Suspect you have symptoms of Celiac Disease?
There are no typical celiac symptoms. Individuals range from having no symptoms at all (asymptomatic or "latent" forms of the disease), to extreme cases where patients present to their physicians with gas, bloating, diarrhea, and weight loss due to malabsorption.
In between these two extremes lie a wide variety of symptoms that include:
* Diarrhea *Weight loss
* Constipation *Bone pain
* Steatorrhea *Easily fractured bones
(fatty stools that float rather than sink) *Abnormal or impaired skin (paresthisia), including burning,
* Excessive gas prickling, itching or tingling
*Abdominal pain
* Any problem associated with vitamin deficiencies *Edema
* Iron deficiency (anemia) *Headaches
* Chronic fatigue *Peripheral Neuropathy
* Weakness (tingling in fingers and toes)
Individuals have reported such varied symptoms as:
* White flecks on the fingernails
* Fuzzy-mindedness after gluten ingestion
* Burning sensations in the throat
In children, the symptoms may include:
* Failure to thrive *Wasted buttocks
* Paleness *Pot belly with or without painful bloating
* Querulousness, irritability *Pale, malodorous, bulky stools
* Inability to concentrate *Requent, foamy diarrhea
In addition to all of these, dermatitis herpetiformis, a disease in which severe, highly itchy rashes appear (often on the head, elbows, knees and buttocks) is another form of celiac disease.
Reactions to ingestion of gluten can be immediate, or delayed for weeks or even months.
The amazing thing about celiac disease is that no two individuals who have it seem to have the same set of symptoms or reactions. A person might have several of the symptoms listed above, a few of them, one, or none. There are even cases in which obesity turned out to be a symptom of celiac disease.