Gluten Intolerance?!?!
Question: I am 18 and am just starting to have many symptoms of someone that is gluten intolerant. Is it possible to just become diagnosed with this, this far into life? and could it have possibly just started affecting me now?
Answers: I am 18 and am just starting to have many symptoms of someone that is gluten intolerant. Is it possible to just become diagnosed with this, this far into life? and could it have possibly just started affecting me now?
Yes, it can come up at any time. Diseases that involve the immune system like this (and like allergies, too) can happen at any age. There isn't a very good understanding as to why this happens, but there seems to be a trigger for most people, like a virus or really bad stress. If you want to be sure that this is what you have, you'll have to go to a dr. They can do a blood test and can do an endoscopy or colonoscopy to biopsy parts of your small intestine. I don't have celiac disease, but I have an allergy to gluten (they are different things). So, I can say that it is a major nuisance to not be able to eat gluten, but it isn't the end of the world. The worst is eating out, but there are some restaurants that are good about providing safe food.
Here are some links for you:
http://www.celiac.org/cd-symptoms.php
http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases...
http://www.glutenfreeda.com/about_celiac...