Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

AIBU To Be Upset By This Medical Obsession

29 replies

Bathsheba · 31/07/2012 11:32

My Cousin has just been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease.

He is now diagnosing everyone he meets.

He has insisted his mother goes for the blood test. And his wife. And his neice's new husband.

And now me.

I do not have coeliac disease. I have NO symptoms whatsoever. I definately have never failed to thrive - the complete opposite in fact and have been morbidly obese most of my life.

He however has decided that many of my disparate small medical niggles are indicitive of Coeliac disease. He started texting me to tell me this half way through the opening cceremony of the Olympics which I was frankly trying to enjoy with my husband.

He has decided as I have exzema (was particularly bad last week), multiple allergies (some mild, some more severe), a hiatus hernia that I've had since I was about 18....all absolute stonewall indicators that I have Coeliac disease too.

Not only am I absolutely convinced that I don't have it. I'm absolutely convinced that HE doesn't have it. His symptoms...a dose of the squits about every 5 or 6 weeks. He has pestered and pestered and pestered his GP for about 3 years to diagnose this as "something" and clearly "mild IBS like most people living in the modern world have" wasn't sufficient. He had a blood test for Coeliac disease, and without actually "passing" the blood test his GP has now diagnosed this.

Frankly to shut him up I feel. (as dones my Mum who is a nurse and has been following this a lot more closely than I have).

So now its gluten free this, gluten free that, and lots of fuss at restaurants/weddings etc and not a single person in the room is left not knowing that he is gluten free...

Frankly I don't need diagnosing and feeling judged at the moment. I am stressed and suffer from anxiety needing medication. I was staying at my Aunt's last week with my chiuldren (cousin's Mum) and as part of his diagnosis he said - "well, you have been eating a lot of bread while you have been here...so your skin is bad"...I feel like my 2 slices of toast in the morning are now being reported to him (he doesn't live with my Aunt).

Frankly he needs to change the record, and to be honest I'm really quite narked that he feels the need to diagnose me...

He is not medically trained or experienced in any way btw - but his wife works in hospital admin...

OP posts:

landofsoapandglory · 31/07/2012 11:37

I had a blood test which showed I might have Coeliac Disease. I was told the only way to confirm it 100% is to have a biopsy of the stomach via endoscopy, which I did and I am not Coeliac at all!

I know someone like your cousin, she tells everyone she is borderline Coeliac!

Original poster

Bathsheba · 31/07/2012 11:38

He hs had an endoscopy....also negative....

OP posts:

DontEatTheVolesKids · 31/07/2012 11:45

yanbu to find it irritating that he is so pushy. Is he normally kind of OCD about things?

Original poster

Bathsheba · 31/07/2012 11:49

Not normally pushy but he is the only male in a very patriarchal family system (religious reasons)....

He is used to everyone asking his opinion on everything - my other Aunt (not his mother) couldn't buy AYTHING (furniture, frying pan etc...) without "Asking DCous"...until 8 years ago everyone was like this with his father, and when his father died the role of "desicion maker and head-MAN" became his...

OP posts:

BaronessBomburst · 31/07/2012 11:51

You can be gluten intolerant, but not Coeliac. An intolerance will make you ill, an allergy could kill you. DM is gluten intolerant. If she eats small amounts of gluten she'll suffer from bloating, wind, have to keep running to the bathroom etc. A friend of her's is so sensitive that she ended up in intensive care after eating a stew with Worcestershire sauce in it.

Latara · 31/07/2012 11:54

Oh dear, i've met quite a few people like this.. he may be sensitive to certain foods but not Coeliac unless the endoscopy is positive.
Coeliac is a horrible, restricting condition.

I would hesitate to use the term 'attention-seeking' because there is always a good reason for someone wanting attention.
There is no easy answer; just nod & smile when he tries to discuss it then change the subject straight away...

He should go back to his GP if he has any actual medical symptoms; just in case he has a health problem that has been missed if he has you will never hear the end of it
If he is medically well then he should (but likely won't) ask to be referred for counselling to discover why he needs people to think he is ill.

slartybartfast · 31/07/2012 11:54

it does seem fashionable to be anti bread these days.

BaronessBomburst · 31/07/2012 11:55

BTW if anyone can raise a relative more challenging than a gluten free, lactose free vegetarian who can't eat onions, doesn't like spicy food and has to limit her soya intake, I'd be interested to see what you'd come up with.

CornflowerB · 31/07/2012 11:56

People who discover that they are 'gluten intolernant' do seem to come over all evangelical about it and try to convert everyone. Maybe he genuinely does have gluten intolerance of some description and because he now feels a lot better, he thinks that if only everyone else gave up wheat they would feel better too!

Two people in my family are gluten intolerant and two are vegetarian - Christmas dinner was a farce and I will be staying at home this year. I just want to tell them all to shut up and eat their dinner. I am just intolerant

But back to you - could you just sit him and down and thank him for his concern, but tell him that you know that you are not gluten intolerant and ask him to stop suggesting it because you are finding it upsetting? Or lie and tell him you've had the test?

slartybartfast · 31/07/2012 11:59

i worked with a woman who was anti bread, and also on a permanent diet and everyone who she came across was subject to the third degree of the dangers of bread in their diet.
very very annoying

PedanticPanda · 31/07/2012 12:01

Surely his doctor wouldn't misdiagnose him on purpose? This could be his way of coping with his dx, when I found out about my sons asd I was dx other children in my head.

gladders · 31/07/2012 12:06

FIL is like this - he has a diagnosis for a very minor condition and he talks about it constantly - even when close family members have cancer/epilepsy - he regards his condition as being on a par, and regularly goes on about how many things there are wrong with him.... like munchausen's but not by proxy?

slartybartfast · 31/07/2012 12:06

perhaps coeliac disease has a spectrum?

Trills · 31/07/2012 12:08

It sounds like you should be pissed off with the way "the family" treat him in general rather than about this one thing in particular.

lurkedtoolong · 31/07/2012 12:12

Is the phrase "Shut up you mind-numbing bore" not used at all in your family?

BaronessBomburst · 31/07/2012 12:12

Slarty Yes, it does.

EldritchCleavage · 31/07/2012 13:14

My SIL is a bowel bore. She has no diagnosed allergies nor even intolerances. Last time we had dinner with her (eons ago, thank God) she held forth at the dinner table about how she can't eat this or that and the symptoms it gives her (bleurgh). In front of my relative who, AS SHE WELL KNOWS, has cystic fibrosis and diabetes. And never never never complains. Lack of perspective, anyone?

Original poster

Bathsheba · 31/07/2012 16:27

I was at college a number of tears ago with a girl who suffered from Coeliac disease - first time I ever encountered it and she ended up in hospital for a number of months and had to leave her nursing degree due to it.

I just feel that mild IBS symptoms (which is basically what he has) - going on about it do much and diagnosing everyone is really disrespectful to real sufferers .

I don't think the dr genuinely misdiagnosed him but I feel the gp was under a huge amount of pressure from him to find something 'wrong' with him - everyone in the family has a 'condition' from Endometriosis to Chrons to fibroids...and basically he needed a 'condition' to....none of them have these conditions to any great degree.

Oh and as far as his 'position in the family' - my Mum and I don't take any part in this... My other aunt recently died so he is getting worshiped less...

OP posts:

freddiefrog · 31/07/2012 16:57

My DD1 is coeliac. She was diagnosed after a positive blood test and endoscopy.

All I can say is thank the lord for Doves gluten free flour

I'd tell him to bugger off

NapaCab · 31/07/2012 17:06

I am actually coeliac, diagnosed with a proper endoscopy / biopsy, and one of the more interesting medical cases they had at the time apparently (preens). People like your cousin drive me nuts as they give the rest of us a bad name.

Coeliac disease does seem to attract the neurotic ones, I don't know why. People often assume it's psychological and that anyone who has it is a bit neurotic as a result, which is very frustrating!

I would say, however, to be a little sympathetic to him as if the diagnosis were genuine, he is right to ask his relatives to be tested. I was told to do this as well because it is a genetic, hereditary illness so it runs in families. Obesity has been linked to coeliac disease. A friend of mine was very obese as a teenager and then diagnosed with diabetes and coeliac disease and lost a lot of weight so I wouldn't assume it's just underweight, anaemic people who have it.

Maybe he finds great comfort in the 'diagnosis' as he's been feeling out of sorts for a while and so he's just trying to do the same for others. It's annoying but i understand where he's coming from as I was the same with my family when I was diagnosed. I've given up now though as they're just not interested in being tested even though the doctors at the time told me to have them tested. He will probably get bored of telling you to get tested eventually but for now it's a novelty for him.

becstartingpistolBANG · 31/07/2012 17:12

I have coeliac properly diagnosed etc. and so do my sister, mum and niece (it is genetic, so this isn't mass hysteria!).

I used to get annoyed by people like your cousin banging on about it, nicking all my gluten free biscuits from my office desk when they aren't really coeliac. Also making people think that coeliac is just a metaphor for neurotic fussy eater - so I have to be super-vigilant about people cooking for me etc - because they assume 'gluten free' is just me being a bit faddy since they know other people who are just a bit faddy. But I'm not annoyed by it any more... My sister pointed out to me that if it wasn't for all these 'worried well' types I wouldn't have huge 'free from' aisle at Sainsburys and clear labelling of whether something contains gluten etc. The % of people who are really coeliac is so tiny that we wouldn't be worth marketing to. But because of all the 'ooh, it must be healthy, it's gluten free' people, it's a big market - so there are lots of things for me to eat.

So I am grateful to your cousin. Long may he fuss. But from your point of view he sounds pretty insufferable. I think you need to speak quite directly about it - tell him he is being rude, that he's said once that he thinks you have coeliac, you heard him, no need to give you the stuck record.

becstartingpistolBANG · 31/07/2012 17:14

x-posted NapaCab Agree with what you said!

LentillyFart · 31/07/2012 17:22

How do you actually pronounce 'coeliac'? Is it see-lee-ak or ko-lee-ak? Or neither?

cocolepew · 31/07/2012 17:24

Completely off topic Bath, but are the two pictures at the bottom of your profile you? Sorry I'm on my phone and can't see the writing.

cocolepew · 31/07/2012 17:24

I say see lee ack. Im usually wrong though.

Flip

1 2