Is Gluten Causing Your Pain Or Not?

I want to share an adventure I had with my celiac daughter. Hopefully this will never happen to you, but if you are ever in the same situation, you should know the symptoms.

My 20 year old daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease just before her 4th birthday. It is well managed and we have only had a few gluten-ing incidents in the many years since her official diagnosis. It is the primary reason that I set up and run a gluten-free support group.

During her last two years of high school in Singapore and her first year of college in California, she frequently complained about her stomach feeling uncomfortable. Not terrible pains, but enough to make it tough to eat or want to do things. The pain was intermittent and would sometimes go away for a while then return at random.

We always blamed either gluten contamination or stress.

In June, she had her wisdom teeth removed. After the surgery she was complaining of a new and different stomach pain. We blamed it on the antibiotics and pain meds that she was taking.

Despite her the pain in her stomach (and mouth), we had a good week. Until…

She woke me up at 12:30am on to tell me her stomach felt like it was on fire and she had really bad cramps and heartburn. Being a really good mom, I sent her back to bed and told her to try to sleep sitting up.

I was pretty sure she had food poisoning.

I had made dinner for her that night. I knew it wasn’t gluten, but the maybe the veggies had been a bit off.

An hour later she woke me again. Now she was in agony. She had vomited, but it did not give any relief. When I asked if she wanted to go to the hospital, she nodded and whimpered yes.

She had to walk down the hall of our apartment building, go down the elevator, and across the lobby to get to the car. She was doubled over in serious pain.

We ended up in the emergency room at 2am. Fortunately it was the beginning of a holiday weekend and we were the only people there.

The doctor touched her belly and promptly proposed appendicitis.

By 6:30 am she was had had a CAT scan to confirm and inflamed appendix and a surgeon had been called. She was in surgery by 1pm. (It was laparoscopic, so only a tiny scar).

Post surgery she was feeling 1000% better. Within 48 hours, she was asking me to take her out shopping.

Not only was she feeling good, but the stomach pains that had been nagging her for over 3 years were gone. The attending doctor said her appendix was ‘very ugly’ and probably would have ruptured within a day.

So why am I telling you all of this?

I’m not a doctor, but my mom intuition says she probably had chronic appendicitis for a very long time. It was not gluten or stress. It is also why the diet changes, probiotics, and other things we tried never really helped her. Looking back, she also had elevated white blood cell count that could never be explained.

Apparently chronic appendicitis is pretty uncommon and extremely hard to diagnose.

What you need to know:

• Gluten, cross contamination, and stress are most often the cause of pain, BUT sometimes they are not the cause at all.

• Appendicitis can cause pain in different places in the gut, not always the lower right side.

• If you are ever in unrelenting pain, go to the hospital.

In the end, it was great timing. She was home with me and we didn’t have any other plans that weekend. I am so thankful she was not away at college or traveling when this happened.

It has been over a year since the surgery, her random stomach pains have not returned.

If you would like to learn more about Acute Appendicitis and/or Chronic Appendicitis here are a few article:

HealthLine.com: Everything You Should Know About Chronic Appendicitis

Cleveland Clinic: Appendicitis

Very Well Health: What Is Chronic Appendicitis?