2011 - Grade 10

Just after this, my local gastroenterologist moved to the other end of the state. His replacement, was so much nicer than his predecessor and seemed to genuinely want to try and help me instead of treating me like a piece of meat. He informed me that it wasn’t often that coeliac disease and ulcerative colitis appear together in the same individual, so he wanted to put me on a gluten challenge. Over the course of a few months, I slowly reintroduced gluten into my diet. Proper bread tastes so good after not being able to have it for 4 years. Over the two months, eating gluten didn’t make me feel much worse, or much better. And after having another colonoscopy, I found that it wasn’t negatively affecting me that much. Good-bye coeliac diagnosis! I could now eat whatever I wanted but I was still not feeling great. I was also told that I had a tight stricture part way up my anus that was affecting my bowel movements and affecting the colonoscopies.