Betsy was just 4 years old and starting school when she got diagnosed as a coeliac. During her toddler years we’d had the usual parent struggles of getting Betsy to go for a number 2 – in a nappy, potty or toilet! We tried everything from reward charts, prunes and bribes but nothing seemed to work. This resulted in several trips to the doctors and hospital plus more than a few bottles of lactulose.
However, we just thought like most children that this was just growing pains and something that she would eventually grow out of! As school started to approach, we did however become a little worried about her. She’d constantly have tummy ache and her eating habits would be quite erratic. One day she’d eat for England and then the next minute she’d be playing with her food on her plate – just moving it around but eating hardly anything.
She’d also visually lost weight all over her body apart from her tummy which always seemed bloated. To be honest we weren’t that worried about her weight at the time as Alfie her older brother is also small for his age and so is Daddy – we just thought this was the Lamport way! However we we’re shocked to learn from the doctors when Betsy was around 3 and half years old that both her weight and height had dropped below what they should be. It was at this point that the doctors decided to take some bloods and do some tests on Betsy which showed that she may have coeliac disease.
Betsy started school a week after her 4th birthday and at this point we still didn’t have a confirmed diagnosis. The doctors had asked us to give her as much gluten as possible as they wanted to do a biopsy of the small intestine, to confirm she was a coeliac. While being tested for coeliac disease, you’ll need to eat foods containing gluten to ensure the tests are accurate.
Betsy’s first term at school was hard on all of us – her mood swings were erratic, she was extremely tired and often fell a sleep in the book corner at school – not how you want the beginning of school to play out! The good news was that we had a date for the biopsy and after a day trip to hospital we knew she was coeliac. The surgeon showed us a picture of Betsy’s tummy – it was completely flat! All to do with her ‘villi’ apparently!
There are lots of tiny bumps all along your intestine called ‘villi’ which help to suck up all the important stuff from food. When people with coeliac disease eat gluten, the villi are damaged and they get smaller making you feel poorly.
As soon as we had the diagnosis we cut out all gluten from Betsy’s diet. Life was like a detox for the next year – and a huge education for us all about what this meant for Betsy at home, in school, when she got invited to parties and even when we went on holiday’s.
We soon learnt that being coeliac is more than just being gluten free…
Find out more about coeliac disease and why it’s more than just being gluten free by reading my blog posts here: More than being just #GlutenFree and Living Gluten Free – #ThisGirlCan.📣
This is it – time to #RunForBoo
Last year I ran 70 miles in July, 80 miles in August, 90 miles in September and 100 miles in October – finishing off by running the Great South Run virtually around Farnham due to it being cancelled because of bad weather. I ran 340 miles in total!
I rolled my entree over to this year – so, on Sunday 19 October, I will be running my favourite run, around my favourite place ‘Pompey’ at the #GreatSouthRun2025.
As well as running, I’m giving up the alcohol this October to continue raising awareness of Coeliac UK and how it’s not just about being gluten free!!
I haven’t been boring you with daily updates as this year training has been hard! Life has been busy but on top of this the perimenopause has kicked in and my muscles and bones have just found running even harder! But I’m A very determined girl and as I like to say – #ThisGirlCan!
Feel free to follow me on Strava and give me some Kudos plus if you would like to sponsor me again this year and support Coeliac UK you can do so here: AJBell Great South Run Fundraising page: Claris Lamport. Thank you!! 💙💙💙😘
#KeepOnRunning #MummyClaris #BetsyBoo #CoeliacUK
#MyWorld 