my 28 month old son's story

by kaity hansan
(dearborn)

My son has had celiac disease his whole life and I never knew it, ever since he was born he has always had diarrhea, I breast fed him for 1.8 years thus the gluten was going from me to him, his weight was slightly underweight, I didnt start giving him solids till he was seven months old, that is when he stopped gaining weight, and he would always get stomach infection, I would have to take him to the hospital at least once a month for stomach infection, and he would always cry, when I stopped breast feeding him and depended only on the food that is when he started losing weight dramatically, he weighed 20 pounds when he was 9 months old, 22 pounds when he was 1 year old, and 22 pounds when he was diagnosed with celiac at 24 months old.. I remember him being so skinny but his belly is so big ahead of him

I took him to the doctor hundreds of times and they would tell me don't feed him fruit, feed him only potatoes and yogurt, don't let him eat sweet food.... I did all that and nothign worked, I did all kinds of tests but they all came out clean, they showed nothing wrong with him.. at the end I started crying and thinking to myself maybe something serious is wrong with him, becasue I know that this is not normal, so I was doing research online and I read about celiac disease and went to a specialist and told him that I want to do the test, so I did the blood test it came back negative, but I wasn't convinced, so he told me to do the endoscopy, so I did and it showed that he has celiac disease, I was so relieved that finally I know what is wrong with him, when he told me that he has celiac disease I right away said thank god, the doctor looked at me and told me why are you saying that, so I told him that at least I know that it is nothing serious.

Steve's response: Thanks for sharing your story Kaity. Hopefully a strict gluten free diet will make him feel better and he'll gain weight!