Top Reasons to Spread the Word on National Celiac Awareness Day Today!

Love it.  Hate it.  Live with it. Support someone with it…No matter where you’re at with celiac disease, today is the day to let it be known that we’re here.  The United States Senate declared this day, Tuesday, September 13th National Celiac Awareness Day.

Why is it so important to spread the word on National Celiac Awareness Day?

• Because then maybe restaurants will not use the same ladle with contaminated sauce on our gluten free pizza (this is definitely a current pet peeve of mine)
• A little more knowledge might help people learn how to spell celiac
• Our family members might not be so scared to go get tested for it
• Doctors might look for it more — and possibly lower the average length of time it takes to get diagnosed (mentioned in the Senate’s declaration of Celiac Awareness Day announced last week)
• More public awareness may help parents across the country have an easier time getting safe gluten free food in their children’s schools
• There would be a greater understanding of the wide spectrum of celiac disease symptoms (or no symptoms) we can have before diagnosis.
• Greater awareness would help people with celiac who live in rural parts of this country from feeling so isolated.
• Maybe we can get more of those food shows to do gluten-free cooking contests!
• Make a dent in the infertility business by raising so much awareness that women ask to get tested for celiac before dropping thousands of dollars in infertility treatments! (610,000 women in the US experience unexplained infertility; 6% (36,600) of these women might never learn that celiac disease is the cause.  –University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center) — No offense infertility specialists, I know you help a lot of people.
  
• Prove to all those FAD gluten free dieters that we’re here, we have celiac and while their gluten free diet might fade away while they go onto the next popular thing– we’re the ones who REALLY need it for life. (hint hint restaurants, it’s good to cater to us because we’ll be there for you when the fad diet is gone!

Bottom line, we need to stop being shy about celiac disease which is manageable by diet alone!  It’s not the end of the world — even though sometimes in can cramp your style.  Let’s work hard today to tell people about it!

Tags: awareness, celiac disease, disease symptoms, gluten-free