Is celiac disease an inflammatory disease?

  There are often many women who have no previous symptoms and are accidentally found to have celiac disease during a normal medical examination, but this brings a great deal of mental fear and psychological burden, largely because they are frightened by the word “celiac disease”.  So what is celiac disease all about?  Cervical erosion is not really erosion, it just feels intuitively like erosion compared to a normal smooth cervix. This change is related to the displacement of the junction between the squamous and columnar epithelium of the cervix. The female cervix is divided into an inner and an outer opening. The endocervix is a slender, mucus-secreting, red columnar cell, while the ectocervix is covered by squamous epithelium. Under certain factors, the columnar epithelium of the inner cervical opening migrates to the outer cervical opening, creating what is seen as cervical erosion to the naked eye. When the erosion surface is observed under colposcopy, it is actually intact columnar epithelium, which is observed as red erosion-like to the naked eye because the columnar epithelium is a single layer with a red interstitium underneath.  Cervical erosion itself is not an inflammatory disease, i.e. not a pathological sense of epithelial loss and inflammatory reaction, but a cervical columnar epithelial ectopic, one of the physiological changes of the cervix, not a pathological change. When there is no pathogenic microbial infection, that is, when there is no combined inflammation, patients with cervical erosion may have no clinical symptoms or may only show increased discharge. Some patients may present with bloody leucorrhea or bleeding after sexual intercourse. Of course, there are some patients with more severe symptoms, and in addition to abnormal leucorrhea, they may also have symptoms such as backache, vulvar and vaginal itching. However, this is not due to celiac disease itself, but to a combined inflammatory infection.  It is not clear about the real cause of celiac disease. It is generally believed that mechanical stimulation or injury after marriage, such as childbirth, abortion or too frequent sexual intercourse, can cause different degrees of destruction of the squamous epithelium of the cervix and a decrease in the local resistance of the cervix, which can easily cause cervical inflammation. However, it has been clinically found that women without sexual intercourse also have cervical erosion, sometimes even severe erosion.  This shows that sexual life is not the culprit of cervical erosion. At the same time, experts remind unmarried, non-sexual women, if they have persistent leucorrhea increase, or accompanied by color and texture changes, they should also visit gynecological clinics in time to identify the cause and treat it in time. It is wrong to think that celiac disease is caused by sexual life, and once diagnosed with celiac disease, you are quite repulsed by having a sexual life.  It is often thought that celiac disease can lead to infertility, but in fact, in many women, celiac disease is only a change in the type of epithelial cells of the cervix and is not accompanied by an inflammatory infection, so it does not lead to infertility. For women who are ready to get pregnant, if there are no symptoms of celiac disease, it is recommended to actively try to conceive first without having to do much treatment for celiac disease. If it is accompanied by symptoms such as excessive leucorrhea, yellowish leucorrhea, and odor, it can be treated with appropriate medication and wait for the symptoms to improve before getting pregnant.  Cervical erosion alone, without HPV infection, will not lead to cervical cancer. However, women with cervical erosion should routinely undergo cervical exfoliation cytology examination during gynecological examination and, if available, HPV testing and colposcopy if necessary to rule out the possibility of precancerous lesions and cervical cancer.  Celiac disease is not caused by bacterial infection. If you use various lotions to douche the vagina, it may destroy the vagina’s own protective barrier and cause dysbiosis, which is not only not beneficial to the treatment of celiac disease, but also may cause secondary vaginal infection. Therefore, if cervical erosion is not accompanied by vaginal inflammation, the application of local vaginal douching is not advocated.  When there is no pathogenic microbial infection, celiac disease may have no clinical symptoms or may only show increased discharge and does not require treatment.  (1) Age <30 years, for simple, superficial erosion is mostly physiological changes, no special treatment is needed.  (2) Age >30 years, or granular erosions, asymmetric erosions, with contact bleeding and bloody leucorrhea, should be screened for cervical lesions in three steps to exclude cervical lesions.  (3) Granular or papillary erosions that are combined with increased leucorrhea, vulvar and vaginal itching should be treated. Physiotherapy is mostly advocated when cervical lesions and cancer are excluded.  (4) There are many physiotherapy methods, such as microwave and laser, which have the same treatment principle and similar efficacy. Treatment by physical methods such as laser may cause slight damage to the cervix and may affect the dilatability of the cervix during delivery. It is best to go to the hospital for a check-up before planning to get pregnant. If cervical erosion does not affect pregnancy or there is no acute infection you can get pregnant first and then undergo laser treatment after childbirth. Since physical therapy only destroys a layer of cells on the surface of the cervix, by repairing the damage, the columnar epithelial cells are transformed into squamous epithelial cells, which usually does not lead to narrowing of the cervical opening, much less infertility.  I hope that the above explanations can relieve the fear in the hearts of women who find cervical erosion and avoid blindly seeking medical help and over-treatment.