Is Maintaining a Gluten-Free Diet Difficult?

Despite having a symptomatic treatment that can help to reduce the burden of celiac disease’s most prominent symptoms, the only true way to remove the problem at its core is to follow and adhere to a permanent gluten-free diet for the rest of the patient’s life. It’s simple, really; remove the cause of all the symptoms and they will leave, never to return. Regardless, this lifestyle change is often easier said than done, a complication that is very evident in the case of Emma Clerx, a woman who was diagnosed with celiac disease at the early age of 12.

Emma, relieved by the fact that she wouldn’t have to take medication for her condition, and happy to treat her disease by simply adhering to a gluten-free diet, wasn’t aware of the complications of assuming said lifestyle. At first, it sounded easy: Avoid all things gluten. However, as time went by, she noticed that gluten-free products were usually scarcer, more expensive, and generally harder to acquire.