The entire family is gathered around a fully loaded table, and you've bellied up to a huge and delicious meal. It's a tradition to indulge. But how will you feel after eating?

Imagine being a kid or teenager living with a disease that has flare-ups that can include uncontrollable diarrhea, difficulty digesting food and pain that can double you over. This is what young people living with Crohn's disease have to deal with.

Among the multitude of chronic pain disorders is a condition called fibromyalgia. People with fibromyalgia have to deal with a variety of physical issues. But that's not all: the disorder also affects mood.

Like type 2 diabetes, Crohn's disease once was thought to be an adult illness. Not anymore. Children and adolescents are also plagued with this disease that plays havoc on the digestive tract.

Even 15 or 20 years ago hearing a diagnosis of Crohn's disease was bad news. Advances in treatment now mean that the disease is manageable and patients can live a normal life. It's no longer the death sentence it once was.

Trouble sleeping doesn't seem like reason for concern. After all, half of Americans struggle with insomnia at least a couple of nights each week. It may simply be caused by heartburn and acid regurgitation.

For some patients, gout, a painful form of arthritis, is simply a manageable annoyance. For others, it can be a chronic and debilitating condition that requires ongoing medications and significant lifestyle changes.

Dawn Cheshier had just had her first baby boy when her digestive system went haywire. She wasn't sure what to make of the stomach cramping, diarrhea and vomiting. Maybe it was associated with recovering from childbirth.

"I got heartburn during my second pregnancy," Marcy tells dailyRx.com. "It felt like fire in my throat. My doctor told me that the baby was pushing up on my stomach." Some years later, Marcy said it returned. "I quit smoking in 2006 and gained a lot of weight, and it kicked in for real - like every night or when I lay down - here it came. In the middle of the night, this vile bitter vomit would come up, wake me up and go into my nose. It was awful." What she's talking about is a serious form of heartburn.

It sounds so exotic; celiac disease. Why is this mysterious disease affecting almost three million Americans?