Coeliac is ‘different for everyone’ warns local sufferer

GLEBE woman and coeliac, Laura McGrath has opened up about her experiences of being gluten intolerent, as part of Coeliac Awareness Week.

Mother-of-three Laura first began noticing something was wrong back in January of last year.

“They say hindsight’s a wonderful thing and I suppose these symptoms were manifesting themselves for a while, before I went to see a doctor about it. I began feeling very fatigued, really severe exhaustion which initially, I put down to the fact I had recently given birth. Although I had been managing everything rightly, then everything just went ‘bang’.

“It’s safe to say I didn’t know what fatigue was until I felt this level of it. It was if there was huge weight on me that I couldn’t move.”

Coeliac UK’s campaign for this year highlights the message that ‘coeliac disease is different for everyone’, with the aim of providing answers to people experiencing unexplained symptoms, whilst urging them to have the blood test which could confirm a diagnosis.

For Laura, putting everything into context, she said that had her house gone on fire, she would have debated whether she had to move in order to save herself.

A trip to a bowling alley in Derry really brought it home for the local lady; in amongst the noise of the machines and all the children, Laura found herself fast asleep.

Discussing the issue with her GP, Laura was initially told to ‘keep an eye on things, see how they go’. However that first contact with her GP then turned into a monthly affair, with Laura reporting a new symptom with each passing month.

Nausea, breathlessness, inability to sleep, pains in her elbows and brain fog crept into Laura’s life and, as she admitted, “I was hardly able to walk the length of myself.”

Following blood tests she was told to start taking folic acid for a foliate deficiency; unfortunately it proved ineffective.

The neurological effects also began to severely affect Laura. Usually on the ball with remembering things, especially with her children’s busy social calendar, the brain fog was having a detrimental effect.

“My kids go to swimming lessons, drama classes and other things in Strabane. I live in Glebe and I was constantly late for the kids’ appointments. For instance, if a class was at half five, I was leaving the house then instead of twenty minutes previous, to get there in time. Even something as simple as making a cup of tea was difficult. If this was how my personal life was going, just about getting through the day, I did wonder whether I could actually return to my job to be honest”

With thoughts of post-natal depression, long Covid and, more alarmingly, cancer swirling through her head, Laura was relieved to have finally gotten an answer to her problems in August. “After a series of bowel issues, I went to see another GP who quickly diagnosed me as having coeliac disease thanks to a second set of blood tests, which was a great relief. The doctor asked me if I was surprised at the diagnosis, and I said no, as family members have it as well.

“The only surprise was that the symptoms I was experiencing I wouldn’t have associated with coeliac disease, to be honest.”

Following her diagnosis, Laura is now living with a new lease of life, although she admits it was a struggle initially.

“I’ve had to change the way I eat, which means better scrutiny of labels in the shops now. At the start, as I was finding that I could no longer eat what I wanted, I must admit to huffing a wee bit, walking out of shops because I couldn’t buy the normal foods I loved. It’s gotten easier and I can now find viable alternatives to eat. The rest of the family don’t follow my coeliac diet; I have my own wee air fryer that I use to make my food and the rest have theirs so there’s no cross-contamination.

“Before I was just saying ‘no’ to everything due to how I was feeling; now my calendar is full. I’m going out, seeing friends, going to restaurants, and loving life again. I would say to anyone having my symptoms and thinking ‘that sounds a bit like me’ then get checked out.”