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- trents replied to Itsabit's topic in Dermatitis Herpetiformis1SkinSafe
Welcome to the forum, Linda! Many on this forum can sympathize with you. It can be extremely difficult to get reliable information about gluten when it comes to meds, supplements and oral hygiene products. This is especially true since so much of this stuff is generic and comes from over seas. I will deflect with regard to your question about meds... -
- Itsabit posted a topic in Dermatitis Herpetiformis1SkinSafe
Hi. I’m 70 years old, and a 22 year survivor of head and neck cancer treated with chemo-radiation, which resulted in non-existent submandibular salivary glands and extreme dry mouth and altered oral mucosa. I have been using dry mouth toothpaste, Rx oral dentrifices and moisturizers for years. I’ve recently been diagnosed with severe celiac dermatitis her... -
- trents replied to Cathijean90's topic in Introduce Yourself / Share Stuff1
I’m terrified it’s too late for me😭
Welcome to the forum, @Cathijean90! I went 13 years from the first laboratory evidence of celiac disease onset before I was diagnosed. But there were symptoms of celiac disease many years before that like a lot of gas. The first laboratory evidence was a rejected Red Cross blood donation because of elevated liver enzymes. They assume you have hepatitis... -
- Cathijean90 posted a topic in Introduce Yourself / Share Stuff1I’m terrified it’s too late for me😭
I’ve just learned that I had been diagnosed with celiac and didn’t even know. I found it on paperwork from 15 years ago. No idea how this was missed by every doctor I’ve seen after the fact. I’m sitting here in tears because I have really awful symptoms that have been pushed off for years onto other medical conditions. My teeth are now ruined from vomitin... -
- Quiet Spirit commented on Scott Adams's article in Spring 2025 Issue4The Ultimate Guide to Dining Out Gluten-Free: Tips and Restaurant Picks (+Video)
Where we live, a pizza place, Marcos, has cauliflower crust pizzas. They only have 10 inch crusts. For my husband and me, that is large enough.- dining
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Welcome to the forum, Linda! Many on this forum can sympathize with you. It can be extremely difficult to get reliable information about gluten when it comes to meds, supplements and oral hygiene products. This is especially true since so much of this stuff is generic and comes from over seas. I will deflect with regard to your question about meds and oral products but take you in another direction. Have you tried a low iodine diet. Iodine is known to exacerbate dermatitis herpetiformis and some find that a low iodine diet helps reduce the number of outbreaks. By the way, have you had your celiac antibodies retested recently? If they are elevated that might be a clue that you are getting gluten in your oral hygiene products or meds. -
Hi. I’m 70 years old, and a 22 year survivor of head and neck cancer treated with chemo-radiation, which resulted in non-existent submandibular salivary glands and extreme dry mouth and altered oral mucosa. I have been using dry mouth toothpaste, Rx oral dentrifices and moisturizers for years. I’ve recently been diagnosed with severe celiac dermatitis herpetiformis. I was being treated with oral Dapsone, but it was not effective and I developed some serious side effects. So, the medication was stopped and I was started on Doxycycline (another antibiotic) for inflammation. I’ve been using Rx Betamethasone steroid ointment with little to no effect. I have tried every oral and topical antihistamine treatment available OTC. None have touched this horrible relentless itching. That is my history. Now to my question. Does anybody know about gluten free toothpastes and mouth moisturizers? I ask because a very common dry mouth brand stated to me that they were indeed gluten free. But as I am not getting any better with my dermatitis herpetiformis, I was wondering if I was getting glutenized some way other than diet as I have been following a strict clean gluten free diet, but I am not seeing any improvement at all. So, I started looking up the toothpastes and moisturizer ingredients individually and nine (9) of the eleven (11) or so listed showed up as containing gluten or that may have gluten! Am I getting glutenized orally by these products? As an aside, I checked on my favorite lavender scented baby lotion which is supposed to be gluten free, but many of those ingredients when investigated separately, show they do contain or may contain gluten as well. I stopped using the lotion. But I cannot forgo my dental care. I was unable to get any information from the manufacturer of my current brand of chewable multivitamins either. They told me to check with my doctor. If THEY don’t know what’s in their product, how do they think a PCP will? In light of all this, I am confused and angry that I might keep getting contaminated with gluten through products I am using that are supposedly gluten safe. *I should also state that I have a nickel allergy since I was about 12-13 years old. And I developed a contact allergy to latex (gloves) when I was a student nurse at 19 years old. I know and I’m sorry that this is so lengthy. I’m trying to do everything I can to combat this condition, and I’m feeling very confused, anxious and angry about not getting adequate information as I try to educate and advocate for myself. I’m hoping someone here is more knowledgeable than me of how to navigate through all of this. Can anyone offer any advice? Thank you for your time. Respectfully, Linda
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Welcome to the forum, @Cathijean90! I went 13 years from the first laboratory evidence of celiac disease onset before I was diagnosed. But there were symptoms of celiac disease many years before that like a lot of gas. The first laboratory evidence was a rejected Red Cross blood donation because of elevated liver enzymes. They assume you have hepatitis if your liver enzymes are elevated. But I was checked for all varieties of hepatitis and that wasn't it. Liver enzymes continued to slowly creep up for another 13 years and my PCP tested me for a lot of stuff and it was all negative. He ran out of ideas. By that time, iron stores were dropping as was albumin and total protein. Finally, I took it upon myself to schedule an appointment with a GI doc and the first thing he did was test me for celiac disease. I was positive of course. After three months of gluten free eating the liver enzymes were back in normal range. That was back in about 1992. Your story and mine are more typical than not. I think the average time to diagnosis from the onset of symptoms and initial investigation into causes for symptom is about 10 years. Things are improving as there is more general awareness in the medical community about celiac disease than there used to be years ago. The risk of small bowel lymphoma in the celiac population is 4x that of the general population. That's the bad news is. The good news is, it's still pretty rare as a whole. Yes, absolutely! You can expect substantial healing even after all these years if you begin to observe a strict gluten free diet. Take heart! But I have one question. What exactly did the paperwork from 15 years ago say about your having celiac disease? Was it a test result? Was it an official diagnosis? Can you share the specifics please? If you have any celiac blood antibody test results could you post them, along with the reference ranges for each test? Did you have an endoscopy/biopsy to confirm the blood test results?
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By Cathijean90 · Posted
I’ve just learned that I had been diagnosed with celiac and didn’t even know. I found it on paperwork from 15 years ago. No idea how this was missed by every doctor I’ve seen after the fact. I’m sitting here in tears because I have really awful symptoms that have been pushed off for years onto other medical conditions. My teeth are now ruined from vomiting, I have horrible rashes on my hands, I’ve lost a lot of weight, I’m always in pain, I haven’t had a period in about 8-9 months. I’m so scared. I have children and I saw it can cause cancer, infertility, heart and liver problems😭 I’ve been in my room crying for the last 20minutes praying. This going untreated for so long has me feeling like I’m ruined and it’s going to take me away from my babies. I found this site googling and I don’t know really what has me posting this besides wanting to hear from others that went a long time with symptoms but still didn’t know to quit gluten. I’m quitting today, I won’t touch gluten ever again and I’m making an appointment somewhere to get checked for everything that could be damaged. Is this an automatic sentence for cancer and heart/liver damage after all these symptoms and years? Is there still a good chance that quitting gluten and being proactive from here on out that I’ll be okay? That I could still heal myself and possibly have more children? Has anyone had it left untreated for this amount of time and not had cancer, heart, fertility issues or liver problems that couldn’t be fixed? I’m sure I sound insane but my anxiety is through the roof. I don’t wanna die 😭 I don’t want something taking me from my babies. I’d gladly take anyone’s advice or hear your story of how long you had it before being diagnosed and if you’re still okay? -
Genetic testing cannot be used to diagnose celiac disease but it can be used to rule it out and also to establish the potential to develop celiac disease. About 40% of the general population has the genetic potential to develop celiac disease but only about 1% actually develop it. To develop celiac disease when you have the genetic potential also requires some kind of trigger to turn the latent genes "on", as it were. The trigger can be a lot of things and is the big mystery component of the celiac disease puzzle at this point in time with regard to the state of our knowledge. Your IGA serum score would seem to indicate you are not IGA deficient and your tTG-IGA score looks to be in the normal range but in the future please include the reference ranges for negative vs. positive because different labs used different reference ranges. There is no industry standard.
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