JOHNSON COUNTY — Inside the kitchen of this Center Grove home, the kitchen is beautiful.
It's a complete 180 compared to the one the Pierce family had for the years prior.
New cabinets, counter tops, layout, even the food and pots and pans have been completely overhauled.
It's been an adjustment to learn the ins and outs of the kitchen remodel, but it's one that was necessary.
"Only gluten free food," Oscar Pierce said while walking into the family's pantry.
Pierce, 13, lives gluten-free.
"Gluten free oreos, chips ahoy, lucky charms are a big one. My bread is right there, chips," Oscar said.
Oscar isn't the only one who lives gluten-free in their home.
"We all jumped on board when Oscar got his diagnosis. It was important because he is young and we wanted to help him navigate the new lifestyle," Luke Pierce, Oscar's dad, said.
In a world of fad diets and eating gluten-free, doctors and one family is warning of the dangers gluten can have in some people's everyday lives.
Just three and a half years ago Oscar learned how to read the labels, because he had to.
He was diagnosed with celiac disease.
Celiac disease is something experts estimate only about 1% of the population has. But it's estimated that about 60 to 70% of the population are still un-diagnosed.
For the Pierce family, getting the diagnosis changed their lives for the better.
"It's an immune mediated disease that affects the intestines and it's triggered by the ingestion of gluten. Which is the protein found in wheat, barley, and rye," Dr. Brandon Sparks, a Pediatric Gastroenterology for Riley Hospital for Children said.
Celiac is a life long condition, so Oscar has to be on a strict gluten-free diet forever.
"We had to look at the foods we were eating, the pots that we were using, the utensils we were using, the shampoos, conditioners, chaptsticks and everything we were using. So it was an overhaul," Oscar's mom Shelley Pierce said.
Oscar says it's gotten easier to manage as time has passed, but at the start it was tough.
He credits his ability to stay gluten-free to how sick he feels if he does consume gluten.
"Stomach pains, I vomited a lot, I would have headaches, I would have diarrhea, I skipped a lot of school because of that," Oscar said.
Dr. Sparks says when someone with celiac has gluten it triggers an immune response in the body.
"When your immune system gets activated it causes inflammation and that inflammation affects the small bowel so that affects how you absorb certain nutrients," Dr. Sparks said.
It's one of the reasons Oscar was so small before going gluten free.
"Within three and a half years he has gained 50 pounds and he has grown 14 inches," Shelley said.
It's a big change both in feeling and for Oscar's mental health.
"I would've never played football," Oscar said.
Oscar's family said, yes it's a challenging diagnosis, but it's manageable.
