My Celiac Blog

Today I received a fax from the office of my former doctor at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara CA. It included the details of my diagnosis with celiac disease by means of a biopsy.

I hand carried the documents to the office of my current doctor in Palm Springs.

He signed the required form, and tomorrow I'm off to Baltimore.

I have an appointment at Harbor Hospital in Baltimore on Friday December 2, 2005 for an intake interview for this clinical drug trial.

More details will follow.

I received the email I was expecting. It confirms my enrollment in a clinical drug trial for a new drug intended to treat celiac disease.

Friday December 2nd I am to present myself at Harbor Hospital in Baltimore MD. That's about 2400 miles from where I live. I'm committed to this project. I'll be there.

Hi! My name is Steve and I have Celiac Disease.
[all in unison] Hi Steve[/all in unison]

I've been aware of my celiac disease for about 7 or 8 years now. In case you do not know about it, celiac disease is an inherited autoimmune disorder in which the body's defenses attack the small intestine in response to certain peptide fragments found in common food grains like wheat, barley or rye.

It's sort of like a case where the immune system is certain that the small intestine is hiding weapons of mass destruction and building Nukular weapons too, so the immune system mounts a pre-emptive attack and kills 100,00 civilian villi in the small intestine. Of course the analogy breaks down quickly because the immune system is not involved in any conspiracy to deceive people, and no friends of the immune system make record profits during the attack. But enough about biology!

People who have celiac disease must avoid eating even the tiniest trace of wheat, barley, or rye. If they do eat any of these grains then there are unpleasant consequences in both the short term and the long term. The problematic component of the troublesome grains is referred to collectively as gluten, so celiac disease requires a gluten-free diet.

Until now there are simply no alternatives to a gluten free diet for people with celiac disease. However it has recently come to my attention that there are trials going on for a potential new drug which it is hoped will allow people with celiac disease to resume a normal diet.

Somehow I managed to track down some details on this drug trial, and I applied to participate. After I was told that I did not qualify in a first interview, today I got a followup phone call, a second interview, and I was told that I will be participating in a clinical drug trial of a new drug to treat celiac disease. Thus this new blog, where I propose to track my progress for those who may be interested.

So now I'm waiting to receive an email with details about this drug trial.