Coeliac disease: 73-year-old Grace finally has her life back after decades of waiting for diagnosis

Grace endured many years of misery before finally being diagnosed with coeliac disease (Chris Austin / DC Thomson)

MAKING a simple slice of toast is always a careful matter for Grace Tweddle.

She and husband Ian have different toasters and even separate bread knives.

Using the wrong one could make the former teacher from Stirling ill. And an unchecked snack at a café or a meal at a restaurant without a detailed phone call ahead of time could be disastrous.

Grace, who’s 73, endured a decades-long battle to be recognised as suffering from coeliac disease.

The resultant toll taken on her system was so debilitating she was told that even relatively mild issues could have a serious impact.

And so devastating were the effects overall on her life, her case was recently highlighted in the Scottish Parliament.

“I had my first symptoms when I was 18 but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was over 40,” said Grace.

“I became a teacher but I suffered classic migraines which were followed by sickness and diarrhoea and a crippling headache which could last for a week.

“I had always wanted to be a teacher but I was told it was the stress that was causing it and was put on anti-depressant medication.

“That began years of different pills and the more I was told I needed, the more I felt depressed.

“I had to be absent so often I decided I was a nuisance and resigned.”

The condition can be controlled by diet (Chris Austin / DC Thomson)

Grace had to quit a different career, too. “I was utterly exhausted and felt useless.”

Grace and Ian’s dreams of a family were dashed time and again and she spent heartbreaking, fruitless years at fertility clinics.

She suffered a miscarriage and only a long period of hospitalisation saved a final pregnancy from also ending tragically.

“We had a son, Edward, when I was nearly 42,” said Grace. “I wanted four children but because of my condition, that just didn’t happen.

“When I was finally diagnosed, I was so relieved to find that I wasn’t neurotic or had some kind of mental problem that I was pleased.

“But my husband really felt very aggrieved.”

The diagnosis, after the best part of a quarter of a century of anguish and agonies, came because a young locum at her surgery just happened to have finished a spell at a gastro-intestinal unit.

“When he gave me the diagnosis and told me my disease could be controlled by diet I cried with happiness.”

Being put on the gluten-free diet changed Grace’s life forever, although she has to be incredibly careful with everything she eats.

Things have moved forward enormously since Grace’s woes with a blood test now often the gateway to diagnosis and many eateries now having gluten-free options.

Her case was used last November in the first parliamentary debate on coeliac disease for years and she is a firm supporter of the current awareness week.

“There are thousands of undiagnosed sufferers and they could get their life back, just like I did.”