I was starting to do a celiac disease psa in Kat’s comments section (Hi Kat!) and figured it would be more appropriate here. And then I just didn’t have the energy to reinvent the wheel. All the info is here.

What I want to say is very few people know about celiac and 1 in 133 people in America have it. That means lots and lots of people have it and don’t know. It could be messing with their moods. It could be causing, as my family so delicately puts it, bottom problems. It could be causing serious long term problems that come from not absorbing nutrients.

Both my kids have it. Rose’s only symptom was growing at a slow rate. When she started eating gluten, her weight dropped off the charts. We had two doctors say, “She’s just small. Nothing wrong with that.” Nothing wrong with that except when it’s caused by a disease that you can check with a simple blood test.

So now every time one of my friends is worried about their kid’s weight being too low, I say, “get the test.” Personally, I think we should have mandatory screening. It’s a disease that can make your life miserable, that can kill you, and it can be controlled with some delicious gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.