Canker sores are an annoyance for anyone, but for persons suffering from celiac disease, canker sores can serve as an important warning of hidden gluten in the diet.
Understanding Canker Sores
Canker sores are ulcers that appear in the mouth. Typically, canker sores are painful white spots inside the cheek, on the soft palate or on the edge of the tongue. Canker sores may also have a grayish appearance or may be ringed with red. Canker sore may be accompanied by fever, lethargy or swollen lymph nodes.
Simple canker sores may appear 3-4 times in a year and will settle in about a week’s time without treatment. Complex canker sores refers to canker sores appearing repeatedly; sometimes, but not always, complex canker sores are caused by underlying health conditions, including Celiac disease.
Canker sores are not cold sores, though the two conditions are often confused, WebMD notes. Cold sores are blister clusters caused by the Herpes simplex type 1 virus. Cold sores are contagious, while canker sores are not. Health911 has an extensive list of remedies, both former and alternative, that may prove useful in treating canker sores.
Celiac Disease and the Canker Sore Connection
Celiac disease is an intolerance to gluten that causes malabsorption of nutrients and malnutrition. Gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, rye and barley. The only treatment for the condition is avoidance of all products containing gluten. Removing gluten from the diet is critical for Celiac sufferers not only for symptom relief but for long-term health consequences. Consumption of gluten by Celiac sufferers has been shown to have serious adverse effects, including promoting iron deficiency and decreased bone density, even where the amount of gluten consumed is insufficient to cause the more positive symptoms of Celiac such as bloating, flatulence, steatorrhea (increased chubby in stool), diarrhea, weight loss, fluid retention, anemia, osteoporosis, bruising, nerve damage, infertility and muscular weakness.
Canker sores are a common complaint of patients with celiac disease and are often an indication that limited amounts of gluten are being consumed. The gluten may be from hidden food sources and may take some detective work to uncover. Once the gluten source is identified and the gluten is removed from the diet, the canker sores will totally disappear.
Whenever a person with Celiac suffers canker sores, gluten consumption should be suspected and an effort made to detect and eliminate the canker-sore-causing gluten from the diet. Though painful and annoying, the canker sores provide an important service in alerting the Celiac sufferer to the presence of a protein that could cause far more serious harm than the canker sore.
