Iris Mazza

I was diagnosed with Celiac around 2 years ago when one morning during my school I had strong cramps.

However when she went to Jaipur to meet her maternal grandparents, there we just wanted to consult doctors for a second opinion and the doctors had suspicion looking at her height and weight. Also, Jaipur has many such cases so doctors are very much hands-on in this situation and their suspicion was right. She was tested and confirmed as Celiac!

I went to the hospital, the doctors told me that could be gastritis or gastroenteritis. After 2/3 days my pediatrician asked me to go for blood tests to determine the possibility that it was celiac.

One day after school my mother and I were discussing random stuff while having lunch, it was then she told me, “Iris, we have to go to the Gastroenterologist! “

After the diagnosis, it was confirmed that I was celiac.

It took so many days for me to adapt to a gluten free diet.

It was hard for me to accept that I could no longer go to my favorite restaurants. I would never be able to eat the things I used to eat before.

But above all this, the hardest part was answering people’s questions.

How do you live like this? You can’t eat pizza? You can have bread. You will live like this forever? And the list was endless.

I was really fed up living like this, even with people who did not understand anything about this disease. But thanks to a social network, I have found fantastic people who strengthened and supported me and encouraged me to have a positive perspective on life. I have realized that food is not everything. It’s not all in life and there are so many more beautiful things to discover and people you can always rely on. At times, there might be people who will judge for no reason, but that should not stop you! Today, I am living my life happily and would like to tell you all that acceptance is the key. So yes, today I can finally say to that I accept I am celiac and I am living my life happily. My celiac story is layered because it drags in one of my kiddos also. I had a lot of weird problems when I was in my first year of university. I had asthma and eczema that got worse but mostly I had major swelling on my face. I had these things on my face that were like acne but were so large even the doctors didn’t know what it was. Imagine being 18 and out on your own for the first time and having to deal with weird things and swelling on your face?