Is it Celiac Disease, Gluten Intolerance or a Wheat Allergy? Ep. 111

If you have ever been confused by the difference between celiac disease, gluten intolerance and wheat allergy, I am discussing this on today's show.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Alrighty, welcome back to this week's episode where I am covering off the differences between celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy. So there seems to be a lot of confusion amongst these three things. So if you have celiac disease, you are very well aware that celiac disease is an autoimmune disease. So your body is literally attacking itself if you eat gluten. So being an autoimmune disease, it's something that the body is defending itself as such, and it's never going away unless there becomes a cure for celiac disease. So the only way that we can treat celiac disease is to 100% avoid gluten. And when we talk about gluten sensitivity or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, it's not an allergy, but it's the body reacting to eating gluten in pretty much a very similar way to celiac disease. So many of the symptoms of non non celiac gluten sensitivity are the same as celiac disease, but it doesn't have that autoimmune response. So where with celiac disease, the body is attacking itself and the small intestine gets damaged. So basically our vili is damaged and that's where the nutrients are absorbed from our food. That doesn't happen in gluten sensitivity or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, but you can still get all the same symptoms such as, you know, brain fog, diarrhea, bloating, gas, all of those types of things. People with gluten sensitivity also do get. So there are more people that have gluten sensitivity than have celiac disease. So it's much more common. So in a way, it's good for us with celiac disease because there are more people that need to eat gluten free. Now, getting a non-celiac gluten sensitivity diagnosis can be very challenging. And this is why I say to people, if you have all the symptoms of celiac disease, but you've done the testing for celiac disease and your doctor said no, you don't have celiac disease and sent you on your merry way, I always say push for further testing because you may have non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and if you do, then it can help you to feel better as well. So it can help you see that you do need to be eating gluten free. You do need to focus on your health, and you do need to be focusing on getting better because the thing with celiac disease is we need to heal our gut. But people with non-celiac gluten sensitivity can cut out gluten and feel better much quicker. So for my son who I've talked about time, time and time again, he didn't have celiac disease. He was diagnosed with non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and the doctors, they just wanted to get rid of us once they'd found out he didn't have celiac disease, they didn't want to do any further testing. And I was like, hold up. There is something wrong with this poor child and we need answers. We need to find out what's going on and we need to get to bottom of, get to the bottom of this because he's not right, he's not healthy, he's not thriving, he's not happy. There is something wrong. So if that's you and you've been told you don't have celiac disease and you're like, well, hey, I've cut out gluten and I feel better, what the heck's going on? It could be gluten sensitivity. So don't self-diagnose yourself with gluten sensitivity. If you haven't been tested for celiac disease, you need to rule that out first. I highly recommend that you go through the testing process for finding out whether you do have celiac disease or not. So do that first if you don't have celiac disease and the doctors are happy to leave it at that push for finding out if you've got non celiac gluten sensitivity, because then you will have some answers. If it's not that, then you can go on and figure out if it's FOD maps or something else that's going on for you. But it's a very real thing. There's not as much information about non celiac gluten sensitivity, then there is about, um, celiac disease. But we do know that people feel better when they're not eating gluten if they have an intolerance to it. So it is not an allergy, it's not, it's not what we call an allergy, it's an intolerance. So it's your body reacting to that protein still and your body feeling better without it. So yeah, it, it's definitely worth looking into and definitely finding out whether that is what's causing you issues. And it's as simple as following a gluten-free diet. I wanna say simple, you know what I mean? It's, that's the answer you need to follow a gluten-free diet and you know, figuring out how to eat gluten-free and look for gluten-free food and all that type of thing. But yeah, it, it is very, very similar to celiac disease, but it just doesn't have that autoimmune part to it, if that makes sense. Now when we're talking about a wheat allergy, this confuses people a lot. So when we think of allergies, it's more, think of it like an allergic reaction. So if you are allergic to bees like I am, I'm highly allergic to bees, it's an allergic response. It's not, it's not an autoimmune response. So people with a we allergy, they have symptoms such as like an anaphylactic reaction, you know, difficulty breathing. They can get hives, they can get wheezing, difficulty breathing, um, nasal blockages, things like that, that are actual, um, uh, allergy response as such. Okay? So these people definitely need to be avoiding wheat so they don't have to avoid all the gluten grains, they have to avoid wheat. So it's different to what we as people with celiac disease have to avoid. So it's different again. So I hope that helps kind of dissect the three different categories because it is something that seems to overlap and people get confused with and don't understand the differences between them. And when people tell me that they think they're gluten intolerant and they, they say that they have all these symptoms and you know, I just went to a, an event today where there was a group of six of us business women and we were all met for the first time and we're all chatting about what we do and who we help and who we serve and those types of things. And as soon as I said what I did, it was amazing. It was like bang, bang, bang, three women, oh, my husband's got those symptoms. Oh yes, I'm gluten intolerant. Oh yes, my sister's just been tested for celiac disease, but she's got Crohn's. There were all these women that were just like, you know, wow, that they were so aware of what I was talking about and it was so refreshing. But when I was talking to the lady that said her husband has all those symptoms, I said, you know, has he been tested for celiac disease? No, never been tested for celiac disease. He's been diagnosed with I B s. So I said to her, tell him to go get tested for celiac disease because he might be able to rule that out. He might have gluten intolerance, who knows. So, you know, I was able to help her just by having a conversation about what I do. And then the lady that had gluten intolerance, she said that they had ruled out celiac disease for her and she knows very well that she has definitely got a gluten intolerant, uh, is gluten intolerant. And when she has gluten, she's very, very sick. So it's great that she was able to rule out celiac disease, but it's also wonderful that she knows that she's better off without gluten and not having gluten in her diet. So yeah, that, that's pretty much a lowdown on the three differences, uh, the three different categories. And it might help you if you are very new to gluten in the world of gluten and trying to figure out what is right for you and what path you need to go down as far as testing. But if it's, if it's an anaphylactic reaction, that is very scary and you definitely need to be doing something about that pronto because, um, yeah, that, that's very important to get a diagnosis on and get on top of and make sure you are very strict with your reading of labels as well. So yeah, so hope that helps you understand that the difference between the three, you might be here because you know someone with one of these three problems and you wanted to learn a little bit more about it. So I hope that helps you. And as always, if you have any questions, any feedback, or you need to know anything else, just send me a DM over at the Healthy Celiac on Instagram. And if you have been enjoying the show, please hop on over to Apple Podcast and leave me a rating and review. That helps Apple get it out there to more people and it helps me spread my message further. So I'm so grateful for those of you that have taken the

Speaker 2: 9:19

Time to do that for me. It only takes a few minutes. So if you've got two minutes now, go ahead and do that, that would be awesome. But yeah, otherwise I look forward to talking with you again next week. Super quick episode for you today. And yeah, have a great week. I'll talk with you soon. Take care. Bye.