An everyday battle with food for those with gluten intolerance

(WDAY TV) - Imagine having to give up most of the foods that you eat everyday, all at once or else you'd get very sick. More people are faced with this, as celiac disease and gluten intolerance are now widespread. One in every 100 of you out there has it. A more startling number, 97 percent of you, don't know you have it.

As you watch Sara Vollmer move quickly around her kitchen, you'd never know she's avoiding dangerous hazards at every turn. Her battle with food started young. At 18 months, Sara was diagnosed with mal-absorption and put on a diet of only applesauce, rice, bananas and bread.

“I did not look healthy. Like a third world child, just the distended stomach, saggy skin.”

After two years she went back to normal foods, but normal was nothing she ever felt.

“I was always sick. I was never thriving. Not gaining weight, not getting taller, but none of the doctors knew what to do with me.”

High school days were marred by migraines and stomach aches. Social events and dinner dates were often out of the question.

“I feel bad for who I was growing up. I just never felt good.”

In January 2005 the sores started showing, and finally a dermatologist had the answer. Sara has celiac disease, meaning when she eats gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, her body goes to war. The fight damages the lining of her small intestines.

That causes stomach aches, bloating, diarrhea or constipation and prevents her body from absorbing nutrients.

“The longer you're exposed to gluten, the greater likelihood you'll develop complications of celiac disease. The first ones would be malnutrition conditions like anemia or osteoporosis, but it can develop fertility in men and women, and develop other auto-immune diseases like thyroid disease.”

In her book, case writes of the wide variety of symptoms making it hard for doctors to properly diagnose the auto-immune disease. She says celiac disease is actually a genetic marking that 40 percent of people have. A recent mayo clinic study shows in the last 50 years, celiac disease is four times more common, meaning it's something outside our bodies triggering the disease to activate.

“Suspect something in the environment whether it's food, or how food is processed, how much gluten people are eating. We don't really know, but know more common than thought to be.”

The celiac disease diagnosis wasn't good news for Sara, but she was thrilled to finally know why she's suffered all these years.

“I try not to feel sorry for myself. I did when I first got diagnosed.”

This is the kind of diet you cannot cheat, and Sara says, can rarely forget.

“It stares at me in the mirror all the time.”

But it's something she's made her life goal to educate others about.

“I’ve taken it as a mission, personally to not have someone go through what I did.”

Sara's life is still not normal, but she says at least now she is living it. Doctors say if you think you may have celiac disease get tested before you stop eating gluten. Those who are gluten intolerant do not have a disease, but can suffer similar symptoms, and feel better when they do not consume gluten.