Sharon Hardy

Topics discussed

Common childhood symptoms
Common Adult symptoms
Misdiagnoses
Finding a doctor who understands Celiac Disease

Video Text

I always had pain in my abdomen. A tummy – I’ve always had bloating. You know – as a child I was skinny as a rail and I had this gut on me. My family used to say “Oh Sharon’s pregnant.” I’m 4 years old. I’m pregnant. Yeah. So I had a lot of pain in my abdomen all the time. Never touch Sharon’s stomach. And a lot of bloating and then after I ate I would get severe pain and diarrhea.

At around – around the age of 21 I had some severe constipation and I went to a doctor and he did a proctoscope and found nothing, put me on stool softeners, enemas, this, that the other. To no avail.

And then probably my next episode was pancreatitis. And to make a long story short they took me to surgery for it, thinking it was an obstruction inside. And they removed part of my insides. Re-routed things. They never removed what was obstructing, they just said everything was so swollen and a mass – they actually thought it was cancer at one point. But it was pancreatitis.

My next big thing was in my early 40s I developed ulcerative colitis which is a condition of the lower intestine. So if it wasn’t bad enough before this was a nightmare. So after about 3 years – uncontrolled ulcerative colitis – never had a reprieve from it at all – I went in for my 3 rd colonoscopy and they said the cells had started changing and they looked pre-cancerous. So at that point the decision was made that they’d take me to surgery and remove my entire large intestine.

So things had been going pretty well for the past couple of years and then about a little over a year ago I started developing severe, severe abdominal pain. Yet again – just doubled over, sweating, doubled over. So I actually changed gastroenterologists to someone I had actually been working with is the reason. And I went to him and he said, “ Sharon, with your history we are going to start from zero. You’re going to have a complete work up.” So he started with basic blood work and a CT scan. And um the pathologist calls him and says, “Your patient Sharon Hardy has Celiac Sprue.”

So he said, “We’re going to take this a bit further.” And he made conference calls and actually went to a conference to talk to specialists around the country that specialize in Celiac Sprue and they did a case study on me at the conference. And he calls me from the conference and says, “ Sharon, you do have Celiac Sprue. 100%. You have Celiac Sprue.” And then he said, “Almost every one of your symptoms that you have had your entire life are related.” But most specifically my ulcerative colitis. And he said, “Apparently anyone who does not respond to medical treatment for ulcerative colitis should be tested for Sprue, that if we had put you on a gluten-free diet I would still have my large intestine.” And, you know it would have cured it completely.

You can’t go back. You can get mad. You can get sad. You can stomp your feet, but what can you do about it? Nothing. What’s done is done and the important thing is I move forward. I say “OK, so what’s next?”

Whenever there is a problem – whether it’s pain, whether it’s nausea, whether it’s bloating, whether it’s foot pain, leg pain, whatever, people do not have to live with pain. Pain is not normal. And it took me 40-some years to realize this. Pain is not normal. If you think something is wrong with you and you do not get an answer that satisfies you, go to someone else. I’ve been living my gluten-free diet for a year now – a little over a year. I have an immense amount of energy. I have no pain. I do not care if somebody touches my stomach. I never thought I could have no pain in my abdomen. I thought that was just normal. But the big thing is the energy. I just am very alert, I have a lot of energy. I can do anything I want. As long as I maintain my gluten-free diet.

I’m Sharon Hardy and I am living my life with Celiac Disease.