The road from here on in was long and hard. Involved so many doctors appointments that they were all convinced I was crazy with the amount of new symptoms I was developing day by day. First shaking, then twitching, then numbness down my hands, tingling in my fingers and tongue, the list was endless and growing so fast that I could barely keep up.At the end of July one doctor tested me for coeliac disease, I originally lost my mind over this...how could she possibly think I was coeliac when all my stomach problems had settled and all these unexplainable ones took over. A few days passed the results came back and she told me I was coeliac. I was so angry, I didn't believe her but I went with it anyway.
I arranged to see a gastroenterologist and had an endoscopy and biopsy of my small intestine. During the procedure the consultant told me it did not look like I was coeliac but that we would need the biopsy to confirm. Based on this I then went looking for more things it could be, M.E., Fibromyalgia, M.S., a brain tumour, everything horrible and terrifying you could imagine. I presented myself to the doctors again, by this point I was experiencing really bad anxiety as a result of the coeliac. I told the doctor and she decided to test my cortisol levels which were through the roof, even when I dropped something I would give myself a mini heart-attack and would be shaking for about half an hour afterwards.
I had been having high blood pressure and palpitations ALOT from the end of September to November I would say, so much so I was admitted to hospital. The consultant there started treating me for underactive thyroid which I DID NOT have!! Started giving me the medication before any of the tests had even been done. The woman who carried out the ultra sound on my thyroid gland told me that it looked fine, that evening the nurse came in with tablets and I argued with her about not having got the results and whether or not I should be taking them but eventually I took them. BIG MISTAKE. I ended up having an awful evening with a huge migraine and refused to take any more of the tablets from the nurse. The next morning the consultant came around and told me that all the tests came back fine, he didn't know what was wrong, maybe glandular fever and sent me home. At this point I was beyond feeling hopeless, this had been the man I had been waiting to see for the cortisol levels and I could do a better job diagnosing myself than he could.
Two weeks after this I decided to see what the hold up with my biopsy results was, only to find that the consultant had not bothered to send them and claimed they must have 'Gone astray'. This was the man I had paid the guts of €600 to see. All I got was an email to say I was coeliac to go on a gluten free diet and review my blood in 6 months. The issue of his slackness aside, I was DEVASTATED to be coeliac, completely and utterly in despair. No pizza, no baguettes, no anything tastey and carby, no cakes, no buiscuts....no life.
I carried on like this for a couple of days until finally I coped on and realised this was all I had to do to get better. Give this up and I would never feel this bad again, I would have my life back, my independence and confidence. It takes a lot of strength and courage to take the bull by the horns and make positives out of the situation, but once you do, you will never look back.