“[A cure] would mean going out and not worrying every second about what is gluten-free. Not worrying if the cooks or servers even know what gluten or cross-contamination is. I could go to restaurants with friends or celebrate milestones at work without feeling like a burden.”

“The most challenging part was knowing that something wasn’t right, but it took her getting very sick for a provider to dive deeper.”

“Living with this has been very difficult. Compared to other people with celiac, I have found that I fall on the extremely sensitive side, where even trace amounts of cross-contamination will set me off.”

“All I heard was ‘just eat gluten-free,’ but there was a lot of emotion and hard work involved to heal.”

“I never knew anybody my age who also had celiac, and so I felt alone.”

“I have been living with celiac disease for six years now. About one year after diagnosis and eating 100% gluten-free, I felt like myself again.”

“Switching to a fully gluten-free diet and educating others on my daughter’s celiac at such a young age has been challenging. Her life has completely changed since being diagnosed. Her GI and behavioral issues have improved greatly, if not completely resolved.”

“If testing had been better in the 1980s for family members of patients with celiac disease, I likely would’ve been diagnosed as a child. I hope that things have changed in that regard.”

“Oliver started refusing to eat off and on, was extremely low energy, and had a distended belly […] he couldn’t physically get out of his stroller to explore—he was just too lethargic.”

“Growing up in an Italian-American family we ate pasta, bread, and pastries just about every day.”

“At the beginning it was extremely hard and it still is to this day. But as time goes on it’s getting easier by the day.”

“Sometimes she says, ‘I really want that treat. I’ll just throw up, it’s ok.’ It makes me so sad but I remind her it could be so worse and that she’s got this!”