The Biopsy Day

For all those who are unfamiliar with the diagnosis process of Celiac Disease, it often takes many years!  On average a person with Celiac's will suffer symptoms for 10 years before the doctor will order a Celiac panel and they finally begin getting answers to the many health problems they are experiencing.  I am one of the lucky few on the lower end of that spectrum.  My celiac's gene turned on 3 years ago after giving birth to my fourth child, Anna Marie (yes she's totally worth it and no, unfortunately, having another baby will not reverse the switch).  For the last three years my health has deteriorated, my allergic reactions became out of control, I had daily migraines, scalp burning (figured this out when it began to go away), dermatitis herpetiformis (a very itchy skin rash), asthma, and so on.  A few weeks ago after having a severe allergic reaction to Thanksgiving Dinner I asked my doctor to order a Food Allergy Blood Panel & Celiac Panel.  The Celiac panel came back positive and so I was referred to a Gastrointestinal doctor for an endoscopy procedure and small biopsy to confirm the diagnosis.

Today was the big day!  I have been so proud of myself for diligently becoming Gluten Free in the past two weeks (which my doctor told me to do), that the thought of eating gluten was really unappealing. Unfortunately it is best to avoid going GF until AFTER you have completed the endoscopy so that the GI doctor can get the best picture of what your body has been going through.  BTW, our bodies are amazing creations that do a wonderful job of healing themselves when we provide the proper tools for which to do so.  My poor body has had to deal with me daily contaminating, it with a substance (gluten) that I am highly allergic to, for three years, no wonder it began to rebel.  However, just two weeks off of it and it has begun to heal itself. 

Anyways, Dr. Vong told me to eat some gluten leading up to the procedure.  Here is where there was some discrepancy:  I heard him say "You know, eat a large piece of pizza the day before or something" but apparently he also said (or meant to say), "Eat gluten for the 3 days leading up to the procedure" so that they can really see how the intestine reacts.  The pre-op appointment I had with him happened to come the day after I came down with strep throat so I might have been a little out of it when receiving those instructions...

To me, this goes to show just how much I hate getting sick from gluten.  I REALLY thought I was indulging by eating that italian cheese bread and cheesecake at 5pm the night before!   This week is Christmas and we were blessed enough to have all my family up on Christmas day (3 days before my procedure).  I did NOT want to be sick the whole time everyone was here and if you remember Thanksgiving Dinner was the day that I had a very severe reaction and some of my family was here to witness that...not fun!  As a matter of fact my mom suggested that maybe it would be better if I just didn't eat for the two days that they were up!  Of course she was just joking but she was very nervous about me having another reaction and she hates seeing me sick (although it is always great to have mom at home if you're going to get sick like that) ;)  So all this to say I was not in a hurry to eat the gluten and I knew that it was going to give me at least some side effects (and it has).  So I delayed eating gluten until 5pm last night.

I had no idea what to expect, so I was a little nervous about how much I would feel or remember about them sticking a tube down my throat.  I had heard conflicting reports but I am here now to say that the worst part was getting the IV put in.  You're not supposed to eat or drink anything after midnight and my procedure was at 11:30am so by this time my veins which are already smaller were not cooperating.  They even had to bring out this cool vein finder scanner, which my husband had a fun time playing with after they did get the IV in.  We found that he has much better veins for an IV than I do.  However, I was the one that needed it so that wasn't helpful information!

After finally getting an IV to stick, they walked me back to the procedure room. Dr. Vong came in and asked me if I had eaten that big piece of pizza.  Then he asked what else I had...opps?  I really should have been eating it over 3 days...which means I could have eaten that green bean casserole on Christmas day but oh well!  I also would have had a lot more sickness and probably wouldn't have enjoyed all the family time that I was blessed with.  Sorry, I keep getting distracted, anyways, he then said "Goodnight" and the next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room with my husband sitting next to me.  It was quick and painless.  A minute later the doctor came in with some pictures and let us know that although there was some inflammation there was no damage visible to the naked eye which is good news.  He also said that 90% of the Celiac patients he sees do not have visible damage and that's why they take the biopsies to look under a microscope and that's usually where they see some.  All in all it was an easy procedure, I got a great nap and felt relaxed the rest of the day.  Near the end of the day the meds have worn off and my throat feels a little sore when I swallow but they did stick a big camera tube down my throat so that's very normal ;)