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Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996
Subject: Re: endometriosis
From: Ron Hoggan

I don't have any citations on this topic, but I would like to share an experience.

My daughter has always had very painful periods. Time after time, she has gone to the emergency ward to be given one drug or another to quell the pain. About 2 years ago, she had settled into a routine of taking Tylenol with codeine for most of the time, and morphine for the one or two days that were the worst.

On the basis of some of my research, and in spite of gastroenterologist who insisted she didn't have celiac disease, I convinced her that a gluten free diet was worth trying.

Her GP, having observed the results, has diagnosed her as gluten intolerant. Several things resulted:
She no longer takes morphine. She still takes the occasional tylenol during her period, but she has worked 12 hour shifts all the way through her period. This is a girl who had difficulty putting in an 8 hour shift before going gluten-free.

Now to the interesting part:
The doctors began with suggesting that the pain she was in was due to becoming sexually active so young......seventeen is not that young!

The next diagnosis was clymidia (sp?).
There were problems with that diagnosis.

Then she underwent a surgical procedure where they make an incision in the abdomen, and go in with a tube with a magnifying glass on it. Guess what? They found endometriosis.

Well, nothing much helped until the gluten-free diet. Even the pain killers were losing the ability to keep the pain in check.

My daughter is a young woman in her early twenties. She has been victimized in one sense, but many people go their whole lives in that pain, so I don't want to be too critical. What I do want to suggest is that anyone who has a diagnosis of endometriosis, or is troubled by very painful periods, might be very pleasantly surprised by the results of a gluten-free diet.

I am not a medical person. I am a father with celiac disease who believes that all first degree relatives of a celiac should be given serum antibody tests for endomysium antibodies. I also believe that if male doctors experienced painful menstruation every 28 days or so, much more research would be done on that issue. I think they would discover celiac disease in many cases.

I hope that is helpful.

Sincerely,
Ron Hoggan

Here's a story from a woman that read Ron's article above:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996
From: deleted on request
To: Ron Hoggan
Subject: celiac and endometriosis

I found your article interesting. I too suffered debilitating periods almost from the beginning. At age 21 I was told it was all in my head, see a psychiatrist. I was also told I would probably never have children, due to the severe damage to my phallopian tubes. I have 2 children to prove otherwise. At age 29 (after many laparoscopies) I had a hysterectomy, after nearly hemmoraging for several months. 11 months later they had to remove my left ovary, it had adhered to the lining of my abdomen, again causing debilitating pain. At age 34, I got so sick all I could do was go to work, go home and sleep, I had another laparoscopy. No signs of endometriosis, so the doctor referred me to a pain clinic, where they were going to deaden the nerves. My family doctor said I must have chronic abdominal wall pain, due to so many abdominal surgeries, she referred me to a GI who specialized in that disorder. After taking my history, and months of testing, at age 35 I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Now I wonder, did I really have endometriosis? The hysterectomy took care of the pain for 9 months, then the removal of one ovary took care of the pain for many years, now the gluten free diet took care of the pain forever.
Thanks for the article.