No longer Coeliac? What's this about?

Yes, I know. Coeliac Disease is supposed to be incurable!

Well, it's not. I used to be coeliac, and now I'm not. What's more, I've had a nut allergy as long as I can remember, and that's gone too. Several other things have come right (including a botched operation), and as I write this I'm presently setting up trials prior to my coming off the thyroxine which was prescribed for my Hashimotos Disease.

A little background about autoimmune diseases

Coeliac is a funny thing. Doctors will tell you that it's genetic. It's true, there is a genetic component, but having the gene doesn't give you the disease. All that the gene does is make you able to have the disease. Chances are you won't get coeliac at all - you'll have one or a bunch of different diseases which are also on the same gene. The diseases are all of a specific type called an autoimmune disease. They make your normal defences against infection turn against you instead of fighting off real diseases.

Before you can get any of the hundreds of autoimmune diseases which are controlled by the gene, the gene has to be turned on in a certain way. That's why most of these diseases are acquired throughout life. Sometimes it's caused by stress, sometimes it's an illness, sometimes it's a food overload, sometimes it just happens.

But, in order to get the disease and keep having it, the gene has to be turned on in a particular way and then it must be kept turned on in that particular way, and nobody really understands how that happens.

Just because Coeliac is in your genes doesn't mean you're predestined to have it. The same is true for all the other autoimmune diseases. This is not something you have or something that happens to you. The truth is, it's something you do yourself. You're doing it all day, every day, and your constant concern about food is making you do it all the more.

So: If you've had enough of doing coeliac, all you have to do is learn how to stop doing it.

Now, I have a question for you: do you believe me, or do you prefer to believe your doctor?