Help! Damaged iTunes library, so apps I bought disappeared, and iTunes won't let me re-download them?

My iTunes library is displaying as “damaged” since yesterday when a non-iTunes-related issue crashed my Mac. I thought it looked okay because all my songs and playlists are there. however I made the mistake of syncing my iPhone and most of my apps disappeared! I have only bought two paid apps but I hope to re-download them. I log into iTunes and they show in my purchase history, yet when I go to the page of an app on the iTunes store, it won’t let me re-download that app—it just gives me the option to buy it fresh. I have tried this on both the desktop and iphone versions of the app store… :(