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Hello everyone,

My 3 year old daughter has been having constant stomach pain for the past 2
months and has been complaining of pain in her limbs and joints as well.

We have been doing a number of things at her doctors advice but we have
also completely dropped gluten out of her diet as well.  She was already on
what I would call a reduced gluten diet, but we took the gloves off a month
ago and dropped it all out.

Now more to the point, my daughter recently had a blood test done and I am
a bit confused by the results. I was hoping those of you more well versed
on these blood tests might be able to explain it to me.  I am not 100% sure
her doctor totally understands it and it was a nurse who called us with the
results and all she knew to say was what the doctor had told her.  We have
an appointment to go back in but I am thinking you all might be better
equipped to interpret these results possibly.  The biggest question I have
is about a positive on one test, and negatives on others.  See below...

For starters, her *TTG (Ab, IgA, S)* was 0.1 U/mL.  The Reference Range is
listed as 0.0-7.0, so this seams to indicate a negative result.

Her *Anti-Giladin IgA* was 0.4 (reference of 0.0-10.0) and *IgG* was <0.4
(reference of 0.0-10.0.  Again, seems negative.

Finally, her *Endomysial IgA* was listed simply as "POSITIVE X" and
her *Endomysial
IgA Titer *was "1:10 X" (reference listed as "<1:10"). So yeah, seems
positive.

Despite a lot of googling, I cannot find any explanation of what this might
mean having a positive in the EMA test, but negative on all the others.  I
have read that TTG is supposed to be the most sensitive but I don't know if
that means the TTG results trump all others or what. Does anyone know an
answer to this?

As I mentioned above, our daughter has been on a low-gluten diet already
for 9 months, and then zero gluten for the past month.  Would these test
results even be valid then?  Also, is it possible the TTG and Anti-Giladin
tests would be more skewed by these diet changes but the EMA would
not...thus the negatives for the other tests, but the positive for the EMA?

The message that was passed along to us by the employee of the Dr.'s office
was that the "tests don't show anything, but there may be a possibility of
a Gluten allergy down the road".  Does this make any sense to anyone based
on the results I mentioned?  I don't understand how that even works.  The
employee couldn't answer any questions, and really, I am not sure she
relayed the message correctly.

I should also state that I have seen that nothing is certain without a
biopsy.  I however would of course still like to understand these blood
tests as we will happily live gluten free before we put our 3 year old
through the biopsy (unless it was truly needed for some reason).

I will finally note that the CBC and SED RATE specimens they attempted to
collect as well clotted due to a blood vessel popping (the collection did
not go well). So we have no results on those two panels.

Any and all input would be incredibly appreciated!!  Thanks, and have a
great day!

Greg Kruger

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