If I had not taken my health into my own hands I would have been a gold mine for Big Pharma. High Blood Pressure. Chronic Back Pain. Arthritis. Insomnia. Anxiety. Excessive sweating. Allergies. Insanely huge ulcers in my mouth misdiagnosed as herpes (this is a good one . . . stay tuned!) Ulcers in my nose misdiagnosed and treated as allergies. Not to mention the disaster that was my stomach. The list goes on and on. Everything that could be wrong with me, was. And my medical provider was more than willing to whip out her prescription pad to treat symptoms as if they were the actual disease. But I refused to believe that, after being relatively healthy my whole life, my body was simply falling apart from a whole bunch of diseases at the age of 35.This is the story of how I discovered what was wrong with me and finally received healing after decades of living with an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder. I am sharing this because it is estimated that 80% of people with celiac disease are undiagnosed. With over 200 identifiable symptoms-everything from stomach problems to skin issues, anxiety, enamel loss, and on, and on-celiac can be hard to nail down. Two people with the same disease can have very different symptoms. And medical professionals are generally not trained to look for it, at least not in the United States.I was lucky. I got better. Too many people are being treated for their symptoms instead of the autoimmune disease or food intolerance that is causing it. Maybe you're one of those unfortunate people, or maybe someone you love is. In Death by Gluten: How Undiagnosed Celiac Almost Cost Me My Life, I will explain how I finally solved the mystery of my waning health, and how others with undiagnosed celiac can reclaim their lives as well. Don't let your doctor brush your symptoms under the rug. When it comes to a disease that is largely ignored the way this one is, you must take your health into your own hands.
About the Author: Armed with a useless liberal arts degree, Riya Anne Polcastro is a student of human behavior and a conduit for raw words. Maybe it is because she learned to read and write in her second language before she learned to do the same in her first. Maybe it is because she was raised a missionary's daughter at the same time that she was taught to question everything. Maybe there are a whole lot of reasons. Either way, her fascination with mental illness and human interaction is weaved into fiction with a language that is at times caressed and loved, at others beaten into submission. A long-time resident of the Pacific Northwest, Polcastro aims to join the ranks of great Oregon writers. Her first love is dark, edgy literary fiction but she also dabbles in young adult dystopia and narrative non-fiction. Polcastro enjoys an active lifestyle, including travelling, running, hiking, in-line skating, and a special brand of tennis lovingly called "Get it Bitch". Her favorite color is burnt orange, but it is hard to find so she wears a lot of red instead.