Gluten sensitivity is often least expected as a cause for a chronic health condition. Health challenges such as Hashimoto's, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoporosis, Depression and Anxiety, Balance Disorders, Irritble Bowel Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, ADD/ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, and many other maladies can be caused or triggered by gluten sensitivity.
As is the typical case in medical management of these conditions, just the symptoms are treated, often with powerful drugs with many side effects. This patch type of care does nothing to evaluate and manage the underlying cause(s) of the health challenge(s) and instead, allows additional health challenges to manifest over time. Many times the medications don't even give any relief.
The problem is that the correct type of testing for gluten senstivity and related gut-associated damage has only recently become available through Cyrex Labs. Another reason is gluten sensitivity is often triggered by a genetic susceptiblitiy and is not typically tested either.
I specialize in functional medicine with my chiropractic practic and have been involved in the concept of getting-to-the-root-of-health-challenges type of health care since 1983. My family history includes quite a variety of autoimmune related illness (RA, Parkinson's, diabetes, Hashimoto's) so I ordered gluten senstivity gene testing for myself. My tests came back with the news that I have a celiac gene and another gluten sensitivity gene, which means that I inherited genes from both my mother and father. Having these genes makes my immune system intolerant of gluten. This intolerance was left to wreak havoc on my body for about a half-century resulting in the manifestation of some health challenges I am working on. In addition this disovover of my genetic link allows me to make sense of the litany of autoimmune health challenges my ancestors and other family members have manifested. One way to look at it is with the graphic below:
Of course there are many other diseases and health challenges that can be triggered besides celiac disease, including many neurological maladies. A quote from some relevant research below illustrates this:
“Gluten sensitivity is a systemic autoimmune disease with diverse manifestations. This disorder is characterised by abnormal immunological responsiveness to ingested gluten in genetically susceptible individuals. Coeliac disease, or gluten-sensitive enteropathy, is only one aspect of a range of possible manifestations of gluten sensitivity. Although neurological manifestations in patients with established coeliac disease have been reported since 1966, it was not until 30 years later that, in some individuals, gluten sensitivity was shown to manifest solely with neurological dysfunction. Furthermore, the concept of extraintestinal presentations without enteropathy has only recently become accepted. In this Personal View, we review the range of neurological manifestations of gluten sensitivity and discuss recent advances in the diagnosis and understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying neurological dysfunction related to gluten sensitivity.”
Source: The Lancet Neurology, Volume 9, Issue 3, Pages 318 – 330, March 2010
About two years ago a woman patient came into my office crying and imploring me to help her mother who was in severe pain. Her mother could no longer care for herself, so she was living with her sister to get some help. She was told she had Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). I told her I could probably help her mom, if her mom would do everything I asked her to do for one year. Now two years later she plays with her grandkids, goes sledding in the winter, walking, exercising and generally enjoying life again.
The keys to helping this wonderful woman was to change her diet, snuff out the systemic inflammation with specific nutritional supplements, elimate allergies and sensitivities with NAET (Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques) and improve her brain and joint function with chiropractic care.
If you have a chronic health challenge, find out more about getting to the root of your health challenge.
