Coeliac symptoms easy to miss
Survey shows GPs are mostly on the ball.
Kristin Kenrick knows how tricky it can be to pick up the signs of coeliac disease. A GP and a senior lecturer at the Dunedin School of Medicine, she managed to miss them in herself. “It hadn’t occurred to me I might have it,” she says. “With the symptoms I had – some irritable bowel and iron de ciency o and on – I thought everyone had the same thing.” When she went to her GP concerned about her young daughter’s health, she was tested. “It turned out I had coeliac disease and she didn’t.” Becoming involved with Coeliac New Zealand, Kenrick found herself hearing stories from other su erers about how long it took to get a diagnosis. “I wanted to nd out what the situation was really like, nd the gaps in GP knowledge. I thought, ‘If I couldn’t recognise it in myself, how many patients have I missed it in?’” Kenrick surveyed almost 700 GPs to nd out how likely they were to test for the condition in various circumstances. Most were checking for it when presented with patients complaining of chronic diarrhoea, iron de ciency or irritable bowel. But other, less common symptoms were more likely to be missed: mouth ulcers, chronic constipation, reduced bone density, autoimmune thyroid disease and unexplained infertility. The CNZ website (www.coeliac.org.nz) includes a self-assessment tool and a referral letter to take to a GP to ensure the right tests are performed. Coeliac Awareness Week runs from June 18-24.