (which won't go away even after months of rehab) is the celiac disease.

Basically, I have ongoing pain in a number of areas in my body (left shoulder, right hamstring, left Achilles). The specialist and physio I've seen both think it is tendinitis, but I've been doing the recommended rehab and stretches for it for about 10 months and it's not going away.

1. The injuries started around August 2016. 
2. Around March 2017 (so, well after the injuries), I started getting really sick and I was diagnosed with celiac disease. I've been gluten free since April (4 months) and the 'sickness' symptoms are gone but my injuries are still here.
3. It kind of feels like every time I do exercise, something new goes off in my body. And I'm not training like an idiot or anything - before this I was training for 10 years without any injuries.

At this point I am kindof hoping to god it's because of the celiac disease and that the injuries will sort themselves out once I finish healing (which I understand takes over 6 months?). Otherwise I have no idea what to do because I've been to the sports-doctor and physio a trillion times, I've spent a million hours doing rehab and there's basically no improvement. 

I just wanted to know whether anyone else has experienced the same thing and if you have any advice

Celiac messes with your ability to " absorb" the nutrients in your food.  Nutrient/ vitamin deficiencies and cause lots of problems.   As your small intestines heal, you should be able to use the nutrients in your food better.  

[tessa25]

My tendons have a tendoncy to tear. Been going to PT for one reason or another for about 4 years. I've Been gluten free for two years and my blood test numbers are still slowly heading down. I recently managed to go 6 months without a new injury and my injury from 2 weeks ago is almost gone. Always figured it was due to malnutrition. Celiac confirmed it to me. I take it easy at the gym and have noticed less Oops moments there recently.

 

[cyclinglady]

Two months after my celiac disease diagnosis (age 51), I fractured two vertebrae doing NOTHING!  It was a result of osteoporosis that I had not been aware of -- thanks to celiac disease.    As a swimmer, cyclist and runner, I was devastated.  I was and still am very active.  

I took a year off of biking riding and running (trails) due to fall risks and impact.  Instead, I focused on gentle exercises like walking.  Boring?  Yes.  But it gave me time to heal (absorbing nutrients, building bone and recovering from anemia).  After a year, I was back on my bike (road,  no more dirt), and running (trails, but carefully).  Swimming was a lifesaver.  Ask any swimmer, who swims exclusively and is old,  and they will tell you that they have their original knees and hips, unlike their counterparts who do more impact exercise.  

So, back off, give yourself time to heal (we all heal at different rates so I can not give you a defined time) and soon you will be back to working out at the level you like and at the sport you love.  

 

[kymbp]

There might be a correlation because I started having problems with tendinitis and bursitis around the same time I was diagnosed.

I think the inflammation is what exasperates the problems. Accidental exposures and cumulative micro-exposures prolong the problems. 

Try adding more anti-inflammatory foods and teas into your diet.

[doron]

Thank you everyone for your replies!

I think I'll go get a blood test and see if I can get some indication whether my nutrient levels are low etc.

 

[apprehensiveengineer]

Hey,

So I ran collegiate track and cross-country and trained at a high level while undiagnosed. Had I not been an elite level athlete, I do not think I would have been so insistent that there was something wrong with me. I suffered many stress fractures and had a lot of problems with anemia, but also had a lot of soft tissue injuries as well (herniated lumbar disc, achilles tear, plantar fasciitis, ITBS to name a few). Not to scare you, but the two years since diagnosis have been a rollercoaster for me in terms of training - I have found myself in the best shape of my life, but I have also found myself so sick and/or injured that I have trouble walking to the bus stop (sometimes within weeks of each other!).

In sport medicine/exercise physiology, the newer school of thought on injuries is that they are not purely a product of biomechanical problems, but rather energy balance problems. Essentially, if what you're doing physically exceeds your body's capacity to repair it or compensate for it, you will become injured in the area that is your weakest point biomechanically-speaking. This can come about from both overtraining or poor nutritional status. In a healthy person, poor nutritional status is usually a case of disordered eating/not fueling correctly for sports, but for a celiac things are more complicated since you have a fundamental problem with nutrient absorption and a necessarily restricted diet, all of which can lead to poor nutritional status. Unfortunately, the spheres of knowledge for celiac disease and sports physiology do not overlap much in healthcare. 

Others have given you good advice about the medical side of things - get your vitamin and mineral levels checked. I will offer you that I have had a lot of minor/insidious injury problems in the  last two years, mostly aligned with periods of unwellness. The other thing I suspect played into my issues is that I suddenly saw a significant and unprecedented increase in fitness a few months post-diagnosis. Although I was very careful to try not to increase my training load, inevitably I did so unintentionally - without trying harder, I was just much faster because my body was not longer spending most of its energy/time on whatever autoimmune nonsense. To most this speed increase might have been trivial, but when you magnify to high mileage or training loads, minor changes matter. I imagine that on a cellular, internal level, my body was not phased too much, but my skeletal system was not prepared for this bump up, and couldn't repair itself and so I became injured.

My advice would be keep at physio. Although nutrition does play into your injury status, fixing that alone won't likely cure your body's ails once you already have an injury.

[mikemcm22]

@doronI see this was 2017.... did your injuries get better? I am in the exact same boat. Left achilles tendinitis that won't go away, right hamstring injury that prevents me from any sort of leg day, bad lower back, and some shoulder issues. I am four months gluten free right now but still have some dietary issues (was diagnosed for two years so some other thigns came up). Am 25 now but was a college athlete at one point and my current limitations are ridiculous. This thread seems to indicate eventually things do get better. 

[cyclinglady]

3 hours ago, mikemcm22 said:

@doronI see this was 2017.... did your injuries get better? I am in the exact same boat. Left achilles tendinitis that won't go away, right hamstring injury that prevents me from any sort of leg day, bad lower back, and some shoulder issues. I am four months gluten free right now but still have some dietary issues (was diagnosed for two years so some other thigns came up). Am 25 now but was a college athlete at one point and my current limitations are ridiculous. This thread seems to indicate eventually things do get better. 

Things will get better.  Just give the diet time.  As far as your injuries go.  Take it easy.  Soon, you will get back to normal.  Listen to your body.  This is a time to baby yourself.  Get rest and build up your immune system.  If you do not?  Just wait until you are 60. You will regret being so impatient!

This is from a lady who still rides her bike 30 miles at a time, runs three miles, gardens and teaches exercise classes (well....not anymore due to COVID-19)  and I am old!  

[mikemcm22]

21 hours ago, cyclinglady said:

Things will get better.  Just give the diet time.  As far as your injuries go.  Take it easy.  Soon, you will get back to normal.  Listen to your body.  This is a time to baby yourself.  Get rest and build up your immune system.  If you do not?  Just wait until you are 60. You will regret being so impatient!

This is from a lady who still rides her bike 30 miles at a time, runs three miles, gardens and teaches exercise classes (well....not anymore due to COVID-19)  and I am old!  

Thanks, I know a lot of it is time. But its been so long! A lot of what I read on here has actually given me some hope for the first time in a while. 

[Laura JJ]

I have had multiple tendonitis episodes, tendon tears and 2 surgeries to repair tendons during my adult life.  I was diagnosed with celiac diseas in 2012 and have been consistantly gluten free.  I stopped tearing tendons, but I still get tendonitis problems.  There is usually at least 1 area that is painful, but the spots move around.  There is 1 very interesting article on this subject and I sure wish that more research could be done.  Check out this link.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10067-014-2534-1

 

[cyclinglady]

28 minutes ago, Laura JJ said:

I have had multiple tendonitis episodes, tendon tears and 2 surgeries to repair tendons during my adult life.  I was diagnosed with celiac diseas in 2012 and have been consistantly gluten free.  I stopped tearing tendons, but I still get tendonitis problems.  There is usually at least 1 area that is painful, but the spots move around.  There is 1 very interesting article on this subject and I sure wish that more research could be done.  Check out this link.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10067-014-2534-1

 

Ever take any antibiotics?  One class of them has a black box warning (severest warning from the FDA) concerning tendinitis and tendons rupturing.  
 

https://www.webmd.com/osteoarthritis/news/20080708/fda-warning-cipro-may-rupture-tendons

[Julie D.]

Wow!  This is an aha moment for me!  I have recently found out that I am definitely either Celiac or gluten intolerant.  I have had so many injuries lately so I just googled injury and Celiac and found this.  We have the same injuries!   I am 57 now.  In college, I had a bad tear of my hamstring where it attaches to the bone.  A few years later, I had a bad ACL tear - completely tore off the bone.  That hamstring tear still hurt when I was in my 50's (yes, 30 years later).  It stopped hurting when I went on a gluten free diet at age 57.  Since age 50, I started playing tennis and and have broken my ankle and wrist (surgery), tore my ACL (again) and meniscus (surgery again on same knee), tore my other hamstring (at the ligament attachment to the bone), had shoulder issues, and now have a very tight, sore Achilles.  I have also found that when I wake up in the morning, I have very stiff, sore ankles and knees and walk like an old lady!  The good news is, that I gave up gluten in June, 2019 and so many things got better!!  Aches and pains in morning disappeared, 30 year old hamstring injury pain left,  3 year old hamstring injury started feeling better, shoulder pain went away.  I went back on gluten recently to take the blood test (in 2 weeks) for celiac and that's when my Achilles and shoulder started giving me pain again and my morning aches and pains are back (not to mention the brain fog, constipation, restless legs, hot flashes, etc.  So, yes, it's a thing!   Thank you so much for the post and the comments!  I'm hopeful that on a gluten free diet I can get back to tennis!  

[brianm1]

On 8/26/2020 at 1:41 PM, Julie D. said:

Wow!  This is an aha moment for me!  I have recently found out that I am definitely either Celiac or gluten intolerant.  I have had so many injuries lately so I just googled injury and Celiac and found this.  We have the same injuries!   I am 57 now.  In college, I had a bad tear of my hamstring where it attaches to the bone.  A few years later, I had a bad ACL tear - completely tore off the bone.  That hamstring tear still hurt when I was in my 50's (yes, 30 years later).  It stopped hurting when I went on a gluten free diet at age 57.  Since age 50, I started playing tennis and and have broken my ankle and wrist (surgery), tore my ACL (again) and meniscus (surgery again on same knee), tore my other hamstring (at the ligament attachment to the bone), had shoulder issues, and now have a very tight, sore Achilles.  I have also found that when I wake up in the morning, I have very stiff, sore ankles and knees and walk like an old lady!  The good news is, that I gave up gluten in June, 2019 and so many things got better!!  Aches and pains in morning disappeared, 30 year old hamstring injury pain left,  3 year old hamstring injury started feeling better, shoulder pain went away.  I went back on gluten recently to take the blood test (in 2 weeks) for celiac and that's when my Achilles and shoulder started giving me pain again and my morning aches and pains are back (not to mention the brain fog, constipation, restless legs, hot flashes, etc.  So, yes, it's a thing!   Thank you so much for the post and the comments!  I'm hopeful that on a gluten free diet I can get back to tennis!  

I am not sure why you went back on gluten and are taking tests?  If you were feeling good off gluten, why not just stay off?

[trents]

24 minutes ago, brianm1 said:

I am not sure why you went back on gluten and are taking tests?  If you were feeling good off gluten, why not just stay off?

Many people need official confirmation of celiac disease in order to stay on track with their gluten-free diet. It can be easy to rationalize it as due to something else or coincidence if there is improvement when going off gluten. An official diagnosis can also be relationally advantageous in a relational sense. Family, friends and physicians may be more reluctant to dismiss you as a head case.

[brianm1]

45 minutes ago, trents said:

Many people need official confirmation of celiac disease in order to stay on track with their gluten-free diet. It can be easy to rationalize it as due to something else or coincidence if there is improvement when going off gluten. An official diagnosis can also be relationally advantageous in a relational sense. Family, friends and physicians may be more reluctant to dismiss you as a head case.

thank you so much for your reply!

 

[Asaded]

It is a pity that some people have to suffer from an illness for so long when they don't know their diagnosis. My father was diagnosed with celiac disease in his 60s. He never complains, even if he is very ill. And therefore, it is very difficult for us to monitor his condition. With celiac disease, it also happened this way. He didn't admit that he was worried about something other than a lot of accidental injuries. He even tried to justify his injuries by his awkwardness and inattention.

[AlwaysLearning]

Severe hip pain due to tendons/ligaments catching is one of my gluten symptoms. At its worst, I had to drive to work instead of taking the subway and had a prescription for some serious pain killers, though they didn't do anything other than upset my stomach. 

I just realized, while writing this, why my hip pain returned for a bit a couple years ago ... around the same time I made some major errors in my gluten-free diet. Duh!

I really do hope that you can get things calmed down quickly. Perhaps you can take it easy over the winter, hibernate a little and not take chances trying to eat out, and give your body a chance to heal.

Best of luck to you.