Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – The Elderly And Covid-19
The Elderly And Covid-19
Note that this page is an updated version of A Thought On Deaths Of The Elderly From Covid-19, which I wrote in April 2020.
The main update concern dates and ages.
It has been shown, that a lot of the deaths from Covid-19 are over seventy.
I am seventy-five and a coeliac, which was diagnosed when I was fifty in 1997.
As my GP practice nurse said at the time of my diagnosis, as we read my doctors notes together, the signs are there of coeliac disease in a lot of my earlier visits to a doctor.
So why wasn’t I diagnosed earlier?
- There wasn’t a test for young children until 1960, so my early bad health couldn’t be diagnosed.
- No clue as to my problems was obtained until an elderly but extremely competent locum decided that my blood should be analysed as a fiftieth birthday present. I had no B12 and was running on empty.
- Eventually, I was sent to Addenbrooke’s and I was diagnosed by a blood test. I suspect it was a trial of a new genetic test, as I got the result by post in two days.
How many undiagnosed coeliacs are there in those over seventy, who because they are coeliacs, have a compromised immune system?
I would be undiagnosed but for that elderly locum!
How many other coeliacs were there in the UK population in 2020?
- Age UK had a figure of twelve million who were over 65 in the UK.
- If 1-in-100, as stated by Coeliac UK and the NHS, in the UK are coeliac, that is 120,000 coeliacs over 65.
- The NHS quotes the 1-in-100 figure on this web page, which also says reported cases of coeliac disease are higher in women than men.
Note that as of 2020, 177,388 have been diagnosed with Covid-19.
Conclusion
Many of those 120,000 coeliacs will have been born before 1960 and have a high probability of not having been diagnosed, for the simple reason, that a childhood test for coeliac disease didn’t exist.
Will these undiagnosed coeliacs have a compromised immune system, that makes them more susceptible to Covid-19?
It has been said, that a good immune system helps you fight Covid-19! From my personal experience of living fifty years as an undiagnosed coeliac and over twenty-three years after diagnosis, that my immune system is now a lot stronger.
A full statistical calculation of the elderly and Covid-19 needs to be done.
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – Dexamethasone
Dexamethasone
In June 2020, I wrote Dexamethasone Declared First Drug To Save Lives Of Coronavirus Patients, after reading an article with the same title in The Times.
Out of curiosity, I typed “Dexamethasone and coeliac disease” into Google.
I found this page on SpringerLink, which is entitled The Role of Corticosteroids In Celiac Disease.
This is the first sentence.
Since Dickie first described the benefits of a gluten-free diet in the 1940s and 1950s, this diet is the standard of care for all patients with celiac disease. For patients with a new diagnosis, dietary compliance can be difficult to achieve, possibly resulting in a clinical course marked by delayed recovery and persistent symptoms. This is of particular concern for patients in the developing world, where gluten-free food items may be difficult to obtain or to identify. While dietary modifications are likely to remain the treatment of choice in celiac disease, the use of adjuvant corticosteroids in newly diagnosed patients is a topic that has been addressed previously.
According to a retired Senior Hospital Pharmacist friend, Dexamethasone has been around a long time and is used in shock. She added “So don’t know why not tried before.”
It does seem though that the drug has similar affects as a gluten-free diet on coeliacs.
Budesonide
Budesonide was also recommended for Covid-19 patients at one time, and is also linked to the treatment of coeliac disease.
As I keep saying more research needs to be done.
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – Three Peer-Reviewed Papers
Three Peer-Reviewed Papers
As the pandemic took hold, I was spending more time looking for peer-reviewed papers concerning coeliacs and Covid-19.
By mid-2020, because of the lockdown in Leicester, the large numbers of deaths of South Indian medical staff in London and the situation in India, I had increased the number of searches to include papers about coeliac disease in India.
These three posts on my blog all have the same title as peer-reviewed papers I have found.
Risk of COVID-19 In Celiac Disease Patients
Coeliac Disease: Can We Avert The Impending Epidemic In India?
Possible Coeliacs Should Get Tested
I was diagnosed as a coeliac by both the quick genetic test and the gold standard of endoscopy.
The genetic test is no more painful than any other blood test, but many people are afraid of endoscopy.
I have had four endoscopies.
- Two to check I had coeliac disease.
- One to investigate a problem in my gut with an ultrasound probe, which turned out to be gallstones.
- One to remove the gallstones, by punching a hold in my gut and then inserting and inflating a balloon to force them out.
Only for the last procedure, did I have any form of sedative. I was game, but the surgeon wasn’t!
Note that gallstones are often associated with coeliacs! As are cataracts, which I’ve also had removed from both eyes.
Yesterday in Liverpool, I had chats with two possible coeliacs, one of whom actually had a coeliac mother and the other a gluten-intolerant daughter.
This page on the NHS web site is an overview about Coeliac Disease.
Under Diagnosis Of Coeliac Disease, this is said.
First-degree relatives of people with coeliac disease should be tested.
My three sons didn’t get tested, despite both my late wife and myself insisting after my diagnosis.
Conclusion
If it’s ever suggested you be tested for coeliac disease, you should get tested.
It’s not a big deal these days.
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – Did I Have A Close Brush With Covid-19?
Did I Have A Close Brush With Covid-19?
In January 2020, I went between Liverpool and Sheffield on a ramshackle train formed of several one-car trains.
At Manchester Piccadilly station, the train filled up with a large number of Chinese students, who’d recently arrived at Manchester Airport and were returning to university at Sheffield and possibly other universities in the East Midlands.
The students were happy and laughing, but no-one would have complained about them, as everybody would probably have reacted in the same way, after just arriving in a strange country at their age.
But there must have been twenty taking most of the available seats in my carriage. I shared a table with three!
At the time, Covid-19 had hardly started to invade the UK, with most cases starting in March.
But, after hearing someone’s story on the radio yesterday, I wonder about the health of those students.
I certainly, didn’t catch Covid-19 seriously after that train journey and haven’t had the virus since to my knowledge. But thinking back I may have felt slightly unwell with a possible temperature the next day.
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – Posts To Make You Think
Posts To Make You Think
Should Those With Long Covid Be Checked For Coeliac Disease?
Why A Lucky Few May Help The Rest Of Us Beat Disease
Coeliac Disease And Atrial Fibrillation
Why Do More Elderly Men Die Of The Covids Than Women?
Covid Leaves Wave Of Wearied Souls In Pandemic’s Wake
AstraZeneca May Explain Britain’s Lower Death Rate
Infection, Mortality And Severity Of Covid-19 In Coeliac Disease – Prof Jonas Ludvigsson
Voters In Trump Counties Far More Likely To Die Of Covid
Hay Fever, Coeliac Disease And The AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine
My INR Readings Before And After My Second AstraZeneca Jab
Blood Clot Risk Eight Times Higher From Covid Than AstraZeneca Vaccine, Study Finds
Blood Clots In Young German Ladies After AstraZeneca Vaccine
Long Covid And Coeliac Disease
A Slight Problem With Covid-19 Vaccination
Should Coeliacs On A Long-Term Gluten-Free Diet Have The Pfizer Or AstraZeneca Vaccine?
Two More Life-Saving Covid Drugs Discovered
My Advice To Coeliacs On A Gluten-Free Diet Concerning The Covids
Did I Have A Close Brush With Covid-19?
Risk of COVID-19 In Celiac Disease Patients
Covid: Genes Hold Clues To Why Some People Get Severely Ill
Any Politician Who Advocates A Circuit Breaker Is Ignoring The Dynamics
Why The Covids Are Worse In The North
Is The NHS The Cause Of The Rise In The Covids?
A Curious Link Between Pancreatic Cancer And COVID-19
Thoughts On COVID-19 On Merseyside
Care Homes In England Had Greatest Increase In Excess Deaths At Height Of The COVID-19 Pandemic
Should The NHS Adopt A Whack-A-Coeliac Policy?
Coeliac Disease: Can We Avert The Impending Epidemic In India?
Dexamethasone Declared First Drug To Save Lives Of Coronavirus Patients
Oxford And Cambridge Compared On COVID-19
Thoughts On Coeliacs And COVID-19
What Happened In Hackney On Friday?
A Thought On Deaths Of The Elderly From Covid-19
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – Worried About Covid-19
Worried About Covid-19
I think like many others, I was worried about the pandemic when it started.
These are a few of my thoughts and actions.
Attitude To The Internet
I have been an avid reader of the Internet since it started.
But as someone, who has worked with serious researchers off and on for fifty years, I like to think that I know fake news or untrustworthy research when I see it.
I am also in the lucky position, that if I have an advanced question about say DNA, I generally know someone I can ask, with my connections at universities.
I’ve also been used by my cardiologist friend, as an example patient in a couple of his lectures.
Being Coeliac
I was quite worried about whether being coeliac would count against me in the pandemic.
Coeliac UK were not much help and their advice seemed to be along the line of Keep Calm and Carry On!
The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community On Stamford Hill
It must have been in 2019, when I was asked by my GP, if I had been vaccinated against measles.
I said no, but I did have a bad case at about twenty-five, which I recounted in A Surprising Question From A Doctor.
He said fine and then added that there’s a measles epidemic in the North of the borough.
Apparently, the ultra-Orthodox Jews have a low level of vaccination and a lot of children.
This worried me, as will they bother to get the vaccine for Covid-19.
They should listen to the eminently sensible Chief Rabbi.
So in the end I just kept calm and carried on!
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – Retirement
Retirement
After my stroke, I was not allowed to drive because of an eyesight problem.
As my late wife and myself had decided we would move back to London on our retirement, I decided to carry-out our plan by myself.
I sold my large house in Suffolk and moved to a smaller one in Dalston in East London.
This is an area, where my many and varied ancestors had strong roots.
My father was born close by and was a direct descendant of a Jewish tailor, who around 1800, was kicked out of Konigsberg in East Prussia, which is now Kaliningrad in Russia, for no other reason than he was male, eighteen and Jewish. I suspect my coeliac disease comes from this Jewish ancestor. No female born into the family has ever successfully given birth and my granddaughter was born with a congenital hernia of the diaphragm, which was successfully repaired by surgery, when she was a few hours old. She now suffers from endometriosis.
My mother’s family were a mix of Huguenots and Devon yeomanry and although she was born a few miles away, her mother was born just round the corner.
My father called himself a London Mongrel and I use the term about myself, as my genes are probably more mixed than his.
Since around the turn of the century, I have been a blogger and around 2008, I started my blog called the Anonymous Widower. The topics, I cover are very varied and have made me quite a few friends.
I am a strong advocate of using blogging to improve peoples’ lives.
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – Medical Research
Medical Research
I first got involved as a lab-rat in medical research, when I had my second endoscopy to check for coeliac disease at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in 1997. Rebecca Fitzgerald took a sample of fluid from my gut for her Barrett’s oesophagus research.
After my wife died, I asked my contact in Alumni Relations at Liverpool University, if they did widowhood research.
They are one of the few universities that do and I did several interviews for PhD students in the unit, which is in the Psychology Department. It was very much a positive experience and certainly helped with my grieving.
In some ways the most enjoyable piece of research I have been involved in, was at the University of East London, where they were using computers to measure the balance of those recovering from strokes.
My GP also suggested that I get involved in drug tests at Queen Mary University. The tests were abandoned as the drug didn’t have any good or bad effects, but now I’m one of the William Harvey Centre’s lab-rats.
I also help to sponsor pancreatic cancer research at Liverpool University in memory of my son.
In There’s More To Liverpool Than Football And The Beatles!, I detail some research, that I sponsored in a small way.
I may be tempted to do the fund-raising trip again.
I always advise people to get involved in medical or psychological research, as I have found it such a beneficial experience.
One thing that is needed, is an on-line database of all research projects that are looking for volunteers.
Remember, that much medical and psychological research is about as dangerous as meeting someone in a GP’s surgery for a chat or perhaps in a cafe and having a coffee.
Coeliac Journey Through Covid-19 – A Few Bad Years
A Few Bad Years
In 2007, my wife died of what her consultant at Papworth said was one of the worst cancers he’d ever seen. It was a squamous cell carcinoma of the heart.
Her’s was the only occurrence in the UK that year and someone told me, there were four in the United States.
Our youngest son; George, then died of pancreatic cancer in 2009.
When I had been diagnosed as a coeliac in 1997, my wife and I had told our sons to get themselves tested, as is now advised on the NHS web site.
But George was a sound engineer in the music business, who lived the unhealthy rock-and-roll lifestyle.
A year later, I had a serious stroke in Hong Kong.
I had had a warning a year or so before and Addenbrooke’s recommended I go on Warfarin, but my GP in Suffolk, talked me out of it.
Now twelve years later, my GP and myself manage my Warfarin, where I do the testing of my INR on my own meter from Roche.
But then I am a Graduate Control Engineer!
A couple of doctors have said I have made a remarkable recovery, and I’ll go along with that as the only thing I can’t do, that I could before the stroke is drive, as the stroke damaged my eyesight.
On the other hand, the latest therapy for stroke in the United States is B12 injections and I haven’t missed one of my three-monthly injections since 1997.
If anybody is doing serious research into B12 and stroke recovery, then I would be happy to be a lab-rat.
The Anonymous Widower 