The Healthy Celiac Podcast

Living with Celiac Disease - Are You Doing This Annually? Ep. 62

June 13, 2022 Belinda Whelan Season 1 Episode 62
The Healthy Celiac Podcast
Living with Celiac Disease - Are You Doing This Annually? Ep. 62
Show Notes Transcript

It's important to keep on track with your Celiac diagnosis by ensuring your health is at its peak. In this episode I am reminding you to get your annual check up and what to request if your doctor isn't sure what to support you with.

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Music Credit bensound.com 

Speaker 1:

Okay. So if you have been with me here on the healthy celiac podcast, since the beginning, which is over a year ago now, then I thought now would be a really timely reminder to help you go and get your yearly checkup for celiac disease and make sure you're on top of everything. Now, if you are brand new to the podcast, this is still relevant. If you've been living with celiac disease for quite some time, it is really important to go and see your doctor or your primary caregiver once a year. And just get a few things checked out, just to see how things are going for you and just make sure you're on top of everything with living with celiac disease. Now, this will definitely vary depending on your unique circumstances. So I think it's important for you to talk to your primary caregiver and just see what they think and, and mention anything that you are concerned about. And then they should have some questions for you as well, depending on who looks after you, you may not have someone that's a real expert on celiac disease. So it's good to go in armed with a list of things that you request that you would like to get checked. Now, my mom actually went and got her yearly bloods done recently, and I was so impressed and so proud of her because it showed up that she had zero gluten in her system at all. And as her I'm gonna say mentor, I guess when it comes to living with celiac disease, I support her a lot and I've taught her a lot. I feel really, really proud that she's achieved that because that's huge. And she is a very social butterfly. She goes out a lot. She's always, you know, mingling at church and being looked after in her social situations with gluten free food. And I, yeah, I'm beyond stoked to hear that her bloods were perfect. So that is wonderful. So that is the first topic. So it's very simple. You request that you get your blood work done, and there's a number of things that you need to have checked when you're getting your blood work done. So obviously the first one is to make sure that there's no gluten sneaking in, in your diet. So this is a really important one to make sure that you do yearly so that you can make sure that nothing is sneaking in. And just to keep track of that, you are doing well with your gluten-free diet. It's also important to get your iron levels checked, plus your vitamin and mineral profiles. So this can help you see that you are eating the right foods and that you're getting enough of these nutrients into your diet. So very, very important to get those checked as well. And then you can also request to have your thyroid function checked as well. And I guess the main reason that it's important to keep a check on this is because people with celiac disease are actually four times more likely to have thyroid disease to than the

Speaker 2:

General public. So it's a good chance to just pop that in there as well. They're already doing the blood test. So we might as well ask them to check our thyroid function as well. Now, depending on how your bone mineral density test was at your initial appointment. So you should have had this done. When you were first diagnosed with celiac disease, they should have done a bone mineral density test just to see that there was no, um, early onset of osteoporosis. And that way they can sort of see where you are going with that and where you're tracking. So depending on how your initial one was, you may need to have further tests. Mine, mine. When I had mine done originally, my bones were perfect. They were actually very impressed with how good my bones were. That it's not something that they said that I needed to bother with. Whereas if they started to see a breakdown, then it would've been something that would've been recommended that I have ongoing. So again, that's one of those, you know, more unique circumstances. It would depend on what your doctor has recommended and what happened at your very initial test. Now, the other thing they may need to do, and this, again, this completely depends on your circumstances and how you are going with your gluten-free diet is they may need to do a further biopsy. So you know, this, this can happen at any point. And it's basically just to assess any damage that may be happening to your intestines. So, you know, it's worth questioning whether that's something that you need to have done. I would hope that many people don't need that done yearly, but it would just completely depend on you. All right. Now, they're the main things that I like to recommend that you get checked. And of course, because you know, you're going for a yearly check. This is a really good chance to also talk about anything else that's on your mind. Now, many people do suffer from mental health issues with celiac disease, because it is a huge mental load on us. So if it's weighing you down and you feel like you need to talk to somebody, this could be a good chance to talk to your doctor and ask for a recommendation to speak to someone. So, so don't dismiss this. This is a big part of living with celiac disease. So if you need support in that area, definitely mention it to your doctor or your primary caregiver and go from there and see what support you can get. And it's also a really great chance to get any other routine tests done, such as, you know, pap smears and things like that, that you may have been putting off. So I hope that inspires you to get your yearly checkup and keep on top of things and make sure that you are cruising along wonderfully with celiac disease. And if you are struggling and you need my support, I am always here for you. My inbox is always open and you can always send me a DM on Instagram as well at the healthy celiac. And if you know that you need more

Speaker 3:

Support, then maybe now is the right time to sign up and join ultimate celiac system and get all the answers that you need to be able to thrive living with celiac disease. So you can grab the link to that below, and you'll always be able to find the link to that on my website as well, which is Belinda wheelin.com. So thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed. I hope this inspired you to book an appointment and get these ticked off. So have a fantastic week and I will talk to you again really, really soon. Take care. Bye.