AL is a 60 year old female who was diagnosed with Celiacs at the age of 30. She is a wife, mother of two children, and a daughter. Her insurance doesn’t cover everything but enough to where she still supports herself and her family. Her Celiacs affected not only her dietary needs but also her pregnancies. AL is a middle class social worker who was diagnosed after a vacation trip to Mexico with her husband and eldest child; only child at the time where she ate something that had a parasite in it.

AL has Celiacs in her stomach and placenta. She became very fatigued and easily drained after simple activities. She had severe headaches and stomachaches and couldn’t figure out why nothing was helping. After about two months of increasing pain and discomfort she decided to go to her family doctor and seek a diagnosis and treatment if necessary. When the doctor ordered an endoscopy to be done they found that her stomach was highly inflamed. They were able to rule out everything but Celiacs. She has a chronic condition and didn’t find out how bad it was until she tried for more children. After she was diagnosed she lost 4 babies to miscarriages and still births until finally she was able to carry a baby long term but had birth three weeks early. They thought that it would be another still birth but in fact the baby was alive just extremely premature. The baby acquired Celiacs after spending the gestation period in her mother. Turns out AL’s placenta was affected with Celiacs as well and it didn’t help her trying to get pregnant.

The normal functions of the digestive system are to help salivate food to break them down and push them down the esophagus and into the stomach. The esophagus is where food is pushed through in order to get into the stomach where it is broken down even more due to the acidity in the fluid produced by the body inside of the stomach. The stomach then breaks it down and produces waste that travels through the large intestine and out through the rectum removing the waste from your body.

With her Celiacs, AL’s esophagus became extremely red