Anna Quigg

Topics discussed:

Common childhood symptoms
Misdiagnoses
Blood tests

Video Text

At 16 years of age I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and this happened because I was supposed to go for a sports physical in high school to start cheerleading. And the day that I went in, I had nearly passed out after gym class. And had my mother pick me up for the appointment instead of meeting me at the clinic and they did some blood work and found that my hemoglobin – my iron levels – were so low they were considering transfusion at the time.

After a very extensive physical, they discovered that my autoimmune markers were a little bit elevated so they thought: Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and they referred me to a specialist. And oh, by the way, for the iron take 3 pills – iron pills a day. And you’re going to have all these terrible side effects, including constipation and bloating and that kind of thing, but you’ll be fine. And go ahead and take lots and lots of naproxen sodium which is an anti-inflammatory for the arthritis and don’t worry, you’ll be fine but you might get ulcers because of that.

And I just believed that the doctors knew what they were talking about. So I trusted them. I had constipation and diarrhea all the time. And it wasn’t until I got married that my husband said, “You’re not healthy.” And I looked at him like he was crazy. I’m like, “I’m perfectly healthy. You know actually my rheumatoid symptoms are better than they’ve ever been and sometimes I get flare-ups, but most of the time I’m OK. And my iron level’s actually pretty okey-dokey. Not great, but better than it was when I was 16. And,” you know “I think I’m pretty OK.” And he’s like, “People don’t get the cramping, debilitating diarrhea like you get.” I’m like, “Oh stop. You get diarrhea.” He’s like, “I get diarrhea because I eat bad food. Like spoiled food.” So it was at this time that I started thinking, “Well maybe this isn’t normal.”

When they said “It’s irritable bowel,” I said, “OK. Great. Tell me how to treat it.” Fiber. OK, I can do fiber. Fiber, like bran. Like in great, bran cereals. Bran muffins. Lots of fruits and vegetables which – it’s a lot easier to keep bran muffins around the house than it is fresh fruit because fresh fruit goes bad. So you just do what you can and you drink plenty of water and the symptoms stay. And then they said, “Well it’s psychological.” And then there’s no hope. You might as well not try to treat it at all.

I had diarrhea, constipation, Upset stomach. I was anemic. I had headaches. And I was going to lunch with a friend, and I said, “I’m coming with you just to be social, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to eat.” And this is a friend who relies on food for everything. Well little did I know – or a little did I know, this friend was the dietician at the Center for Celiac Research. And so I was explaining my symptoms to her and she said, “have you ever been anemic?” And this was like funny that this woman should ask me, but quite frankly yes, for 11 years I’ve been anemic and I’ve been so anemic that they thought about a transfusion. So on her advice, I went to a very prestigious hospital in the area and fought, left and right to get the GI folks there to test me.

I went back to my primary care doc. And he said, “Now don’t panic. OK, I think everything’s going to be OK, but what I’m telling you is: These results indicate, that you’re probably positive for Celiac Disease.” And I think he thought I was going to cry. But I actually was like, “Oh thank God. I know what it is. And I have professionals that work with me who know this diet.”

It’s interesting to think about pre-diagnosis Anna and post-diagnosis Anna because, again I thought I was normal. And after diagnosis I remember going to a favorite restaurant – and it was a Mexican restaurant – and every time I would go there, I would have a certain dish with a nice frozen margarita, and we would plan to go to a movie after words and we would never make it to the movie. The first time I actually went to dinner and a movie with my husband was after I was diagnosed and it occurred to me that the rest of my life had not been normal. So Post-Anna, happier, healthier, um, yeah, just much better.

I’m Anna Quigg and I’m living my life with Celiac Disease.